On Saturday, October 20 from 10 – 4 visit the Harvard Forest Fisher Museum for a free presentation entitled How Does Nature Say Goodbye? – Loss, Renewal, and Action in a Disappearing Hemlock Forest. A morning program beginning at 10:00 am will include presentations on the science and policy of invasive insects, a poetry reading, and a short film screening. The program will be followed by family-friendly guided tours of the field-based Hemlock Hospice art exhibit, which will close its year-long run in November 2018.

Hemlock Hospice is an art-science collaboration between David Buckley Borden, 2016-2017 artist and designer-in-residence at the Harvard Forest, and Harvard Forest Senior Ecologist Aaron Ellison. It features innovative art installed in the Fisher Museum and along a new interpretative walking trail, focused on eastern hemlock, a foundation tree in eastern forests that is slowly vanishing from North America as it is weakened and killed by a small insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Hemlock Hospice blends science, art, and design in respecting hemlock and its ecological role as a foundation forest species; promoting an understanding of the adelgid; and encouraging empathetic conversations among all the sustainers of and caregivers for our forests—ecologists and artists, foresters and journalists, naturalists and citizens—while fostering social cohesion around ecological issues.

Hemlock Hospice is more than an art-science collaboration; it is also an educational initiative. Associated public workshops and print and social media are available to promote reflection, critical thinking, and creativity among scientists, artists, educators, humanists, and the general public. A diverse group of media partners will bring the concepts to a broad range of people in and outside the arts and sciences.

For directions and more information visit http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/hemlock-hospice