Weaving Together: Ecologies in Practice Visiting Artist Lecture's Main Page Image About the 2024/25 Visiting Artist Lecture SeriesInspired by MCAD students' first-year common read of Diane Wilson’s The Seed Keeper and the MCAD Gallery’s Faculty Biennial exhibition, this year's Visiting Artist program offers a thematic series: Weaving Together: Ecologies in Practice.Featuring; Natasha Bowdoin, Jenna Caravello, Nicola López and William Morrow, Diane Wilson, and Pao Houa Her ’09.About MCAD’s common read The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson: The idea of a common read, a book that the whole campus or an entire class reads and discusses, has been batted about at MCAD for at least a decade. There are many reasons why common reads appeal to educators; they can provide a shared intellectual experience, address a common theme, and engage students as a community of learning. In 2019 the Liberal Arts Department decided to move in the direction of a common read by requiring that all first-year students taking the required Writing & Inquiry class read the same novel. The Seed Keeper is a story of the survivance of the Dakota people in the face of devastating waves of conquest and assimilation, the power of culture, women, place, and community, and the resilience of nature. The book dovetails wonderfully with this year’s Visiting Artist Committee theme “Weaving Together: Ecologies in Practice.” Wilson’s story weaves together complex narratives of race, history, and memory that are centered on their relationship to plants, soil, and ecology.–Gerald Ronning, Chair of Liberal Arts