02/27/2026
Curating Landscape Narrative: Bridging the Nature–Culture Divide
📍 Burns Auditorium
🗓 Wednesday, March 4
⏰ 6:00 PM
In her 2023 keynote at the American Society of Landscape Architects conference, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson challenged designers to “design in” rather than “design with” nature — calling for a fundamental shift in how we approach land-use design.
Building on this provocation, Elizabeth J. Kennedy, FASLA, RLA will examine the landscape architect’s role as curator of landscape narratives — questioning which cultural memories, identities, and ecological stories are told, how, and by whom. Her lecture explores site specificity, the intersection of cultural heritage and natural systems, and how small-scale design thinking can resonate globally.
Elizabeth J. Kennedy is a Design Trust for Public Space Research Fellow, the 2021 ASLA NY President’s Awardee for Service and Leadership, and the 2022 recipient of the Landscape Architecture Foundation Medal, honoring her distinguished work in landscape sustainability and advancing cultural heritage and ecology in socially just ways. Elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows in 2021, she currently chairs the Council through 2027.
Founder of EKLA (est. 1994), Kennedy leads a practice known for translating complex cultural narratives into grounded, site-specific design solutions that confront systemic bias and restore visibility to historically marginalized voices. Her disciplined, minimally invasive approach exemplifies landscape architecture’s potential to expand our understanding of place and identity.
Join us for an evening of critical conversation and reflection.
