More catching up on delayed reports from the field, here a glimpse into Society movements on unceded syilx territory in Kelowna, BC, a couple of years back!
Our invitation was from Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre and the University of British Columbia Okanagan’s Faculty of Critical and Creative Studies, to take up the role of international Artist-in-Residence 2090, co-hosted by Astrida Neimanis and their FEELed Lab, a collaborative and interdisciplinary feminist environmental humanities lab. Over one high summer month, the Society made contact with local lichen enthusiasts, naturalist groups and scientists, experimented with baking lichen bread, toured sites of special significance, and conducted a weekend field trip to Edgewood Blue, Clearwater (below), to meet renowned lichenologist and Co-curator of Lichens at the Herbarium of UBC Vancouver, Trevor Goward. A baby bear living in the nature park with us also paid us some unexpected visits!
The residency ended with an afternoon lichen love poetry workshop, held in the Society’s makeshift log cabin HQ at Woodhaven. This involved hanging out together with local lichen communities, a spectra-link intervention from Goward, and collaboratively-writing a set of ’tanka’ love poems (to lichen) that will one day be collected into a printed anthology.
Big thank you to our hosts at Woodhaven, FEELed Lab, Astrida, Trevor & Curtis, Nico, and everyone who participated in the workshop or just dropped in for a cup of tea. We hope to return soon!
Stay tuned also for Summer Bulletin 2090, currently in the works.
