‘Climate Talk: Bas Smets & Valerie Trouet’

Trees for the past, trees for the future: on 20 April, Bozar invites Bas Smets and Valerie Trouet for a discussion, as part of the launch of the Art History Festival at the Palace of Fontainebleau. 

Bas Smets is a renowned landscape architect whose innovative vision of urban ecology has led to a greener Brussels landscape on several occasions. He advocates for a new urban ecology where trees are central to making the city more liveable and resilient. Valerie Trouet is a dendroclimatologist and the new director of the Belgian Climate Expertise Centre. In Tree Story (2020), she studied past climate through the rings of trees and its impact on our society. Indeed, trees accurately record the smallest climate changes, and are therefore the tools we can use to change the climate on a more local scale. Bas Smets and Valerie Trouet enter into a discussion about how trees were, are, and can remain central to our future. ​​​​​​​

Moderation: Tine Hens