Shaded Stardust , sucrose and mixed media, 30 cm diameter 17th June 2019 Niamh Cunningham 倪芙。瑞莲
For years I have been fascinated by the trees around roadsides and parks in Beijing. I have noticed on some smaller roads many of the bigger trees serve the purpose of making the road feel narrower and thereby slowing down the traffic.
The White Robed General , Circular city , Beihai park.
I also became interested by the older trees and the vast numbers of them within the city and around the area. There are two categories of ancient trees in China first class are over 300 years and second class ancient trees are 100-300 years .
It is with great joy that I finally gathered a group of Beijing tree story tellers including some researchers（Wang Yongge and Liu Tingting） on ancient trees and also on carbon capture（Dr Dai Ziyun） at the Beijing Institute of Landscape Architecture and Greening Sciences also in this group are included nature education specialists Dr Nina Cao and other tree story contributors Shasha Liu and Dom Messerschmidt.
We had a wonderful filming day early June 2025 . Many thanks to camera man Steven Chen ( 陈永宇) and Zhou Jian and his team. Sincere thank you to all the wonderful story tellers here especially Prof Wang Yongge for facilitating much of the morning work. A huge thank you to Dean of the Institute Zhu Jiangang 朱建刚 and personal thanks to Wang Xiaoping ( 王小平) of Beijing Forest and Parks and prof Liu Jinglan （刘晶岚）of Beijing Forestry University.
These links are of the Beijing Tree stories , they will take you to the website Memory Palace of Tree Stories where you can find over 120 one minute tree stories on video .
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Click on the links below
# 113 Cloning Ancient Trees -living records
# 114 White Robed General – and other ancient trees of Beijing
# 115 Research on Ancient Trees – some aspects told by a specialist on ancient trees
# 116 Migrating Tree Scholar – ancestral tree roots
# 117 Road Rerouted – ancient grove of Junipers
# 118 Hugging Tree King Ceremony -games for nature education
# 119 Willow Warrior – carbon capture and toxin removal
# 120 Within Nature – a compass for life
# 121 Whispering Wind – childhood memories
Beijing Academy of Forestry and Landscape Architecture
A Living Archive of Ecological Memory and Cultural Connection
The Memory Palace of Tree Stories is a global storytelling initiative that gathers short video reflections about trees — as companions, symbols, witnesses, and sources of wisdom. It invites individuals from diverse cultures, disciplines, and generations to share their stories and explore their relationship to nature, creating a living archive that blends ecological awareness, cultural memory, and artistic expression. Since its launch in 2020, over 112 stories have been collected from China, Ireland, and Europe, each a seed of empathy and remembrance, forming an evolving, multimedia memory palace to honor our interdependence with the living world. The Memory Palace is more than a storytelling project; it is a platform bridging art, environmental understanding, and community engagement.