They Come As Trees; Queenswood Cafe, Highgate

Highgate and Muswell Hill cafe-goers are invited to sign up for a 40 minute blind meeting with a stranger beneath a touring artwork of trees.

Queens Wood Cafe users are invited to sign up for a 40 minute blind meeting with a stranger beneath a touring artwork of trees.

They Come As Trees is a single framed triptych of black and white images by polaroid photographer Nirupam Biswas which is travelling from the cafe on the border of Highgate and Muswell Hill, to Notting Hill's Tin Shed cafe, to Woolidando in Bethnal Green.

The concept of a "touring exhibition and conversation" was born while on a brooding walk past a series of trees near Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury.

Biswas felt an affinity to nature and decided to connect people through a single piece of art.

"With age, you start getting to look at a significant part of your past, along with the present, and possibly an intuition of the future. It makes you think and gives perspectives, more so when you are one of the curious kind," he says.

Biswas imagined each tree symbolising a person; how it grows into a unique character through the seasons, putting textures on its skin... just like a person's soul and character.

He felt the proximity of the trees symbolised relationships and connections.

"How despite our differences we cohabit."

The triptych of close-ups of trees will be hung over a table for two in each venue.

Cafe-goers can book in through a webpage to meet a like-minded stranger.

Biswas hopes to instigate intimate conversations by bringing people together "to talk, to feel and to remember over coffee and art".

They Come as Trees is in Queens Wood Cafe from February 3-7.

Sign up for a meeting at untamedartists.com