The Olana Partnership Hosts “Lessons from the Land” with Herban Cura at Olana State Historic Site

Event Offered Free for Columbia and Greene County Residents

Hudson, NY - The Olana Partnership will host its second “Lessons from the Land” event at Olana State Historic Site this Friday, September 15 at 5:00 PM in collaboration with Antonia Pérez, co-founder of Herban Cura. The event is part of a series that explores how humanity shapes the landscape and how the land shapes us. This program is offered to all Columbia and Greene County residents for free as part of a Humanities NY Vision/Action grant award. This funding also supports Spanish-language translators during each event to broaden access to this program and to Olana. 

During “Turning to the Plants: A Guided Plant Walk through Olana,” participants will learn about several medicinal and food plants growing at Olana and how we can build mutually regenerative relationships with the natural world. Antonia Pérez will share some of the stories of the land, how specific plants got there, and the messages plants have to share with us all about the history of settler colonialism and displacement.  Antonia Estela Pérez is a Chilean-American clinical herbalist, gardener, educator and community organizer who studied environmental and urban studies at Bard College and Clinical Herbalism at Arborvitae School of Traditional Herbal Medicine.

During each Lessons from the Land program, naturalists, herbalists, and ecologists lend a new perspective on Olana’s 250 acres. By connecting their expertise with Olana’s physical landscape through dialogue and hands-on explorations, each visiting speaker will give a deeper understanding of Olana not only as a historic artist-designed landscape but as a site for appreciating the natural world and exploring humanity’s connections to and histories with the land. This program series uses this season’s exhibition Terraforming: Olana’s Historic Photography Collection Unearthed as a framework to provide perspective on the earth around us and examine the layered ways humanity interacts with the natural world.

The series will culminate on Saturday, October 14 at 10:30 AM with “Walking in Wonder” led by The Outside Institute.  Laura Chávez Silverman, founding naturalist of The Outside Institute, will guide participants in accessing their curiosity and sense of awe in nature. A walk throughout Olana’s artist-designed landscape will give participants a chance to observe ecological conditions and think more about the relationship between humans and their surroundings. Identifying flora, fauna and fungi’s edible and medicinal properties will help participants cultivate a more intimate connection to their surroundings.

Un traductor de español estará presente durante los programas. Para obtener más información, visite OLANA.org.

“Lessons from the Land” supports Humanities New York’s vision to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, and to create engaged inquiry and dialogue around social and cultural concerns.

Free refreshments will be served following each program.  Space is limited and advance registration is required. This program is FREE for Columbia and Greene County residents, $15 per person or $10 for members of The Olana Partnership. For more information or to register visit OLANA.org, email education@olana.org, or call (518) 751-6938.           

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About Olana and The Olana Partnership: Olana is the greatest masterwork of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the most famous American landscape artist of the mid-19th century and the most important artist’s home, studio, and designed landscape in the United States. Church designed Olana as a holistic environment integrating his advanced ideas about art, architecture, landscape design, and environmental conservation. Olana’s 250-acre artist-designed landscape with five miles of carriage roads and a Persian-inspired house at its summit embraces unrivaled panoramic views of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains and welcomes more than 170,000 visitors annually. The landscape is open for guided touring, and reservations are highly recommended. The landscape is open daily 8 AM-sunset.   

Olana State Historic Site, administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, is a designated National Historic Landmark and one of the most visited sites in the state. The Olana Partnership is the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit cooperative partner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation at Olana State Historic Site.