Beyond the Trees

By Fiona Leonard

At their core, Fiona Leonard’s stories reflect a fierce and heartfelt search for connection. They navigate uncomfortable journeys and explore the ways in which we must delve into the tangled margins of our lives if we are to find true joy – including into the spaces where conditioning and institutionalised bias lies.

Using the imagery of the bathtub, Beyond the Trees taps into the sense of feeling out of place in our own homes and our own bodies; a feeling that was brought into stark relief during the pandemic. And it connects with the most intimate of our behaviours – the rituals and spaces that we associate with our vulnerable self.

But most importantly it offers the possibility of deviation – of going off course, of finding joy in unexpected places, and finding salvation in the arms of those we hold most dear.