Environment Seminar Series: Building Conservation Networks: How Ancient Trees Support the Future of Our Cities with Lesia Mokrycke
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Speakers
Description
About the Seminar
Building Conservation Networks is an environmental art and creative engagement project that uses art to generate innovative approaches to enhance the urban forest. Produced with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the project combines art and science to raise awareness about old-growth trees in cities, while laying the groundwork for a new type of urban restoration. As part of her talk, Lesia will provide an overview of her research, and discuss how the heritage tree inventory she is building contributes to wider issues of urban design, ecology, and climate in her practice.
About the Speaker
Lesia Mokrycke is the founder of Tropos, a design-driven, multidisciplinary studio in Hamilton where she has established the Urban Forest Lab. Her work looks at generating innovative, nature-based solutions for reimagining city building and urban design problems. She is recognized as a contemporary voice for landscape architecture in Canada who’s creative, conceptual, and contemplative approach to environmental art and design is known for having a positive impact on public space. Lesia worked with leading landscape architecture practices in Seattle, Zürich, and Vancouver before returning to Canada to establish Tropos. She has been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center and Halls Island. In 2021, Lesia was the recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts grant for her work on the urban forest. Lesia graduated with a combined Bachelor’s in Fine Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the School of Arts & Sciences at UPenn with honors, where she studied painting and literature. She earned a Master of Landscape Architecture and a Master of Fine Art degree from the Design School at the University of Pennsylvania. Lesia works extensively with local municipalities to develop educational content that advances public knowledge, and in 2023 she received a second grant with the Canada Council for the Arts to further develop her work with art and the urban forest.