“Hear Nature Cleansing.” These words are the first thing visitors see when they cross the bridge from the Visitor Center at the Chicago Botanic Garden this summer. The prominent display on Bird Island prompts questions and reflection from the outset.
That reaction is at the heart of the art installation Of Earth and Sky, created by poet Keli Stewart and artist Luke Jerram for Flourish: The Garden at 50, the Garden’s 50th birthday celebration that runs through September 25. The words are actually poetry excerpts that aim to evoke the emotional connections we all form with the natural world—through our memories, our families, and our day-to-day experiences—as well as the role nature plays in helping communities thrive.
Stewart hopes that when visitors encounter Of Earth and Sky, they will stop and absorb the phrases and then carry the themes throughout their time at the Garden. “I want them to breathe,” Stewart said. “It’s kind of forcing people to pause. To take a moment to be in nature. To just exist, and to celebrate the space that the Chicago Botanic Garden has created over the last 50 years.”
Stewart curated the excerpts, selecting them from poetry written by youth and staff from Windy City Harvest, the Garden’s urban agriculture initiative.
During two virtual poetry workshops with staff and youth participants at the Farm on Ogden, the Windy City Harvest hub in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood, Stewart led an exploration into personal narratives around plants, food, and farming. They used a variety of writing prompts to dive into their poems, like writing from the point of view of something that doesn’t have a voice—such as soil, or the koi fish in Farm on Ogden’s aquaponics system. Stewart also asked workshop attendees to use their poems to travel to a space in nature where they feel a powerful connection.
“We were really immersed in our memories,” said Ketaurah James, the manager for Windy City Harvest’s VeggieRx program, who helped coordinate the staff workshop. “Hearing other staff stories—it was really emotional.” Ketaurah wrote about a Father’s Day family barbecue in a park when her dad was still alive. “Reminiscing was so vivid,” she said.
And as for the youth participants, “They put a lot of their farm work into their poetry,” said Iririan Francisco, VeggieRx coordinator, who attended the youth workshop. “It was a way to express themselves and get them out of their shells a little bit.”
After the workshops, Stewart took all the poetry and laid it out alongside images of the Garden’s physical spaces for the installation. From there, she excerpted lines that she felt spoke to the experience of the writer and drew a clear connection with the land. She aimed for each line to offer “a nugget, something we can carry with us that offers hope but also centers memory and nature.”
UK-based artist Luke Jerram then transformed the words into installations, now displayed on Bird Island, the Esplanade, and the walkway toward the Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Stewart will provide new excerpts for the Esplanade as the grass grows and is mowed, celebrating the same themes and creating an evolving experience.
Of Earth and Sky is also on display at Farm on Ogden, with an excerpt on its inner wall overlooking its community market and the word “Flourish” in the parking lot.
“I thought the word [Flourish] speaks so highly of not only what nature does, but what people do, and what we hope neighborhoods will do—flourish and thrive,” Stewart said. “It all points to the cultivation of a neighborhood, a space, that the youth will inherit. Thinking about the future of not only the Garden, but [the Lawndale] neighborhood.”
The artwork’s community connections are personal for Stewart. Her family migrated to Lawndale from Mississippi in the 1950s, and she is the third generation to call it home; she grew up there and in the Austin neighborhood. She’s now the founder of the West Side’s Front Porch Arts Center and last year published a book of poetry, Small Altars. Stewart said the project with the Garden and Windy City Harvest felt like a natural fit.
“So much of my own personal story and history is tied to Lawndale in particular, to a site right across from Farm on Ogden,” Stewart said. “My family’s church [was there], my daycare, and my grandma was a cook in that daycare. So much of my life happened in that basement kitchen.”
Stewart credits one particular garden with helping her flourish: her grandmother’s garden in Lawndale, where she spent childhood afternoons picking flowers to adorn her hair and relaxing next to the fountain. “That space evoked a sense of magic in me very early on,” Stewart said. “It was such a space of solitude in the middle of the city.”
That is the power of gardens and plants. Of Earth and Sky is a meditation on that sense of magic, inviting viewers to welcome it into their Chicago Botanic Garden experience and their lives.