On April 21, 2022, the Black Botany Studio hosted its first virtual workshop with Independent Scholar and Multimedia Artist Jennifer Steverson. During the workshop UC Santa Cruz undergraduate and graduate students engaged with the history of marigold (Tagetes erecta) and learned how to dye with marigold flower.
The workshop was an interdisciplinary space. Students participated from across departments and fields. Many of them brought personal experiences with marigold, botanical knowledge of their own, or a background in the arts with them. Some were also enrolled in the Black Botanical Medicine in the Americas course (SOCY 143) in Spring 2022, a course that considers how plants been central to Black-led community health and healing in the North and Latin America.
As a research lab and co-learning space, the Black Botany Studio cultivates creative inquiry about Black botanical knowledge past and present. The Studio exists to archive, lift up, and theorize Black botanical knowledge amid global contexts such as COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and climate change. Dr. Naya Jones leads the Studio, working closely with Graduate Student Researchers.
A special thank you to Graduate Student Researchers Betania Santos and Chris Lang for co-facilitating the Making with Marigold workshop. Betania promoted the events, crafted the workshop kits, and organized communications, while Chris introduced the workshop with insight into the social, environmental, and economic significance of marigold.
Jennifer Steverson was the inaugural Visiting Artist-Scholar for the Black Botany Studio from 2021-2022. Jennifer’s research explores the intersections of craft, placemaking, and spiritual practice within Southern Black communities. Her artistic practice combines indigo dyeing with quilting, and patterns that echo African Diaspora surface design motifs.
Learn more about Steverson’s work at www.genevajean.com. Follow Black Botany Studio updates here.
This virtual workshop was supported in part by a Sprout Grant from the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz.
Thank you to the workshop co-sponsors for spreading the word: El Centro, the African American Resource & Cultural Center, John R. Lewis College, and the People of Color Sustainability Initiative at UC Santa Cruz.
Read reflections from students!
Visit these blogs by paradyse o. and Ethan D. about their experience participating in “Making with Marigold” >>
Virtual Snapshot:
