Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
WINNER OF THE NORDIC:DOX AWARD 2022 Denmark, Greenland / 2022 Our most basic understanding of the origins of life was recently turned upside down when Greenlandic scientist Minik Rosing discovered the first traces of life on Earth in a small fjord near Isua, Greenland. His discovery predated all previous evidence by over 300 million years. Life began in Greenland. At the same time, its melting ice masses are disintegrating day-by-day, and scientists around the world agree that it could drown our entire civilization if it continues. Director Ivalo Frank’s new film is a tribute to a vast,...
Hunnewell Lecture Hall, 125 Arbor Way, Boston (Arnold Arboretum)
Nature journaling is all about expressing your curiosity and wonder through sketching, calligraphy, writing, or other forms of art-making. Tap into your creativity and let yourself be surprised by the diversity of forms on display in the winter landscape.
Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium
Tidal zones are liminal spaces that challenge the ecological, legal and financial thresholds of coastal areas. They appear, disappear, reappear, and constantly change in size and chemistry, while shaped by new human-made seasons of wetland draining and ocean pollution. Following CLIMAVORE, a framework that investigates ways of metabolizing climate breakdown, these littoral spaces are at the core of entanglements between risk and social security, profit margins and contamination struggles, geological processes and weather events; between what is used and what is refused. Thinking with...
Looking closely at nature can inspire a broad range of imaginative artwork, from abstraction and decorative work to illustration and cartooning. In this workshop, we will use a variety of examples from nature as inspiration, and then explore techniques for unleashing our creativity through the drawing process.
Bring your enthusiasm for the natural world and leave with a creative nature journal, inspired by the trees of the Arnold Arboretum. Nature journaling is all about expressing your curiosity and wonder through sketching, calligraphy, writing, or other forms of art-making. Tap into your creativity and let yourself be surprised by the diversity of forms on display in the winter landscape.
Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge
Join the artist and educator Evelyn Rydz for an afternoon of conversation and collective artmaking within the exhibition Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis, on view September 18–December 16, 2023.
The exhibition presents artworks that tell alternative stories of water experience in the context of climate change, while encouraging viewers to appreciate the multivalent meaning of water and their own relationship to it. Rydz has repeatedly observed the increasing impacts on natural and cultural ecosystems throughout her various field...
Harvard Divinity School, James Room (Swartz Hall), 45 Francis Ave., Cambridge
Join us for a public screening of Oscar-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhely and Jimmy Chin's extraordinary film Wild Life—a story of love, wildness, and restoration in Patagonia, Chile. The film follows conservationist Kris Tompkins on an epic decades-spanning love story as wild as the landscapes she dedicated her life to protecting.
A discussion on the film will follow the screening. Special guests include Kris Tompkins and Chai Valarhelyi in conversation with guest curator Geralyn Dreyfous and HDS writer-in-residence Terry Tempest Williams.
Use the freshly fallen leaves at the Arboretum to make beautiful art, just like the famed nature artist Andy Goldsworthy. This is a chance to play in the leaves and make something beautiful—even if it only lasts until the next gust of wind! This program is suitable for ages 5 and up.
Nature has the power to evoke calm and beauty when we can step out of our hectic lives. This immersive experience in the Arnold Arboretum will invite participants to meander through the arboretum, stopping for several guided mindfulness practices to deepen their connection with the natural world. This will be a guided experience with some periods of silence. No experience with mindfulness or meditation necessary.
This immersive experience in the Arnold Arboretum is an opportunity to step out of our hectic lives. Participants will be invited to meander through the Arboretum, with occasional stops for guided mindfulness practices to deepen their connection with the natural world. No experience with mindfulness or meditation necessary.
The Arboretum's Herbarium contains over 100 thousand dried and preserved plants, and almost half were taken from the Arboretum's own collections. These Herbarium specimens offer a blast from the past for these historic trees, and this unique program offers a chance to see both ends of the timeline: we will begin inside the Herbarium with a look at historical specimens from decades ago, and then head outside to see the trees they grew into.
Returning to the Arnold Arboretum for the eighth year, The Art of the Woodturner VIII will again offer visitors the chance to see an amazing variety of woodworked pieces: large and small, functional and sculptural. Demonstrations on the lathe in the Hunnewell Lecture Hall at 11:00am, 1:00pm, and 3:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. Demonstrations throughout both days on the Hunnewell lawn.
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge
Celebrate the vibrant culture and natural history of El Salvador. Enjoy captivating folk dances by Grupo Torogoz and try hands-on activities including corn grinding and painting with cochineal insects. Go on a scavenger hunt and discover the rich heritage of animals, minerals, and artifacts from the region. Join an archaeologist for a live-streamed tour of Joya de Cerén, the Pompeii of Latin America. Take a break with Spanish Story Time, enjoy traditional Salvadoran cuisine (available for purchase), and enter a raffle to win a museum gift basket.
Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium (48 Quincy St. Cambridge)
Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a Sylvester Baxter Lecture featuring Kongjian Yu.
Kongjian Yu, DDes '95, is Professor and founding dean of Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape, and founder and design principal of Turenscape. Yu’s guiding design principles are the appreciation of the ordinary and a deep embrace of nature—even of its potentially destructive aspects, such as flooding. His projects have won numerous international design awards, including 14 ASLA Excellence...
Come by the Arnold Arboretum for our series of Second Sundays community events, celebrating Peters Hill and the neighborhoods surrounding it. Enjoy family activities, cool off with free ice cream, play lawn games, talk to a horticulturist or a scientist, take a tour, and more!
Tour and Tree Mob Schedule:
12:00pm: English-language tour of Peters Hill
1:00pm: Spanish-language tour of Peters Hill / Recorridos guiados en español a las 13.00 horas
Join editor Susan Barba for an outdoor poetry reading of her new literary anthology, filled with classic and contemporary poems and essays inspired by wildflowers. Instead of sitting in a lecture hall, you will meander through the wildflowers of the Arboretum and hear beautiful poems and prose while surrounded by the wildflowers that inspired them. The group will stop at different wildflowers highlighted in the book and listen as Barba reads passages about sunflower, chicory, or goldenrod.
Learn how to make stunning flower arrangements with Arboretum summer blooms. In this interactive workshop, you will learn best practices in plant arrangement and try your hand at creating your own, helped along by Arboretum staff and flower arrangement extraordinaires Scott Phillips and Regina Mission. Please bring a 2-quart mason jar or similarly sized wide-mouth vase: smaller vases run the risk of tipping under the weight of the flowers!
Join Matthew Battles, editor of Arnoldia, the Arnold Arboretum's quarterly magazine, for an immersive workshop to practice writing under, about, and in collaboration with trees.
Peters Hill, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Bring your family and friends to Peters Hill for an afternoon of free tours, crafts, family activities, and more! Did we mention free ice cream and bubbles? Free activities open to all ages include:
Tours of Peters Hill offered in both English and Spanish
Plant information tents featuring wildflowers and plant defenses, fascinating Arboretum plant highlights, know-how of Arboretum experts, and a rich assortment of cuttings to view up close
Ice cream, art activities, lawn games, StoryWalks®, and more!...
Hunnewell Lawn, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Stop by the Hunnewell Lawn between 12:00pm–3:00pm to create beautiful nature-based cyanotype prints. Participants will arrange flowers, leaves, and seeds and expose them in sunlight to create a deep blue print with bright, ghost-white silhouettes.