Exhibiting artist Suzanne Husky was joined by a panel of researchers, writers, and naturalists to discuss beaver ecologies and the future of their watersheds in conjunction with the opening of her exhibition For alliances with the beaver people, on view in the Clifford Gallery in Spring 2025. A recording of the event can be found here.
Suzanne Husky is a Franco-American contemporary artist best known for her multidisciplinary environmental practice, which focuses on the relationship between humans and earth. Trained in agroecology and permaculture, her work conjures the regenerative power humans have as a species. She is also a filmmaker, and has made films on a number of environmentally themed topics, such as beaver ecologies, land regeneration, and precision agriculture. Husky started the artistic duo The New Ministry of Agriculture, which creates works of art on agribusiness and agtech and is co-president of the Movement of alliance with the beaver people.
Patti Smith is a naturalist at the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center (BEEC), writer, and certified wildlife rehabilitator. Patti's knowledge of beavers comes from the intimacy of family ties. For the past 16 years she has spent many evenings in the company of beavers that live in the wild forest of her Vermont backyard. She brings a naturalist's sensibility to her time spent with the beavers. She has shared these observations in her book, The Beavers of Popple's Pond. As a wildlife rehabilitator, she spent two years raising a beaver kit, and continues to admire his growing family. She works on beaver advocacy and conflict resolution and has introduced hundreds of people to the world made by beavers.
Neil Patterson Jr. was born into the White Bear Clan as a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation. He is executive director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y. Neil founded the Tuscarora Nation’s Environment Program as a delegate to the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force in 1997 and currently serves on the USEPA Tribal Science Council. He hunts, fishes, and raises traditional foods with his family on the currently recognized territory of the Onondaga Nation.
Mike Loranty is a professor of geography and environmental studies at Colgate University. He studies ecosystem dynamics by combining satellite imagery with field observations. Among his ongoing research are projects focused on understanding the ecological impacts of beaver expansion in the Arctic and geographic variation in the impacts of beaver engineering.
In collaboration with Picker Art Gallery. Co-sponsored by the Colgate Arts Council, Division of University Studies, Environmental Studies Program, Film and Media Studies Program, and the departments of Biology, Romance Languages and Literatures, Geography, and History.