Join us for a conversation introducing Heart Beating Beneath the Earth, a book of photographs and the writings they inspired, relating to Baltimore's many ecosystems!

Learn of editor Jann’s surprise and delight after receiving poetry and prose illuminating diverse themes such as gardens, human impact on the world, mythology, and time. Writers will read their contributions followed by an informal discussion intended to shed a growing awareness of Baltimore’s ecosystems, including green spaces, watersheds, and stream ecology. Representatives from Baltimore’s Green Space and Baltimore Ecosystem Study will be present.

Click here to RSVP!

Books will be available for sale at the event.

About the panelists:

Dr. Ken Belt is an aquatic ecologist, ecohydrologist, civil engineer and photographer. He is retired, after 40 years with Baltimore City DPW and the USDA Forest Service/Baltimore Ecosystem Study and still building on his ecological and engineering knowledge. In recent years he has enjoyed teaching at UMBC and at the Natural History Society of Maryland, where he is a volunteer curator specializing in stream ecology and aquatic insects.  Presently He is writing about the “urban watershed continuum,” which takes a holistic perspective that includes the ecology of streams, engineered infrastructure and their human communities. Also, he is interested in using “community science”, photography and other arts to connect people to their ecosystems and in how scientists study them.

Marcus Civin is an Assistant Dean at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He grew up in Baltimore but didn't like it much until more recently. He writes about art and makes artworks that involve writing. His writing has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Art Papers, Afterimage, Boston Art Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Camera Austria, Damn Magazine, Maake Magazine, Full Bleed, and other publications. He is grateful for conversations he's had about the environment that have made it into print and considered sentient rocks, neon plants, Georgia O'Keeffe, the Arctic Circle, and interspecies healing.

Dr. LaShay Harvey, is a professor, seamstress, collage artist and Interim Associate Dean of Student Learning and Research in Graduate Studies here at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Dr. Harvey has always been attracted to creation stories: those stories that tell how something became. LaShay’s work and career interrogates not only how something comes to be (that is to say, born or birthed) but also examines the narratives that surround birth and becoming. To this end, Dr. Havey holds a PhD in Human Sexuality Studies, and a Master’s Degree in Education. She has taught and trained on sexuality education for 20 years and has been inside the college classroom for almost 10 years where she has received teaching awards and fellowships. Her most recent course, taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) entitled, “Narratives, Black Women & Art” was her pièce de résistance. Dr. Harvey was born in Southeast Georgia and raised in Northeast Florida and this space and positionality informs everything she does, and nothing, all at the same time.

Paul Jaskunas is the author of the novel Hidden (Free Press), which won the Friends of American Writers Award, and of two books forthcoming next year: The Atlas of Remedies (a novella, from Stillhouse Press) and The News from Norway (a poetry chapbook, from Finishing Line Press). His fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in numerous periodicals, including The New York Times, America, Tab, The Windhover, and The Comstock Review. He teaches literature and writing at the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

Katie Lautar is the Executive Director of Baltimore Green Space.  Born and raised in Baltimore, she came to this work through her love of Baltimore, nature, and communities. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Education with a focus in Equity Studies, and has more than 16 years’ experience in nonprofit management, community organizing, and educational program development. She earned her Masters at Lesley University, living outdoors in different bio-regions. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Aileen Hughes Award recognizing her for “forward-thinking and innovative approaches to urban land trusts and the inclusion of urban forest stewardship”.

Jann Rosen-Queralt is an artist, avid scuba diver and researcher whose interdisciplinary artwork integrates structures, biological processes and ecological systems to trigger public action and awareness. Driven by a robust curiosity, her concepts reveal unseen – yet unifying – details and occurrences in nature. Some examples are: Percolare, a sculpture that feeds a rain garden, Raleigh, NC. and Confluence, a kinetic sculpture celebrating water cleansing at the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment facility in Seattle, WA. Rosen-Queralt’s artwork has been supported by a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2018), a Marcella Brenner grant for research at the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona (2022), and an art and science residency in the Arctic Circle (2023). 

Event Details