Garden of Refuge Symposium

Speakers:

John Martini, Senior Landscape Architect, University of Cincinnati Office of Planning, Design + Construction

Dr. Vanessa Agnew, Professor of Cultural Studies, TU Dortmund
Vanessa Agnew was Professor in Anglophone Studies at University of Duisburg-Essen until 2023 and is now in the Faculty of Cultural Studies at TU Dortmund; Honorary Professor in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at Australian National University, and Associate Director of Academy in Exile. Agnew’s Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds (Oxford, 2008) won the Oscar Kenshur Prize and the American Musicological Society’s Lewis Lockwood Award. The recipient of research grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and German Academic Exchange Service, Agnew has coedited Settler and Creole Reenactment (Palgrave, 2010), Criticism 46 (2004) and Rethinking History 11(2007), Refugee Routes (transcript, 2020), The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies (Routledge, 2020), and Reenactment Case Studies (Routledge, 2023). Agnew is PI on grants from the Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Allianz Foundation to support Academy in Exile. In 2022, Agnew launched Ostrakon to publish articles on forced migration and climate issues. Co-curated exhibitions include Right to Arrive (Canberra, 2018), Fixing What’s Broken (Berlin, 2023), and What We Brought with Us (Re:Writing the Future Festival, 2021; German Literature Archive Marbach, 2022; Goethe-Institut New York and University of Cincinnati, 2023). Agnew’s Wir schaffen das – We’ll Make It (Sefa Verlag, 2021) has been translated into Ukrainian, Arabic, and Farsi. Agnew’s current project is λεῖμμα (leîmma): Remnantal Responses to Flight.

This panel explores the role that gardens play in recreating and creating culture, specifically agriculture, foodways, and culinary practices. Join us for a conversation on the intersection of migration, community gardens, plant and seed diasporas, and the culinary fusions that emerge from these ingredients.

Speakers:

R. Alan Wight, Associate Professor, Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences; School and Community Forest Garden Liaison, University of Cincinnati
R. Alan Wight, Ph.D., is an environmental sociologist and educator. He is an Associate Professor at The Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences and the School and Community Forest Garden Liaison for the University of Cincinnati (UC). He teaches Fruit and Nut Production at Cincinnati State Technical & Community College and Hops & History for UC’s Horticulture Program. Alan has chronicled the Cincinnati regional food movement, working with the Green Umbrella’s Food Policy Council and other partners. His recent publication, a beautiful coffee table book, Cincinnati’s Foodshed: An Art Atlas. 

Dominic Bley, Director of Education, Garden of Joy Culinary Academy
Dominic Bley is a chef, educator, and cultural researcher whose work lives at the intersection of food, art, and embodied learning. Holding a Master’s in Art Education from the University of Cincinnati, he serves as the Director of Education at Garden of Joy Culinary Academy, designing programming for young people navigating trauma and systemic barriers. He works from the conviction that love and care have the power to transform our most painful experiences into joy. With this mindset, he treats the kitchen as a sanctuary for healing and connection. By centering the cultural knowledge students bring to the table, Dominic explores how shared food stories can cultivate authentic belonging and a legacy rooted in love.

Victor Kubwimana, Student, LaSalle High School
Victor Kubwimana is currently a Junior at LaSalle High School and was previously a student at Aiken High School. Victor has involvement in community agriculture through Aiken’s Career Technical Education Pathway, work-based learning at The Bahr Farm in College Hill, and is featured in the current photography exhibit of “Culture Crops” at Miami University. Victor and his family emigrated from Zambia in August of 2022.

Karen Uwimana, Student, Aiken High School
Karen Uwimana is currently a Senior at Aiken High School. Karen has involvement in community agriculture through Aiken’s Career Technical Education Pathway, FFA Leadership, work-based learning at The Bahr Farm in College Hill, Groundworks Ohio River Valley, and Luminary by LaTerza. Karen is a Woodson Scholar with Berea College where she will mariculture the Fall on a full-ride scholarship. Karen and her family emigrated from Zambia in August of 2022.

Aaron Parker, Agriculture Career Tech Educator, Farm Manager and FFA Advisor, Aiken High School
Aaron Parker is an educator of 29 years. He holds a Masters in Bilingual-Multicultural Education from Northern Arizona University and a BA in Archaeology from The Ohio State University and has been honored by the English Language Learning Foundation of Cincinnati, Rotary Club of Cincinnati, Cincinnatus Association, Green Umbrella, Anthony Munoz Foundation, World Affairs Council, and Cincinnati Public Schools Hawkins Award for excellence in teaching. Aaron is currently the Agriculture Career Tech Educator, Farm Manager, and FFA Advisor of Aiken High School’s Agriculture Career Tech Pathway. Aaron was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH where he lives with his wife and visit their son in Washington DC when they can.

Speakers:

Steven Handel, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution Emeritus, Rutgers University
Steven Handel studies the potential to restore native plant communities after environmental disturbance, adding sustainable ecological services, biodiversity, and amenities to the landscape. He has explored problems of coastal, urban, and heavily degraded lands. Working with both biologists and landscape designers, he is improving our understanding of ecological restoration protocols and applying these concepts to public environmental projects.

He is a Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution Emeritus at Rutgers University and was Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design during 2016-2019. Previously, he was a biology professor and director of the Marsh Botanic Garden at Yale University. He also was awarded an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Ecology at the University of California, Irvine and was Visiting Professor of Ecology at Stockholm University, Sweden, in 2009.

Dr. Handel is a Fellow and Certified Senior Ecologist of the Ecological Society of America and was the Editor of the professional journal Ecological Restoration for 13 years. He was named the 2024 Distinguished Fellow of the Botanical Society of America, their highest professional honor. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Australian Institute of Biology, and The Explorers Club. In 2007, he was elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for “national or international significant achievements… to the profession.” ASLA then awarded him The LaGasse Medal (2023) for “notable contributions to the management and conservancy of natural resources and public landscapes.” He received the Society for Ecological Restoration’s international research honor, the Theodore M. Sperry Award, in 2011 “for pioneering work in the restoration of urban areas.” He has led national workshops for the U.S. EPA to train environmental specialists in ecology. In professional service, he was President of the Torrey Botanical Society, Associate Editor of Evolution, and Chair of the Plant Population Section of the Ecological Society of America. Also, he served on the State of New Jersey Invasive Species Council, recommending new public policies to halt habitat degradation. 

He has been a lead member of landscape design teams doing ecological restoration in urban parks and other public landscapes, including the Freshkills, St. Mary’s, and Brooklyn Bridge Parks in NYC, the Greenway and Liberty State Parks in NJ, Duke Farms Foundation 2,700 acre holdings, the Great Falls and Morristown National Historical Parks in NJ, the landscape for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games, the 1,450 acre Orange County Great Park in California, The Riverline in Buffalo, NY, and the forestlands of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta. Recognition for this work includes 2008 and 2009 ASLA National Awards of Honor for Analysis & Planning, 2009 and 2015 ASLA National Honor Awards for Research, 2009 American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Honor Award in Regional & Urban Design, and the 2009 American Planning Association National Planning Excellence Award for Innovation in Regional Planning, the 2015 ASLA National Honor Award for Communication, and the NJASLA 2019 Merit Award in Research for protecting coastal habitats from sea level rise. The NSF, EPA, USDA, National Park Service, and private foundations have supported his research. Handel has been an invited lecturer at over 250 universities and meetings, teaching his concepts for improving urban landscapes.

Lunch TBD

Speakers:

Fatemeh Rezeai, Garden of Refuge Graduate Fellow, University of Cincinnati
Fatemeh Rezaei, born in Iran to Afghan parents, is a documentary photographer based in Cincinnati, USA, and a former fellow of Academy in Exile, TU Dortmund, Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Photography from the Art University of Tehran, Iran. She is currently pursuing dual master’s degrees in Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she is also a graduate assistant in the Taft Research Center. Since 2018, she has participated in numerous workshops and group exhibitions, including the Two Cities Project, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service and conducted with Iranian and German students, and the Night Lab program hosted by the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) in New York in 2023.

Among Rezaei’s exhibitions is Identity, a photo series on the role that ID cards play in the lives of Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran, mainly focusing on the emotional and psychological effects imposed by a tenuous legal status in a foreign country. Rather than being granted citizenship, they are provided with a so-called “Amayesh” card, an identification document that falls short of the full rights and responsibilities that citizenship would afford. Through a photographic exploration of the experiences of individuals who have been forced to leave their home countries due to conflict and state collapse, this project shows how ID cards can define and shape a person’s life in the diaspora. Fatemeh’s work explores themes of migration, women’s rights, and public spaces through visual storytelling.

Cities shape human health as powerfully as medicine. Growing evidence shows that access to urban nature, trees, parks, and biodiverse green spaces. can improve physical,  mental, and social well-being. This presentation examines how neighborhood greenness influences cardiovascular health through environmental and psychosocial pathways, including reduced air pollution, lower stress, increased physical activity, stronger social cohesion, and enhanced biodiversity.

Findings from the Green Heart Project, the first large-scale randomized urban greening interventions, demonstrate that increasing tree canopy in underserved neighborhoods can measurably improve environmental conditions and reduce biological markers of cardiovascular risk. The findings suggest that designing cities with nature is not only an ecological or aesthetic choice, but a powerful public health strategy capable of preventing chronic disease and creating healthier, more resilient communities.

Speakers:

Aruni Bhatnagar, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, University of Louisville

Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar is the Smith & Lucille Gibson Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Environmental Medicine, and Director of the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute at the University of Louisville. 

A Fellow of the American Heart Association, he is recognized as a pioneer in the field of environmental cardiology, which examines how environmental exposures affect cardiovascular health and disease risk. His research explores how oxidative stress from internal and environmental sources contributes to cardiovascular disease. 

Dr. Bhatnagar has authored hundreds of scientific publications and is the recipient of the Norman Alpert Award by the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences and the Outstanding Mentor Award by the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools. He is the principal investigator of The Green Heart Louisville Project, a groundbreaking, community-based clinical trial to examine how an increase in neighborhood greenery affects the levels of air pollution and cardiovascular disease risk. He is also the host of the podcast “Elements of Nature.”

Explore the University of Cincinnati's campus gardens, including the Garden of Refuge.