Designed to accompany the construction of the Tibetan Buddhist Chenrezig sand mandala, the exhibition is inspired by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s book, Our Only Home, which so eloquently calls for compassion as we face the climate crisis, our greatest challenge. He writes, “Climate change is an issue that affects the whole of humanity. But if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment will be well-balanced, and so will our relations with our neighbors. Our Mother Earth is teaching us a lesson in universal responsibility. Therefore, each of us as individuals has a responsibility to ensure that the world will be safe for future generations, for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
The exhibition brings together artworks and cultural artifacts from indigenous cultures around the world that reflect, like the Tibetan Buddhist vision, the shared wisdom and compassion that care for the Earth, our only home. A series of prints by featured Akwesasne artist, Katsitsionni Fox—on whose traditional Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) lands the mandala will be constructed—is accompanied by paintings, textiles, and ceramics from North America, South America, and India.
Katsitsionni Fox reminds us of the effects of our choices, “Our actions have a ripple effect, like a stone thrown into water. They affect our children, their children and the ones yet to come. We in turn feel the effects of the actions of generations before us, whether they are positive or negative in nature.” We are continuing to see the results of our actions, now more urgently than ever. Time is passing.
Over ten years ago, His Holiness wrote, “Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.” When the sand, which will form the exquisite mandala for a brief time, is poured into moving water as the final stage of the ritual, each grain of sand, however small, will create ripples. What ripples will our own actions make?
The overlapping Buddhist and Indigenous perspectives call for respect and care for all beings, kinship with them, gratitude, and reciprocity. They remind us that our attitude and actions matter and affect the present and the future. Thus, the exhibition is also a gentle call to action.
-Morgan Perkins, associate professor of cultural anthropology and museum studies, SUNY Potsdam
-Cathy Shrady, professor emerita of geology, SLU
“One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Lecture by Akwesasne artist Katsitsionni Fox
Monday, November 4, at 6:00 p.m. in Griffiths 123
References
Fox, Katsitsionni. What Are We Leaving for the 7th Generation? Seven Haudenosaunee Voices, edited by Katsitsionni Fox and Morgan Perkins, Roland Gibson Art Gallery, SUNY Potsdam, 2002.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Franz Alt. Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World. Hanover Square Press, 2020.
Card front: Kenojuak Ashevak (Inuit), Animals of Land and Sea, relief print, 1991, SLU 93.39
Sponsored by the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery and the Department of Art & Art History.