Academy Town Square: Native Foodways of Turtle Island with Sean Sherman

Name: Academy Town Square: Native Foodways of Turtle Island with Sean Sherman
Start: 2026-06-20T13:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-06-20T16:00:00-04:00
Location: 1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA, United States, Pennsylvania 19103

Schedule

Sat Jun 20 2026 at 01:00 pm to 04:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA, United States, Pennsylvania 19103 | Philadelphia, PA

James Beard Award-winning chef Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, is co-founder of the acclaimed restaurant Owamni and founder of North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS) and the Indigenous Food Lab. Through this work, he focuses on revitalizing Indigenous foodways, expanding access to traditional foods and addressing health and economic inequities in Native communities.
Drawing from his new book Turtle Island, Sherman “uncovers the stories behind the foods that have linked the natural environments, traditions and histories of Indigenous peoples across North America for millennia.” Through oral histories and Indigenous culinary traditions, he highlights how the diverse foodways of North America have nourished Indigenous peoples for generations (physically, spiritually and culturally), bringing forward stories that “tell deeper truths about our country and the people who have always been here.”
Following the moderated conversation with WHYY’s Sam Briger, continue the experience through:
A book signing with Sherman
An immersive walk through A Native Plant Garden for Botany of Nations with Indigenous chefs Luke Black Elk and Joe Haber, ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk and Drexel’s Rachel Sherman
Tastings of traditional foods and hands-on tea preparation
This extended program invites you to engage not only with ideas, but also with the living practices that sustain them.
This Academy Town Square is presented in partnership with WHYY and ArtPhilly, and in connection with the exhibition Botany of Nations: Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery.
Schedule of Events:
1– 2:30 p.m. Talk by Sean Sherman, followed by moderated conversation with WHYY’s Sam Briger and Turtle Island book signing
2:30–4 p.m. Experiential Plant Walk in the Garden Club of Philadelphia’s pop-up native plant garden with ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk, chefs Luke Black Elk, Joe Haber and Drexel Food Labs professor Rachel Sherman. Food Tastings, medicinal tea preparations and more!
This event is made possible by the generous support from the Goldsmith Foundation.