Cultural heritage projects - Growing up green
A temporary display that explored better-known plants domesticated and developed by Indigenous people of the Americas. It celebrated technologies, innovation, tastes, and land-based knowledge centered on harvesting, cultivation, and domestication of plants and crops.
It featured prolific gardener, Buffalo Bird Woman. Personal and family narratives about growing the next generation with roots of the past were interwoven in the content. My approach to health and wellness is centered on an approach of ‘healthy people, healthy lives, healthy lands’ and my experiences with breastfeeding and growing a garden are juxtaposed with those of my grandma Eva, a Métis woman whose roots extend throughout the Assiniboine valley.
Feature Images:
At the launch, 45 grade 5 students from École Morden Middle School, Western School Division participated in a workshop where they created “Sister Bean Soup”, a unique take-home gift. Corn, beans, and squash are the staples of the Three Sisters crops. Since the early cultivation of beans, with some reaching back 7000 years ago, soup has been a culinary tradition that continues to warm the spirit and reminds us of the layers and depth of Indigenous knowledge.
Public Lectures
Presentation & Workshop: “Growing Up Green: Cultivating Wellness and Depth through Indigenous Gardening Traditions.” Nature and Garden Expo, hosted in partnership with the Communities in Bloom Committee, Morden & District Horticulture Society, and City of Morden. Facilitated by Clare Agnew & Ina Hollett. Morden MB. April 5, 2019.
Media
“Nature & Garden Expo is on today!” City of Morden (online). Posted April 5, 2019.
https://www.mordenmb.com/nature-garden-expo-is-on-today/