Author of ‘Gathering Moss’ and ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’, Appears April 5th at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center and April 10th at Honolulu Museum of Art
“Her words are a hymn of love to the world.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert
On Friday, April 5th at Maui Arts & Cultural Center and Wedndesday, April 10th at Honolulu Museum of Art, The Merwin Conservancy will present two intimate evenings with plant ecologist, teacher, and author Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer in The Green Room, an arts and ecology salon series that fosters a reverence for language, nature, and imagination in the community. She is the author of award-winning books Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
At both events, Dr. Kimmerer will give a reading and presentation at 7pm followed by an intimate Q&A with the audience and a book signing at a courtyard reception with refreshments and “pop up” book store. Tickets to both events are now on sale.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, writer, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She is the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.
As a plant ecologist, she has spent decades learning from plants and sharing their stories. She is the author of numerous scientific papers as well as literary works including Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. She teaches classes in the ecology of mosses, ethnobotany and indigenous issues and the environment. Her interests include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. In collaboration with tribal partners, she has an active research program in restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. She is active in efforts to introduce traditional ecological knowledge to the scientific community, in a way that respects and protects indigenous knowledge.
“Robin Wall Kimmerer’s approach to living in and learning from our world astounds me with its beauty and thoughtfulness,” said Sonnet Kekilia Coggins, The Merwin Conservancy’s Executive Director. “She so mindfully weaves together multiple ways of making meaning, revealing not only nuance, but also entire dimensions of understanding. I am so grateful that she’ll be joining us here in Hawai’i, where her work resonates so deeply.”
Both presentations will be followed by an intimate Q&A with the audience and a book signing at a courtyard reception with refreshments and “pop up” book store.
The Maui event is presented by FIM Group and is made “zero waste” by Maui Huliau Foundation. The Honolulu event is made possible by a partnership with the Honolulu Museum of Art, and with additional support from Halekulani Hotel. The overall series is supported by a grant from the Atherton Family Foundation. Proceeds from ticket sales benefit The Merwin Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
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About Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, writer, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She is the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. As a plant ecologist, she has spent decades learning from plants and sharing their stories. She is the author of numerous scientific papers as well as literary works including Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. She teaches classes in the ecology of mosses, ethnobotany and indigenous issues and the environment. Her interests include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. In collaboration with tribal partners, she has an active research program in restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. She is active in efforts to introduce traditional ecological knowledge to the scientific community, in a way that respects and protects indigenous knowledge. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both domestic and wild.
Praise for Braiding Sweetgrass:
“Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most – the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.” – Jane Goodall
“Robin Wall Kimmerer is a writer of rare grace. She writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world the same way after having seen it through Kimmerer’s eyes. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she takes us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise. She is a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.” – Krista Tippett, host of On Being
“Braiding Sweetgrass is instructive poetry. Robin Wall Kimmerer has put the spiritual relationship that Chief Seattle called the ‘web of life’ into writing. Industrial societies lack the understanding of the interrelationships that bind all living things – this book fills that void. I encourage one and all to read these instructions.” – Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Onondaga Nation and Indigenous Environmental Leader
“The gift of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book is that she provides readers the ability to see a very common world in uncommon ways, or, rather, in ways that have been commonly held but have recently been discarded. She puts for the notion that we ought to be interacting in such a way that the land should be thankful for the people.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune
