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...
Arnold Arboretum (Hunnewell Building), 125 Arborway, Boston
Dr. Liseli A. Fitzpatrick, a Trinidadian-scholar in the field of African Diasporic cosmologies and sacred ontologies, will lead an engaging lecture and discussion exploring African mythologies and folkloric cultures.
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...
Initiation – In Love Solidarity is a choreographic narrative exploring the embodiment of the Middle Passage, and the resilience and evolving identities of women in the African diaspora. A film component of the work was created at historic sites in New England related to the transatlantic slave trade and emancipation. The imagery of the cowrie shell is present throughout, chosen as an emblem of the transformative identity of the Black female body.
Explore the rich diversity of frogs by observing and sketching 3D models printed from Harvard’s research collections. Artist and educator, Erica Beade, will introduce techniques for achieving accurate shapes and capturing volume in your drawings, while herpetologist and researcher, Dr. Mara Laslo, will explain how evolution has generated their amazing diversity. Groups will be limited to twelve, allowing ample time for questions and discussion.
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.
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.
Painting Edo at the Arnold Arboretum is a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and the Harvard Art Museums, inspired by the exhibition Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection. Observing artworks from the exhibition alongside the living collections of the Arnold Arboretum, we invite you to marvel at the remarkable accuracy and spirit with which artists of the Edo period (1615–1868) rendered their botanical...
This lecture explores whether it is possible to achieve both social justice and environmental sustainability in efforts to mitigate urban flood risk. The expanding scale of urban flooding under climate change has renewed interest in large-scale restoration projects that make room for water in metro centers. However, ecologically functioning green infrastructure – unleashed rivers, sprawling wetlands – is inconsistent with the current governance landscape of fragmented local governments seeking to maximize local land values and minimize affordable housing. Moreover, even...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Chris Morgan is fascinated by the patterns and textures in nature, the shapes of trees, and the movements of birds. He captures these beautifully in his photographs, which were on display at the Arnold Arboretum in the winter of 2019.
In this program, Chris will discuss his photographic interests and methods in the classroom and then move outdoors to demonstrate his techniques. Class participants will be able to learn alongside Chris, evaluating views, debating camera angles, and considering focal points in order to shoot better images. Participants should bring their...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
All writers must contend with translation. A poet translates the movement of a dancing figure into a brief couplet, and an essayist translates the noise and commotion of the city where she lives into a single paragraph. The three-dimensional world filters into text, and when done especially well—the realm of literature and art—readers often forget that translation has even occurred.
In this talk, Jonathan Damery, the associate editor for Arnoldia, will provide a readerly tour through horticultural and botanical reference books, encouraging readers to see the artistic endeavor...
Richard Evans Schultes—ethnobotanist, taxonomist, writer, photographer, and Harvard professor—is regarded as one of the most important plant explorers of the twentieth century. In 1941, Schultes traveled to the Amazon rainforest on a mission to study how Indigenous peoples used plants for medicinal, ritual, and practical purposes. A new interactive online map, produced by the Amazon Conservation Team, traces the landscapes and cultures that Schultes explored in the Colombian Amazon. Plotkin and Hettler will share this map and discuss the relevance of Schultes’ travels and...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Join botanical artist, Regina Gardner Milan, in this Nature Journal Workshop. Participants, ages 8-12, will develop observational skills while learning a new awareness of their environment. Seed pods, pine cones, and other plant material will be available for observation and drawing. If weather permits, you will go on a short walk to collect more specimens. Milan will do demonstrations of drawing and documenting important details, and then you will try your own hand at creating a personal nature journal....
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Bird song, whale song, bug song? Are these sounds really music? What of the whistle of the wind? David Rothenberg, author of three books, Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, and Survival of the Beautiful, will do his best to answer these questions and fuel further thinking about noise, communication, and song in nature. A composer and jazz clarinetist,...
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Miaki Ishii, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
Recent volcanic eruptions in Hawaii and Guatemala remind us of how devastating these geological eruptions can be. Popular culture depictions of volcanic disasters found in movies like Dante’s Peak and Volcano can strongly distort the public’s understanding of volcanic activity and its immediate effects. As with many science-fiction films, Hollywood depictions of natural phenomena don’t always align with the scientific facts. Seismologist Miaki...