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    2022 Jul 09

    MassQ Ball 2022: Origin

    2:00pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Convene in our collections to celebrate what makes us both unique and unified. A MassQ is a ritual application of paint to the face in order to reveal one's inner state of being. MassQing derives from the ancient tradition of body decoration practiced by nearly every indigenous culture on earth. Join us for this intergenerational, cross-cultural exhibition of the arts and interact with the landscape in new, creative ways.

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    2022 Jun 26

    MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | Making of Ceremonial Vessels

    1:00pm to 3:00pm

    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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    2022 Jun 21

    Summer Solstice Celebration 2022: Night at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

    5:00pm to 9:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    After a long hiatus, the annual Summer Solstice Celebration at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture is back—in-person! Join us on the longest day of the year from 5:00–9:00 PM to explore—free of charge—the galleries and new exhibitions at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the...

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    2022 Jun 05

    Stoneroot Epistle Artists’ Talk: Regenerational Collaboration

    1:00pm to 3:00pm

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Join artist Daina Swagerty and poet Joyce Swagerty for a conversation about Stoneroot Epistle, their artistic collaboration now on view at the Arboretum's Hunnewell Visitor Center. Their show invites us to contemplate our capacity for wonder through the lens of an acorn through the seasons. Select pages of vivid imagery and inspirational poetry offer a layered landscape exploring the movement of universal journey.

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    2022 Jun 27

    Art Show | Meaningful Beauty: The Vibrant Vocabulary of Honeysuckles

    Repeats every weekday until Sun Jul 24 2022 .
    12:00pm to 4:00pm

    Location: 

    Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Enjoy a multimedia glimpse into how plants use visual signals to communicate with the world around them with Wendy Clement’s multimedia exhibition using the design initiatives of Chris Ault’s Interactive Multimedia class at The College of New Jersey. Now on view at the Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell Building.

    Learn more about the exhibition...

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    2022 May 16

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

    7:00pm to 8:30pm

    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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    2022 May 08

    Lilac Sunday

    10:00am to 3:00pm

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Join us for the first Lilac Sunday since 2019! We’ll be celebrating 150 years of Arboretum history and 112 Lilac Sundays.

    Experience the springtime bloom of our renowned collection of nearly 400 lilacs. Visit for tours with Arboretum experts, hands-on children’s programming, and more.

    Learn more.

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    2022 May 07

    Ukrainian Plants of the Arboretum Tour

    11:00am to 12:00pm

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum (Hunnewell Building), 125 Arborway, Boston

    Ukrainian culture is rich with references to the natural world. Join a one-hour walking tour with Arboretum Horticulturist Brendan Keegan. Learn about plants within the Arboretum's collections that are notable in Ukrainian history, cuisine, agriculture, and more. The tour is in support of our colleagues at botanical institutions throughout Ukraine.

    Learn more and register.

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    2022 May 01

    Art Exhibit | Stoneroot Epistle: Collage and Words in Conversation

    Repeats every week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday until Sat Jun 25 2022 .
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    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum (Hunnewell Visitor Center), 125 Arborway, Boston

    Visit the Arnold Arboretum's newly reopened Hunnewell Visitor Center and immerse yourself in this truly unique exhibition. The book, Stoneroot Epistle, was born out of Joyce Swagerty (Harvard class of '78) and Daina Swagerty's desire to understand the connection between themselves, the natural world, and the universal journey inspired by the African diaspora. The project by this mother and daughter was a spiritual adventure.

    ...

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    2022 Apr 09

    Arnold Arboretum: Guided Tours (Saturdays)

    Repeats every week every Saturday until Sat Apr 30 2022 .
    10:30am to 12:00pm

    10:30am to 12:00pm
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    10:30am to 12:00pm

    Location: 

    Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    On Saturdays and Sundays in April, join us for a 90-minute walk through the Arboretum! Tour seasonal plant highlights and learn about Arboretum history from a trained docent.

    Learn more about and register for this event.

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    2022 Apr 06

    After-School Animal Encounters: Super Skeletons

    4:00pm to 4:45pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    Free Virtual Family Program

    Do snakes have bones? Can a turtle crawl out of its shell? How far could you jump if you were a frog? Looking at skeletons can help us answer these questions! Comparing the skeletons of different animals can help us learn more about how they live and move. Join human museum staffers Arielle and Javier as they lead you in a 45-minute program with live animals and specimens from the museum collections. This event will be fun for the whole family so bring your questions and sense of wonder.

    ...

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    2022 Mar 29

    Celebrating a Sesquicentennial: The Founding of the Arnold Arboretum

    2:00pm to 3:00pm

    Location: 

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

    The Arnold Arboretum was founded on Friday, March 29, 1872. Exactly 150 years later, we invite you to join Lisa Pearson, Head of the Arboretum Library and Archives, for a special sesquicentennial lecture! Pearson will discuss the earliest benefactors of the Arboretum, the events surrounding the founding of the institution, and the busy first two decades during which the infrastructure and living collections were installed on the grounds.

    This event will also be livestreamed to YouTube. To sign up for the virtual livestream instead,...

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    2022 Mar 23

    Restoring Ecosystems in a Time of Ongoing Global Change

    6:00pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    How long does it take for an ecosystem to recover after it is disturbed or destroyed by human activities? How do we know when an ecosystem has recovered? In this lecture, restoration ecologist David Moreno Mateos will discuss the traditional methods used to assess the recovery of terrestrial ecosystems—such as changes in biodiversity or soil carbon levels—and highlight their limitations. He will make a case for more comprehensive and long-term approaches to understanding and measuring ecosystem recovery and highlight their potential for enhancing environmental policies and large-scale...

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    2022 Mar 12

    Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea

    2:30pm to 4:00pm

    Location: 

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

    Just in time for the Arboretum's sesquicentennial and the bicentennial of the birth of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, authors Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr will speak on their recent book, "Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea." They'll offer a new interpretation of how the American park—urban and national—came to figure so prominently in our cultural identity, and why this more complex and inclusive story deserves to be told.

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    2022 Mar 09

    After-School Animal Encounters: Get Growing!

    4:00pm to 4:45pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    In the natural world, animals have all sorts of fascinating ways in which they grow. From tadpoles changing into bullfrogs to baby turtles becoming goliaths, growing up is a big part of life! Learn about the different life cycles and life histories of some of our favorite museum animals and how they’ve grown over time. Join human museum staffers Javier and Arielle, as they lead you in a 45-minute program with live animals and specimens from the museum collections. This event will be fun for the whole family so bring your questions and sense of wonder.

    ...

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    2022 Mar 01

    Art Exhibition | Seeds for Tomorrow: Woody Plants of the Arnold Arboretum

    Tue Mar 1 (All day) to Mon May 30 (All day)

    Location: 

    Arnold Arboretum—Online

    Laura Fantini uses colored pencil to render seeds in exquisite, hyper-realistic drawings. This series is called “Hope,” and therein lies the power of seeds. They are emblematic of both birth and growth—small, complicated, and extraordinary, like the wonderful drawings in this exhibition.

    Learn more about and view this virtual exhibition....

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    2022 Feb 24

    Drawing Trees

    9:30am to 11:30am

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Explore the variety and elegance of tree forms using pencil and paper. We will focus on capturing the shapes and volume of trunks and branches and techniques for drawing foliage in this online workshop. Groups will be limited to ten, allowing ample time for individual feedback. All skill levels are welcome.

    Cost: $30 for members; $35 for nonmembers.

    Learn more about and register for this virtual event.

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    2022 Feb 23

    Lessons from Plants

    6:00pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Plants are essential to humans and the environment: they provide food, absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, serve multiple ecosystem functions, and beautify landscapes. In Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021) Beronda Montgomery invites us to appreciate our interdependence with plants and the many lessons that can be gained from a better understanding of the ways in which plants grow, adapt, and thrive.

    In this conversation with Brenda Tindal, she will address what plants can teach us about relating to one another, building diverse communities and...

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