Book cover courtesy of Milkweed Editions
Seed Keeper
All My Relations Arts is ushering in spring with Seed Week, a celebration of seeds through art, music, storytelling, gardening demonstrations, and the release of award-winning Dakota writer Diane Wilson’s latest book, The Seed Keeper. This week through March 12, All My Relations Arts and the Native American Community Development Institute have collaborated with local organizations that uplift the role of seeds in Indigenous cultural traditions: partners include Birchbark Books, Dream of Wild Health, Hennepin County Library, and Milkweed Editions.
Seed Week kicks off Monday with traditional seed storytelling with Hope Flanagan, Jim Rock, and Rocky Makes Room for Them. Tuesday marks the official book release of The Seed Keeper from Milkweed Editions: the Zoom event will include a reading by Wilson, a video poem created by Indigenous filmmaker Missy Whiteman, and readings from Dakota writers Teresa Peterson and Gabrielle Tateyuskanskan. The rest of Seed Week will feature a seed planting demonstration, a sunflower cookie cooking demo from Native youth leaders, music performances from Keith Secola, and a Q&A session with Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, Indigenous Food Network, Four Sisters (a project by NACDI), and others.
Wilson is an acclaimed Dakota author: her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award. She’s also the executive co-director of Dream of Wild Health farm in Hugo, MN, which aims to restore health in the Native community through Indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways. Her new novel, The Seed Keepers, tells a multi-generational story of a Dakota family working to protect their way of life, and remembering their original relationship to seeds. Copies of The Seed Keeper and seed packets are available in limited supply at All My Relations Art Gallery on Franklin Avenue, where Seed Stories: Art by Holly Young and Xavier Tavera will be exhibited through March 27.
