The Guide

The storytelling talk with author Chris La Tray will encourage you to return to a reciprocal relationship with the rest of the world, return to yourselves. Chris is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and a citizen of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

On display at the gallery is Healing the Heart, another Weaving Our Cultures art exhibit. It's a community exploration of plant ecology that centers Indigenous perspectives and holds space for local artists. These artists operate at the intersection of community care and care for the land, drawing from sources spanning traditional teachings, experiences in nature, literature, and more.

Healing the Heart celebrates the power of plants to not only treat ailments of the body, but also to heal the spirit and nourish the soul. It runs through March 29.

George M. Johnson will read from their book All Boys Aren't Blue. Then, a discussion with BMI Shearing Fellow KB Brookins. They'll talk about the about the craft of writing -- including but not limited to structure, hybrid genre writing (both authors use creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and letters in their work), influence of other Black queer authors, and more.

After the program, books by both writers will be available for purchase and signing. Free. More info at Get Tickets.

Niloufar Talebi’s new book is a bilingual edition of Ahmad Shamlou, one of Iran’s most influential twentieth-century poets. It showcases her skill and dedication as a translator and cultural worker. In Elegies of the Earth, published to mark the poet’s centennial, Talebi brings Shamlou’s revolutionary voice of resistance and modernity to English readers.

Join Maryam Ala Amjadi, Iranian poet, scholar, and City of Asylum Fellow, for a conversation with Talebi on Shamlou’s enduring legacy, the power of poetry as witness, and the craft of translation.

Free. More info at Get Tickets.

This conversation opens a space to celebrate the rich perspectives of Black artists, social change makers, and everyday folks who’ve deepened our capacities to feel, observe, and be present to natural worlds that are often weaponized against us as Black people shaped in various ways by the U.S. south (east/west).

Coming from a range of disciplines and movements—music, poetry, oral history, birding, land stewardship, water protection, sobriety, demilitarization, and more—guests Lazarus Letcher, Erica Vital-Lazare, Claytee D. White, and host Saretta Morgan will reflect on their personal eco-histories and share literature, songs, photos, and ephemera that speak to how they’ve come to understand their sense of place and possibility in ever-shifting and contested geographies.