Indigenous Peoples' Day: Remembering Roots Through Art, Culture & Community
Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day at the Missouri Botanical Garden with an afternoon of art, culture, food, storytelling, and family connection. The program invites visitors of all ages to explore the living connections between Indigenous knowledge, plants, biodiversity, migration, family histories, and cultural traditions.
Bilingual artist, educator, and environmental researcher Aymara Duran-Calla leads three hands-on family activities inspired by Remembering Roots, their solo exhibition of clay murals and art installations displayed in the Garden’s Lelia J. and David N. Farr Auditorium.
The exhibition presents Indigenous knowledge as living, contemporary, and connected to biodiversity. It explores botanical origins, Indigenous foodways, and the shared routes that link crops, migration, family histories, and ecosystems through movement, exchange, adaptation, and memory.
Families can engage with Remembering Roots through creative activities, including:
Frybread Cooking Demonstration12:30 p.m.Continue the celebration through food and storytelling with a frybread cooking demonstration led by Saundra L. McClain-Kloeckener, a member of the Native Women’s Care Circle and a retired Rockwood R-6 School District educator.
An educational consultant, teacher, and storyteller, McClain-Kloeckener brings together food, culture, education, and storytelling. During the demonstration, visitors will have an opportunity to learn about frybread and consider the important ways food can connect generations, preserve stories, and bring communities together.
The demonstration complements the themes of Remembering Roots by highlighting food as a powerful expression of cultural knowledge, memory, resilience, and connection.
About the ArtistAymara Duran-Calla is a bilingual artist, educator, and environmental researcher whose work bridges Indigenous knowledge, ethnobotany, and contemporary visual art. They hold a BFA in Ceramics from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Bolivia and a BS in Biology from the Mayor de San Andrés University in Bolivia.
Duran-Calla has exhibited at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Thomas Dunn Learning Center, and the History Museum and currently teaches art and science at Thomas Dunn Learning Center in St. Louis.
About Saundra L. McClain-KloeckenerSaundra L. McClain-Kloeckener is an educational consultant, teacher, and storyteller and a member of the Native Women’s Care Circle. She is a retired educator from the Rockwood R-6 School District and continues to share knowledge and cultural perspectives through education, storytelling, and community engagement.
Join us for a meaningful day of art, food, storytelling, and family connection as we honor Indigenous knowledge and explore the roots that connect plants, people, culture, and community.
All activities included with Garden admission
Bilingual artist, educator, and environmental researcher Aymara Duran-Calla leads three hands-on family activities inspired by Remembering Roots, their solo exhibition of clay murals and art installations displayed in the Garden’s Lelia J. and David N. Farr Auditorium.
The exhibition presents Indigenous knowledge as living, contemporary, and connected to biodiversity. It explores botanical origins, Indigenous foodways, and the shared routes that link crops, migration, family histories, and ecosystems through movement, exchange, adaptation, and memory.
Families can engage with Remembering Roots through creative activities, including:
- Migration Crops Botanical Game: Match crop images with their places of origin while discovering connections among plants, people, migration, and biodiversity.
- Air-Dry Clay Key Pendants: Create small, low-relief clay pendants inspired by plant textures and the exhibition’s themes of crop heritage and botanical connections.
- Ancestral Tree: Gather stories, photographs, and drawings of grandparents and great-grandparents to create a family tree that reflects personal roots, memory, migration, and connections across generations.
Frybread Cooking Demonstration12:30 p.m.Continue the celebration through food and storytelling with a frybread cooking demonstration led by Saundra L. McClain-Kloeckener, a member of the Native Women’s Care Circle and a retired Rockwood R-6 School District educator.
An educational consultant, teacher, and storyteller, McClain-Kloeckener brings together food, culture, education, and storytelling. During the demonstration, visitors will have an opportunity to learn about frybread and consider the important ways food can connect generations, preserve stories, and bring communities together.
The demonstration complements the themes of Remembering Roots by highlighting food as a powerful expression of cultural knowledge, memory, resilience, and connection.
About the ArtistAymara Duran-Calla is a bilingual artist, educator, and environmental researcher whose work bridges Indigenous knowledge, ethnobotany, and contemporary visual art. They hold a BFA in Ceramics from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Bolivia and a BS in Biology from the Mayor de San Andrés University in Bolivia.
Duran-Calla has exhibited at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Thomas Dunn Learning Center, and the History Museum and currently teaches art and science at Thomas Dunn Learning Center in St. Louis.
About Saundra L. McClain-KloeckenerSaundra L. McClain-Kloeckener is an educational consultant, teacher, and storyteller and a member of the Native Women’s Care Circle. She is a retired educator from the Rockwood R-6 School District and continues to share knowledge and cultural perspectives through education, storytelling, and community engagement.
Join us for a meaningful day of art, food, storytelling, and family connection as we honor Indigenous knowledge and explore the roots that connect plants, people, culture, and community.
All activities included with Garden admission