At the Miccosukee Casino and Resort, artists, scientists, students and Indigenous community members are coming together today to explore one of South Florida’s major challenges at The Everglades Matter: Miccosukee Arts & Science Symposium (MASS).
Christina Osceola, an Indigenous artist, is participating. Along with several others, she has reimagined drawings made by Europeans of the Miccosukee.
“The point of the project was to allow or give an opportunity to Indigenous artists to recreate these so that they were more accurate,” she said.
The symposium also hosts artwork and research from graduate students at Florida International University such as Paige Kleindl, a biology Ph.D. candidate who studies algae. She was helping set up a presentation that she did with classmates, “The Grotto: Hopes and Dreams.”
Kleindl, who investigates the interactions between aquatic plants and microorganisms in the Everglades, says scientists cannot do the work alone.
“I’m just excited to, like, meet new people, share my work with new people, and just hear their ideas and try to come to maybe a different viewpoint of the Everglades and how we can fix it,” she said. “We need artists, we need humanitarians. We need students. We need elders, everyone to come together to help solve these complex problems.”
