BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Seattle Art Museum//Events Calendar//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:whats-on/events/sam-talks-aiyesha-ghani-rivera-apr-12-26@sam.org DTSTAMP:20260510T160253Z DTSTART:20260412T210000Z DTEND:20260412T220000Z SUMMARY:SAM Talks: Contemporary Indigenous Cultures and Knowledge Making DESCRIPTION:Spring and fall bring our new science talk series to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Each session invites leading researchers to illuminate the natural wo rld through dynamic conversations set against the park’s inspiring collecti on of sculpture and landscapes.\nContemporary Indigenous Cultures and Knowl edge Making\nIn this talk\, geospatial researcher and interdisciplinary art ist Aiyesha Ghani-Rivera examines the role of technology in building contem porary knowledge through the lens of Indigenous scholarship and culture.\nW hat’s considered “valid” and “scientific” in research stems from relatively recent systems rooted in bias\, dominance\, and extraction. But for millen nia\, Indigenous societies have relied on observation and cultural integrat ion to build and hold knowledge.\nLearn about Ghani-Rivera’s current projec ts as an ORISE Fellow with the US Forest Service at the International Insti tute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico and her scientific and artistic pr actice repositioning Indigenous communities as central to imagining the fut ure.\nAbout Aiyesha Ghani-Rivera\nAiyesha M Ghani-Rivera is a Borikén-based (Puerto Rico) geospatial science/arts researcher x ceramic practitioner x AISES 2025 Rematriation Scholar of Jibara-Boricua &\; South-Asian herita ge. Her work uses visual narratives rooted in contemporary indigeneity\, ca rrying muti-ethnic Caribbean island/archipelagic ontologies to reinforce a diaspora/native Boricua cultural identity as a living indigenous epistemolo gy. Her mission is to advocate for the preservation of the lands and waters of Boriken\, as well as facilitate indigenous solidarity &\; sovereignt y in collaborative spaces for contemporary arts and science research\, as w ell as cultural preservation through language utiliztion in the arts and sc iences\, knowledge-making and cultural exchange.\nGraduating with a Master of Fine Arts (Interdisciplinary Studio) from The Hartford Art School (2022) \, and a Master of Science from the University of Oklahoma’s College of Atm ospheric and Geographic Sciences (2025)\, her research focused on mapping A lmastacea Sagittaria lancifolia\, a freshwater wetland rush sometimes commo nly known as ‘wapato’.  She continues to focus on interdisciplinary arts an d research in the geosciences\, through inclusion and visibility of natural resources as cultural resources\, place-based frameworks\, and archipelagi c geographies. Aiyesha was awarded the American Geophysical Union Student T ravel Award in 2025 to present a poster summary of her work entitled “Remot e Sensing and Machine Learning as Contemporary Indigenous Knowledge: Connec ting Everglades Water Resources\, Coqui Conservation\, and the return of Ya kima Indigenous Foodways”.\nHer works are on display across the US\, as wel l as in private collections across the Americas\, and their experimental vi deo work has been shown worldwide as part of the “Water\, Heritage\, &\; Climate” Miami New Media Festival in 2018/2019. In 2019\, they initiated t he Higher Ground Collective\, which hosted a site-specific international x local group exhibition “In Response to Rising Tides\, Falling Water Levels\ , &\; Missing Relatives” that addressed the ties between disconnection f rom natural cycles\, gender violence\, ecological violence\, and the power dynamics underlying patriarchal spaces &\; climates of crises.\nCurrentl y\, Ghani-Rivera is an ORISE Research Fellow with the USDA- US Forest Servi ce International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) in at the University of Puerto Rico’s Jardin Botanico in Rio Piedras\, Puerto Rico. LOCATION:Olympic Sculpture Park\, 2901 Western Ave\, Seattle\, WA 98121 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR