$5.00 admission when using code “4GROUND”
Join Kinstone for the opening celebration for Wang Ping and Joe Lerro’s installation for the 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Biennial entitled “Kinship of Rivers: We Are One Family”. This interactive installation celebrates our connections with land, air, water, and communities. We will build “Growing Family,” a black locust structure hosting beans and prayer flags of art and poetry made by visitors, symbolizing growth, vitality and harmony. Black locust and beans, both in the Leguminosae family, fix and store nitrogen in the soil. The project grows with seasons: building the structure and installing flags in spring; sowing beans, celebrating blossoms, shade and fruit of the beans, art and poetry in summer; harvesting seeds and flags in autumn to continue the cycle of life and our hope for peace.
Started in 2012, Kinship of Rivers brings communities, rivers and lands together through prayer flags of art, poetry and prints. Thousands of these prayer flags will be displayed at three events at Kinstone, carrying messages of unity from the Yangtze, Amazon, Ganges, and Nile Rivers, Mounts Everest, Kilimanjaro and other sacred places. Visitors can make prayer flags during events or at the open art station, as a pledge to promote peace and protect air, soil and water. These will join the world prayer flags, broadcasting peace and unity as one Growing Family.
The opening celebration will include an artist talk with Wang Ping and Joe Lerro, stories and readings, and Native drumming and singing with Alvin “Al” Baker. Additionally, please join us for The Longest Poem for the Longest River (in North America). Join poets from across the Mississippi River in a collective, multilingual creative writing experience for the one and only Mississippi River. This project brings the Mississippi to the public beyond its banks inspiring real-talk conversations about our relationships to water and the river.
All ages and languages are welcome. Presented by Angie Tillges, Moheb Soliman, and Monique Verdin.