Solidarity Gardening Forever

Solidarity Gardening Forever: Reflecting on Working-Class Connections to the Land.

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

Info: Special tour with featured artists Carlos Flores and Olly Costello, Hull-House Curator Ross Jordan, and NEH Climate Smart Fellow Calen Geiser-Cseh.

Info: This panel explores contemporary urban gardening in Chicago, especially focusing on how refugees and communities of color support food sovereignty, community health, and urban ecology through farming and gardening.

Info: This panel explores the links between traditional food heritage and political sovereignty in Mexico and Turtle Island.

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Host or Publisher Jane Addams Hull-House Museum