Everyone deserves a healthy environment and access to the outdoors.
Research demonstrates that clean air, water, and access to the outdoors are vital to human health. So if nature is a necessity for everyone’s health and well-being, why is it so hard for some people to access it? What are the consequences?
The vital connections between health, equity, and nature are increasingly visible across the United States. Throughout this 90-minute performance, audiences will watch and listen to the lived experiences of members of communities affected by environmental racism and health inequities and their interconnections through music, illustration, and videography.
Convergence: Health Equity in a Changing Climate is a collaboration between Black Moon Trio and Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods and features two commissioned compositions from composers Marc Mellits and Jerod Impichchaachaahaᑊ Tate as well as original artwork from five visual artists across the country to emphasize the data collected from Brushwood Center’s Health, Equity, and Nature Accelerator Report.
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Jerod Impichchaachaahaᑊ Tate: Tochchíᑊna (2024)
Commissioned by Black Moon Trio
Marc Mellits: Black Moon (2024)
Commissioned by Black Moon Trio
Eric Ewazen: Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano (2012, 2014)
Jonathan Leshnoff: Horn Trio (2016)
TJ Cole: Drifter (2015)
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Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods works collaboratively with community partners, artists, health care providers, and scientists to improve health equity and access to nature in Lake County, Illinois, and the Chicago region. We engage people with the outdoors through the arts, environmental education, and community action. Brushwood Center’s programs focus on youth, families, Military Veterans, and those facing racial and economic injustices.
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natashNa A., born Natashna Anderson, is a Designer, Illustrator and Bookmaker. A Brooklyn native, she considers herself a creative in all aspects. Her work constantly reimagines itself as murals, board games, and more recently, as patterns. She received her BFA in Visual Communications at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The city of Chicago is where she currently lives and works. Her work explores and interprets the idea of narrative within black portrayal, typography, and fairytales.
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Kelley Clink is an author, illustrator, artist, and suicide prevention/mental health advocate. Over the years her writing has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Gettysburg Review, Colorado Review, Shambhala Sun, Woman's Day, and The Huffington Post.
She is currently working on a young adult novel and several picture books.
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Laura is a freelance illustrator working in the Chicagoland area. She graduated in 2016 from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a BFA in Fine Art, and has since been pursuing her passion for vibrant and inventive illustration. Her work is heavily influenced by cartoons, impressionism, and the crazy cast of characters that is her pets. She loves cooking up silly ideas and scenarios, and creating bright and warm illustrations that bring out the childish side in all of us.
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Lokosh (Joshua D. Hinson) is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
A fluent speaker of the Chickasaw language and an award-winning artist, he holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Abilene Christian University, a master’s degree in Native American Art History from the University of New Mexico, and a PhD in Native Language Revitalization from the University of Oklahoma. He makes art on the Chickasaw Nation Reservation, Ada, Oklahoma.
Hinson, whose Chickasaw name Lokosh translates as “Gourd,” is of the Imatapo
(Their Lean-to People) house group and Kowishto' (Panther) clan.
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Naimah Thomas is a registered and board-certified art therapist (ATR-BC), and a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in Illinois, with a Master of Arts in art therapy.
She is committed to providing a person-centered approach to healing with a focus on intergenerational cultural trauma that acknowledges the multiple systems of oppression and the impact those systems have on our emotional, mental, and physical well-being.