Running February - April 2024, Living Futures Saturdays is a monthly event series featuring climate-engaged presenters from a variety of disciplines. Join us as we listen, learn, and create community and new knowledge.
Our February 3rd event will feature presentations from fiber artist River Takada and Duke Campus Farm Program Director Saskia Cornes, followed by community conversation and connection. Individual tickets are now available for in-person attendance at American Underground in Durham, NC, or via livestream. For discounted tickets to all three spring LFS events, check out the Series Pass.
Presentation topics:
“Mindful Stitching: A practice in honoring our ancestors, and taking care of the textiles in our life with Sashiko Stitching” with River Takada
Sashiko Stitching is Japanese Geometric Embroidery dating back to the 18th century. Learn the fundamentals of the decorative art of Sashiko with local textile arts instructor River Takada. River will lead the group through demonstrations on how to create surface designs through the Japanese technique of hand stitching repeat patterns on fabric to add design, texture, stability and strength. Hand stitching done mindfully and intentionally can elongate the lifespan of textiles and bring peace to those who practice.
During this creative session, River will briefly share the history of Japanese Boro. Fabric, sewing needles and thread will be provided.
Learn more about River Takada, about booking private lessons or taking a workshop, at www.rivtak.com.
“Soil Matters: Re-meeting the earth beneath our feet” with Dr. Saskia Cornes
Why does soil matter? What does it mean to work it or work with it? How might we repair our (mostly) broken relationship to the ground beneath our feet? This talk by Duke Campus Farm Program Director Saskia Cornes explores how the practice of growing food, on any scale, can be an active form of hope, and a pathway into a vibrant relationship with the soil communities that sustain us.
About the Presenters
Dr. Saskia Cornes is an assistant professor of the practice at Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and Program Director of the Duke Campus Farm. A Renaissance literature scholar by training, she holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, where she focused on the emergence of private property as a guiding logic in the culture and agriculture of 17th century England (and into the present day). A farmer by vocation, she learned sustainable agriculture through a range of apprenticeships on urban and rural farms, and through post-graduate study in organic agriculture at the Center for Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. In her work now, she weaves teaching, farming, and more traditional forms of research together to rethink our relationship to food, and to the land and people that grow it.
Born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in Carrboro, NC, River Takada grew up with an appreciation for the constant change in nature & the beauty of functional art. Now in her early thirties, River is focusing on teaching sewing and textiles classes, sharing her passion, in addition to her love of designing new products. River is an art and LGBTQ community advocate who turned her dream of creative and social practice into a passionate career. On most days, you'll find her in her studio in Durham, NC, designing, sewing, screen printing and outside dyeing fabric. When River is not working for her business, she is teaching fiber arts at community centers around the state. She has taught at The Scrap Exchange, The ArtsCenter, The NC Museum of Art, Freeman’s Creative, NCSU Craft Center and Making Space; and many small private groups. River loves to work with kids and adults, empowering folks by sharing the creative and vocational powers of sewing and other creative skills.