Monday, November 4, at 6:00 p.m. in Griffiths Room 123
Lecture by Akwesasne artist Katsitsionni Fox

Designed to accompany the construction of the Tibetan Buddhist Chenrezig sand mandala, the exhibition is inspired by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s book, Our Only Home, which so eloquently calls for compassion as we face the climate crisis, our greatest challenge. He writes, “Climate change is an issue that affects the whole of humanity. But if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment will be well-balanced, and so will our relations with our neighbors. Our Mother Earth is teaching us a lesson in universal responsibility. Therefore, each of us as individuals has a responsibility to ensure that the world will be safe for future generations, for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

The exhibition brings together artworks and cultural artifacts from indigenous cultures around the world that reflect, like the Tibetan Buddhist vision, the shared wisdom and compassion that care for the Earth, our only home. A series of prints by featured Akwesasne artist, Katsitsionni Fox—on whose traditional Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) lands the mandala will be constructed—is accompanied by paintings, textiles, and ceramics from North America, South America, and India.

“One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence.”

-Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,
Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

---

Katsitsionni Fox,
What Are We Leaving for the 7^th Generation? (detail),
collagraph with embossings, 2002

Fox reminds us of the effects of our choices, “Our actions have a ripple effect, like a stone thrown into water. They affect our children, their children, and the ones yet to come. We in turn feel the effects of the actions of generations before us, whether they are positive or negative in nature.” We continue to see the results of our actions, now more urgently than ever. Time is passing.  

Over ten years ago, His Holiness wrote, “Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.” When the sand, which will form the exquisite mandala for a brief time, is poured into moving water as the final stage of the ritual, each grain of sand, however small, will create ripples. What ripples will our own actions make?

Overlapping Buddhist and Indigenous perspectives on nature and the environment call for respect and care for all beings, kinship with them, gratitude, and reciprocity. They remind us that our attitude and actions matter and affect the present and the future. Thus, the exhibition is also a gentle call to action.Tibetan Buddhists believe that simply viewing a mandala can put the observer in touch with the profound potential for perfect enlightenment that exists within every mind. During a post-Covid era of heightened psychological and emotional duress, here and around the world, the Chenrezig sand mandala offers wholeness, balance, unity, connection, and harmony.

– Morgan Perkins, associate professor of cultural anthropology and museum studies, SUNY Potsdam
– Cathy Shrady, professor emerita of geology, SLU