With a Bird

A Reader on Avian Kinship
In Focus
Published
30 January 202601.30.26

Less than a year ago, we proudly introduced Marjolein van der Loo as Chair of the Board of Thinking Forest. At that time, she had just published A Tree – A Reader on Arboreal Kinship, a volume she edited that also features a visual contribution from our artistic director, Gerbrand Burger.

After exploring the relationship between trees and humans, Marjolein now turns her gaze even higher, as the editor of the yellow sister volume With a Bird – A Reader on Avian Kinship. Like the title suggest, this book invites readers into a rich, cross-disciplinary dialogue about how we live with and think alongside birds.

Spanning speculative fiction, ancestral memory, critical ornithology, personal essay, and visual art, the contributions delve into the fragile and often overlooked connections between humans and birds—across myth, science, migration, and dream. Through attentive listening, the book reveals how birds shape landscapes, signal planetary change, and offer fresh perspectives on time, voice, and relation. (Publisher’s blurb)

If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, we highly recommend you do!

With a Bird – A Reader on Avian Kinship (2025)

Published by Onomatopee

With contributions by John Berger, Ignace Cami, Monika Czyzyk, Bryony Dunne, Daniel Godínez Nivón, Daisy Hildyard, Manjot Kaur, Natalie Lawrence, Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Michelle J. Moyer, Evangeline M. Rose, Bernard Lohr, Karan J. Odom, Kevin E. Omland, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Ai Ozaki, Maria Popova, Sergio Rojas Chaves, Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide), Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Yuri Tuma, and Suzanne Walsh.


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