Artist and educator Heather Bird Harris will host an artist workshop, “Observing and Imagining the Health of the Santa Cruz Watershed with Natural Inks,” on Nov. 14 from 2-4p at the School of Art Building (Room 241).
Bird Harris is an artist and educator who prioritizes caretaking and connection. Her work explores the throughlines between history and ecological crises, engaging with communities, scientists, and site-specific materials to investigate land memory, systems of complicity, and possibilities for emergence.
As part of the Watershed Soundscape project of the Arizona Institute of Resilience, Harris has created a new video projection piece that documents the behavior of locally sourced earth pigments and plants of the Santa Cruz watershed as they move in water. In the workshop, participants will use these natural inks and watercolors to reflect on the history, present health, and possible futures of the watershed.
This work is part of a larger multidisciplinary project that draws on research conducted in partnerships among artists, scientists, and Indigenous communities to create a sustainable model for environmental stewardship.
- Nov. 9 | Watershed Soundscape, music + art + landscape | multidisciplinary concert
- Nov. 12 | Bird Harris, Artist Talk | register
- Nov. 14 | Bird Harris, Artist Workshop | register
Bird Harris (b. 1987) is an artist, curator, and educator who prioritizes caretaking and connection. Her work explores the throughlines between land history and ecological crises, engaging with communities, scientists, and site-specific materials to investigate memory, systems of complicity, and possibilities for emergence.
Harris received her B.S. in art history from Skidmore College and master’s degree in education leadership from Columbia University. She has served as principal of a turnaround school in New Orleans and has consulted with school leaders across the South to implement equitable learning practices and anti-racist history education. Recent exhibitions include NADA Curates, the New Mexico State University Museum, Art Fields (Lake City, SC), Stoveworks (Chattanooga, TN), the Barnes Ogden Gallery at Louisiana State University, and Science Gallery Atlanta. She was one of seven artists selected for the Art & Social Justice Fellowship at Emory University in 2023.
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