🎋 Rooted: Ancestral Knowledge & Ecological Futures
📅 Saturday, July 19, 2025
🕘 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
📍 American Indian Center of Chicago | 3401 W Ainslie St.
🎟️ Tickets: $35
Includes access to all panels, lunch, your selected workshop and all materials.
Rooted is a one-day summit centering Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from Native and Black communities. It’s a space created by and for those who carry land-based knowledge—people who have always known the land not as a resource, but as a relationship.
Join us for a full day of connection, conversation and hands-on learning, including:
🌿 Three panel conversations
The Past: Storytelling as methodology
The Present: TEK in action today through community gardens, environmental justice and land-based healing
The Future: Passing knowledge forward through youth mentorship and intergenerational leadership
🥗 Lunch included, prepared by Native chef Jessica Walks First
🧠 Knowledge Keeper Series Workshops
Choose one of five immersive workshops led by Black and Native facilitators. Each session offers a hands-on, in-depth experience rooted in cultural and ecological practice:
Face Jugs: Sculpt a ceramic face jug and learn about this African American tradition rooted in resistance, memory and spiritual protection.
Gourd Birdhouses: Create a traditional birdhouse from dried gourds while exploring the significance of gourds across Black and Native cultures—from ceremony to daily life.
Ethnobotany & Herbalism: Discover the power of local plants and healing herbs, and how Black and Native communities have passed down this knowledge across generations.
Natural Dyes: Use roots, berries, flowers and other foraged materials to create color from the land, and learn how dye-making connects to seasonal cycles and reciprocity.
Birch Bark Basketmaking: Work with harvested birch bark to form a traditional basket using shaping and folding methods. This practice emphasizes respect, memory and the responsibility of working with natural materials.
🎨 Pop-up art exhibit featuring Black and Native artists whose work explores ecological memory, land-based story and visual storytelling.
This gathering is open to everyone—but it centers Black and Native voices, knowledge and leadership. Come with openness, care and a willingness to listen. Rooted is about building long-term relationships—not just learning, but connecting.
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