City Mosses

„City Mosses“ is the name of a text by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We read it together at the opening of our Reading Group in the FFT foyer and learned, among other things, that the city provides some habitats for mosses that „would be extremely unusual in the wild“. Window ledges, hydrants and power boxes, but also the cracks and joints of statues and monument counters. Robin Wall Kimmerer invites people to specifically look for mosses in the urban environment because they are an indicator of air quality. The leaflets of moss function like our alveoli, we are so similar.

So we set out to look for moss around the theater, which is right in the center of the city. Solveig, one of the participants in the Reading Group, has already started photographing moss that she came across on her way through the city. She has donated her photos to us. Thank you!

Robin Wall Kimmerer, born in 1953, is a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her 2013 book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”, has been on the New York Times bestseller list continuously since early 2020. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

„Gathering Moss“ was published in German in 2022; the original is from 2005, and gathers personal reflections on mosses as organisms at the edge of our everyday perception, enriched with indigenous ways of knowing and scientific knowledge. From them, with Robin Wall Kimmerer, we can learn much about frugality, resilience, and connectedness.

The reading suggestion comes from Siegmar Zacharias, with whom we are implementing the project „Re_Generation“ at the FFT in the 2022/23 season. As a cooperation partner, the Iniatiative „Cheers for Fears“ has invited to the Reading Group together with us. The next date is December 13.