Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, A Conversation with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden are honored to welcome Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), acclaimed author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, to Santa Fe for an in-person event on Thursday, September 1, 2022.
Dr. Kimmerer, a botanist, embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers, as reflected in traditional Indigenous farming practices. IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation) says that “Dr. Kimmerer’s approach to Indigenous land practices and ethics aligns with IAIA’s philosophy of incorporating ancestral knowledge with Western techniques to help sustain our communities’ livelihoods for future generations.”
On September 1, Dr. Kemmerer will visit Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill for engaging outdoor conversations surrounding the themes of her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
Dr. Kimmerer’s visit to Santa Fe is generously underwritten by the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, Paul Eitner and Denise Roy (in association with the Santa Fe Botanical Garden), and other supporters in the community.
Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett, and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Dr. Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and she is the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.
As a writer and a scientist, her interests include restoring ecological communities and human relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry and an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge, and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in Upstate New York, where she tends cultivated and wild gardens.