Rooted in Silence, Speaking in Networks

Beneath the visible world of trunks, leaves, and human perception lies a dense and dynamic system of exchange, an underground architecture where trees communicate through their roots. In recent decades, scientific inquiry into what is often called the “wood wide web” has revealed that trees are not solitary organisms but participants in complex, interdependent communities. Through fungal networks and root systems, they transmit nutrients, warn one another of disease, and even redistribute resources to sustain weaker members. This silent language, conducted through chemical signals, electrical impulses, and symbiotic relationships, unfolds at a temporal and sensory scale far beyond human awareness. It challenges the assumption that intelligence requires speech or visibility, suggesting instead that connection itself may be the most profound form of knowledge.

This hidden ecology finds an intimate echo in the work of Manal AlDowayan, whose practice frequently interrogates the unseen, whether social, historical, or natural. Drawing from personal memory and cultural inheritance, AlDowayan reflects on the women in her family who spoke to their palm trees with reverence and familiarity, addressing them as one might an elder. “The women in my family talk to their palm trees… These are intelligent, sane, religious women… The conversations would mostly revolve around polite subjects like health and the weather, but there were times when more personal topics were discussed, like love and death.”

Though these exchanges appeared one-sided, they were grounded in an intuitive recognition of presence. It was only later, upon encountering scientific research, that this inherited practice revealed a deeper resonance: trees communicate through “a sophisticated silent language, communicating complex information via smell, taste, and electrical impulses.” What once seemed like quiet superstition emerges instead as an instinctive awareness of an unseen world.

AlDowayan’s 2017 temporary installation, You Are From Me and I Am From You, emerged from this convergence of intuition and science. Commissioned in response to the historic Al Ain Oasis, the work invited viewers to reconsider the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, the human and the non-human. Rather than focusing on the towering palms themselves, AlDowayan directed attention downward, into the soil where the true network of life resides. Using ground-penetrating scanning technology, she captured images of the roots beneath the oasis, revealing what she describes as an unseen universe operating beneath our feet.

"In this artwork I will search for the unseen universe of the date palm oasis… attempting to orchestrate the encounter of the viewer with an alternate universe," she explains. Her focus on palm roots is deliberate: "Palm roots are at the center of the date palm community structure… the invisible network that allows for palms to talk to each other, to create families and friendships… and to contribute to the sustainability of the whole community."

This density, and the impossibility of distinguishing one root from another, reflects a radical form of collectivity. In this subterranean world, individuality dissolves into interdependence. Trees do not compete in isolation but thrive through cooperation, forming what might be understood as a model of sustainable community. AlDowayan translated this idea into a spatial experience. Fabric walls printed with root imagery formed a corridor through which visitors walked, simulating a passage from darkness into light, an ascent from the hidden to the seen.

The work was not solely about botanical systems; it also operated as a meditation on memory, visibility, and cultural narrative. AlDowayan frequently situates her work within the context of Saudi and Arab women’s experiences, exploring what is preserved and what remains obscured. The root network becomes a metaphor for histories that persist beneath the surface, shaping identity even when they are not immediately visible. "The women in my family somehow knew, by instinct, to recognize the hidden language of the world around them," she reflects, linking inherited knowledge to broader questions of perception and awareness.

In this sense, You Are From Me and I Am From You operates on multiple registers. It is at once a scientific inquiry, a personal narrative, and a philosophical proposition. By aligning human experience with the silent intelligence of trees, AlDowayan challenges anthropocentric notions of knowledge and agency. She asks whether trees, with their extended lifespans and intricate networks, might possess a form of wisdom that humans have yet to comprehend: "Are trees superior to humans when it comes to building safe and sustainable communities? … Are palms better equipped to engage with a deeply interconnected world than we are?"

The work serves as a reminder that spaces of infinite knowledge surround us constantly. "It is our responsibility to train our eyes and minds to see the unseen, to listen to the unheard," she writes. The roots beneath our feet are not only structural supports; they are conduits of relation, memory, and exchange. In attending to them, we begin to perceive a broader ecology of meaning, one that situates human life within a vast, interconnected continuum.