Being Together in Place

To accompany her installation The Persistence of the Unsorted, Artist in Residence Claire Pentecost presents special guests geographers Soren Larsen and Jay Johnson, authors of Being Together in Place for a discussion of the agency of place itself.

From the authors:

“Coexistence begins in place—the places we come from and call home, the places we care for and struggle over, the places that sustain us, the places we share. We call this book “being-together-in-place”¹ because whether we acknowledge it or not, place convenes our being together, bringing human and nonhuman communities into the shared predicaments of life, livelihood, and land. Place calls us to the challenge of living together. At root, this is a challenge of worldviews involving many different ways of being whose relationships are interdependent yet asymmetrical, sometimes harmonious and other times in conflict….”

This event is free and open to the public. Space is limited, please register in advance through Eventbrite below.

The Persistence of the Unsorted

An exhibition of new work by Garfield Park Conservatory’s Artist in Residence, Claire Pentecost. On view April 26 – October 31, 2018.

Every plant in the Garfield Park Conservatory has been sorted and named, taking its place in the great taxonomic order, a system begun in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus. And yet we are told that there are countless inhabitants of the forest, the desert, the wetlands, that have never been classified, some of whom will be extinct before we have a chance to discover them. And what of the heterogeneous spirits attached to these places? Defying classification, they persist in the wake of disruption, following the representatives of their homes: the plants. The plants here constitute a collection of far-flung places. We wonder if a conservatory can receive wandering place-spirits severed from their homes.

The Persistence of the Unsorted explores the context that the plants in a conservatory leave behind when removed from their native landscape. From the micro scale of soil particles to the more visible cohabitants like insects, animals, and other plants, along with the layers of culture and history— Claire posits that the unique spirit of a plant’s native home is disrupted when removed from these contributors. In acknowledgement, a cast of the plants’ displaced spirits is carried through the man-made landscape of the conservatory’s Palm House in a 16’ canoe suspended over the reflecting pool.

Claire Pentecost is the Garfield Park Conservatory’s 2017- 2018 Artist in Residence. The Garfield Park Conservatory’s Artist in Residence program is presented by the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance with funding from The Albert Pick Jr. Fund and a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events and the Illinois Arts Council. Learn more about the Artist in Residence program HERE.

Please join us for upcoming programs during The Persistence of the Unsorted:

April 26, 2018 – October 31, 2018: The Persistence of the Unsorted, an exhibition of new work by Artist in Residence Claire Pentecost is on view in the Palm House at the Garfield Park Conservatory.

Thursday April 26, 2018: The Persistence of the Unsorted opens to the public on Thursday April 26, 2018, and will be celebrated that evening (6pm – 11pm) at Protect This Land, an event presented by the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, Land and Sea and the National Resources Defense Council. More information and tickets available for purchase HERE.

Saturday April 28, 2018, 12pm – 2pm: Being Together in Place, a free and public discussion of the agency of place. Presented by Claire Pentecost and guests Jay Johnson and Soren Larsen. Learn more and register HERE.

PLANTS: Listening and Writing

A reading and a poetry writing workshop with Anishinaabemowin speaker and poet Margaret Noodin. Bring paper and a writing implement of your choice!

This event is part of our Artist in Residence Program’s lecture series. The Garfield Park Conservatory Artist in Residence Program is presented by the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance with funding from the Albert Pick Jr. Fund and a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. Learn more HERE.

Claire Pentecost is the Garfield Park Conservatory’s 2017 Artist in Residence. Claire is writer, artist and a professor in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Margaret Noodin received an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Linguistics from the University of Minnesota. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she also serves at the Director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education. She is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature and Weweni, a collection of bilingual poems in Ojibwe and English. Her poems and essays have been anthologized and published in Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas, Poetry Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Water Stone Review, and Yellow Medicine Review. With her daughters, Shannon and Fionna, she is a member of Miskwaasining Nagamojig (the Swamp Singers) a women’s hand drum group whose lyrics are all in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe). To see and hear current projects visit www.ojibwe.net where she and other students and speakers of Ojibwe have created a space for language to be shared by academics and the native community.

A Deeptime Chicago – Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance event

For information, contact Claire Pentecost 773-383-9771

TALKING PLANTS: Making Kin with Our Rooted Relations

English language positions humans and nature as very separate entities. How do we talk about the natural world in a way that recognizes our interdependence on an entire living system? How do we acknowledge plants specifically as our kin?

Come have a conversation with two specialists on plants and language!

Dr. Wendy Makoons Geniusz is an Indigenous woman of Cree and Métis decent. She teaches Ojibwe language classes at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she is an Associate Professor. Her Ojibwe language classes are available for free at this link: uwec.ly/ojibwe. She has worked on several projects revitalizing Ojibwe botanical knowledge within Native communities. She is the author and editor of several texts about how Ojibwe people work with and think about plants and trees. These include: Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings and Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do is Ask.

Aubrey Streit Krug is a writer and teacher in the environmental humanities who researches stories of relationships between humans and plants. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Ecosphere Studies at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Aubrey earned her PhD in English and Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is also a student of the Omaha language, and part of a team of learners, educators, and elder speakers who have collaborated on an Omaha language and culture textbook that is forthcoming with the University of Nebraska Press.

A Deeptime Chicago – Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance event

For information, please contact Claire Pentecost 773-383-9771