Our Shared Breath Creativity and Community
The University of Oregon’s annual Common Reading program encourages campus-wide engagement with a shared book and related resources. JSMA’s corresponding Common Seeing expands this conversation through the visual arts. During the 2022-23 academic year, the UO continues its reflection on Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions, 2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This memoir addresses humanity’s responsibility to the natural world through its author’s observations as an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, trained botanist, and mother. Kimmerer calls for a reciprocal relationship between people and nature that prioritizes generosity and respects the needs of all living things.
In Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community, we present the work of six artists to consider our own understandings of community, generosity, responsibility to the more-than-human world, and creativity in all its forms. Their prints, paintings, sculptures, and videos speak to individual and communal relationships with the land, water, and fellow living beings (human and non-human), and invite reflection on themes of reciprocity, storytelling, record-keeping, and lived experiences. Danielle Knapp, McCosh Curator, and Zoey Kambour, Post Graduate Curatorial Fellow in European & American art, curated this selection of works. Support for Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community was provided by the Art Dealers Association of America Foundation.
Featured Artists
- Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos, b. 1976)
- Melanie Yazzie (Diné (Navajo), b. 1966)
- Rick Bartow (Mad River Wiyot, 1946-2016)
- Lehuauakea (Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), b. 1996)
- Ryan Pierce (American, b. 1979)
- Malia Jensen (American, b. 1966)
For more information about the Common Reading and to find out how members of the UO Community can access a digital copy of Kimmerer’s book, visit: https://fyp.uoregon.edu/common-reading-braiding-sweetgrass
The JSMA invites you to take a virtual tour of selected special exhibitions and permanent collection galleries. Each tour allows you to stroll through the museum at your own pace, using the circle icons on the floor to navigate from location to location. You can zoom in on individual artworks, read object labels and descriptive texts by clicking on the small icons next to each work, and also access informational links, and exhibition brochures or study guides. You can also make your internet browser window larger or smaller as desired—and we recommend expanding it to full screen to take advantage of the tours’ high resolution, 360-degree photos!
Author's Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Artist Talk: Brenda Mallory
Common Reading: Braiding Sweetgrass
In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together through her memoir of living in the natural world and practicing heart-centered science.