Events

    Mobile Landscape Reading – American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide

    Location: 

    Online or at Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Join editor Susan Barba for a mobile landscape reading of her new literary anthology, filled with classic and contemporary poems and essays inspired by wildflowers. What is a mobile landscape reading, you ask? Instead of sitting in a lecture hall, you will meander through the wildflowers of the Arboretum, stopping to hear beautiful poems and prose while surrounded by the wildflowers that inspired them.

    You can...

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    PoeTREE: An Afternoon of Tree-Themed Poetry Readings

    Location: 

    Online or at Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston

    Join poets Jennifer Barber, Deborah Leipziger, and Charles Coe for an afternoon of tree-themed poetry readings and discussion. Each poet will read segments of their works, including the poetry anthology Tree Lines, interspersed with interactive dialogue with the audience. At the end of the event, audience members will be given prompts and encouraged to try their own hands at writing tree-inspired poetry.

    ...

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    The Overstory: A Participatory Read Aloud

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Join a participatory, in-person read-aloud of excerpts from Richard Powers’ tree-inspired novel The Overstory hosted by the Arnold Arboretum.

    The read-aloud will take place on Saturday, January 28, between 1pm and 4pm, within the exhibition of artist Diane Samuels' 160-foot scroll, The Overstory by Richard Powers, which was inspired by and celebrates the Pulitzer-prize winning novel. This is the last chance to see the scroll first-hand before the exhibition closes. View the scroll, listen to the excerpts, maybe read a portion yourself. Samuels herself will be joining...

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    MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | Making of Ceremonial Vessels

    Location: 

    Hemlock Hill and Conifer Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Led by Bengali culture worker Pampi, this audience participatory workshop allows attendees to weave love letters into hand-crafted ceremonial vessels for their loved ones. Vessels will be fashioned out of natural materials sourced from the Arboretum grounds and displayed in the MassQ Ball on July 9.

    Learn more and RSVP for this event.

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    MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | Mythmaking Workshop

    Location: 

    Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Led by Castle of our Skins’ Director of Education Taylor Lena McTootle, “Making a Mythos” focuses on the creative power of storytelling. Young participants will experience firsthand how fictional tales can reflect our cultural values and create them.

    Appropriate for youth ages 8-12 years old.

    Learn more and register.

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    Director’s Series | Life: The Arnold Arboretum as an Institution of Public Health

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum—Online

    The Arnold Arboretum's sesquicentennial Director's Series traces the Arnold’s significance in the landscape architecture movement, value for the people of Boston, and leadership in creating global connections between plants and people.

    Panelists include:

    • Dr. Michelle Kondo, Research Social Scientist, UDSA-Forest Service

    • Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space, City of Boston

    • Laurence Cotton, Consulting Producer, “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing...

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    "Every Pecan Tree": Trees, Meaning, and Memory in Enslaved People’s Lives

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum—Online

    This is the third lecture in the Arnold Arboretum's 2021 Director's Lecture Series. Tiya Miles takes up the pecan tree as inspiration for exploring the meaning of trees in the lives of enslaved African Americans. Using a family heirloom, slave narratives, oral histories, and missionary records, her talk underscores the importance of trees in the Black experience of captivity and resistance, ultimately revealing the centrality of the natural world to Black, and indeed human, survival.

    ...

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    A History of Path-Making at the Arnold Arboretum

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum—Online

    At the time of its founding in 1872, the land on which the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is sighted was a patchwork of farmland and forest. As the Arboretum was planted, pathways were developed to lead people through the picturesque landscape. As the landscape developed, economies shifted, wars took place, and directors changed. Each of these factors subtly influenced shifts in the park’s path system. Join the Arnold Arboretum on Zoom with Jared Rubinstein as he reveals the layers of change in this beloved landscape.

    ...

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    In Pursuit of Equitable Development: Lessons from Washington, Detroit, and Boston

    Location: 

    Online—Harvard Graduate School of Design

    In this half-day virtual symposium, leading practitioners and scholars from three cities, Washington, DC, Detroit, and Boston, will explore efforts to bring equitable development to their communities and outline how they are responding to current challenges. The presentations and discussions will help students, scholars, community leaders, public officials, and others identify innovative strategies and successful approaches to advancing social justice in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

    Co-sponsored by the Joint Center for Housing...

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    Conference: Disability and Citizenship: Global and Local Perspectives

    Location: 

    Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

    This conference will explore the ways in which contemporary notions of disability are linked to concepts of citizenship and belonging. Leaders in advocacy, education, medicine, and politics will consider how ideas of community at the local, national, and international levels affect the understanding of and policies related to disability—and how this has manifested itself, in particular, in higher education.

    ...

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    Exhibition Opening: Measure

    Location: 

    Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

    Anna Von Mertens is an exhibited artist who uses the structures of quilting and drawing to explore the frontiers of human understanding. Her new exhibition "Measure" explores the life and work of Henrietta Leavitt, one of the women “computers” hired to study glass-plate astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory a century ago. Leavitt’s findings provided a unit of measurement for galactic distances. Reimagined in meticulous stitches and intricate graphite marks, Von Mertens examines our current understanding of the size and shape of...

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    Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium

    Location: 

    Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge

    The two-day symposium will include panel discussions and scholarly presentations that showcase new research on Pei’s manifold contributions to the built environment. Notable alumni from Pei’s office, including William Pedersen, will discuss the emergence of a new kind of architectural practice in the postwar era.... Read more about Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium