A one-day conference presented in collaboration with Perennial City: Experiments in Urban Gardening (March 19 — December 18, 2026), an exhibition at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum that  reveals how working people—past and present—have used gardening as a tool for creativity, care, and community action.

The day long gathering of artists, growers, scholars, organizers, and University of Illinois Chicago partners from UNAM-Mexico City will explore the transformation of land from industrial use to food production; the preservation of local seeds and the conservation of animal species; the documentation and transmission of agricultural and culinary knowledge; the creation of alternative food networks for distributing and sustaining local crops; and the collective organizing required to defend these systems that nourish us all.

Featuring: 

Sarah Bak-Geller
Researcher and Professor, Institute of Anthropological Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Analú María López
Ayer Librarian and Assistant Curator of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at Newberry Library, Co-Director of Indigenous Chicago

Anna Guevarra
Associate Professor, Global Asian Studies University of Illinois Chicago

Haley LeRand
Urban Growers Collective

Kesiah Bascom
Build Chicago

Co-Sponsors:
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois Chicago
Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois Chicago