Through the Parks Foundation’s always-free Next Generation of Parks™ events, global design innovators and thought-leaders showcase the most exciting new parks destinations, opportunities, and research and delve into important issues of place affecting the Twin Cities community today.
Thanks for Joining Us for the 2022-2023 Season
Healing Severed Connections, with José González, Founder of Latino Outdoors
May 4, 2023 / Watch the video on Vimeo!
During Healing Severed Connections, José González reflected on the arc of his life’s work from teaching in the classroom to doing work related to the outdoors and focusing on equitable access and reconnection to nature. He talked about the origins of Latino Outdoors, a national community celebrating nature and la cultura latina, that grew from a blog he started connecting his passions for both. He also shared stories and experiences that explored what a more inclusive and diverse outdoors community looks like, the intersection of conservation-based landscape restoration and contemporary social justice movements, and how designing parks for the future can be informed by transformative cultural perspectives and practices.
About Our Speaker
In addition to his work with Latino Outdoors and Outdoorist Oath, José G. González is a professional educator with training in the fields of education and conservation while engaging in different artistic endeavors with art and messaging—often exploring the intersection of the environment and culture. As a Partner in the Avarna Group and through his own consulting, his work focuses on Equity & Inclusion frameworks and practices in the environmental, outdoor, and conservation fields. He is also an illustrator and science communicator.
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More From This Season
Play and Restoration in Our Post-Pandemic World, with Mikyoung Kim, FASLA
March 30, 2023 / Watch the video on Vimeo or YouTube
Mikyoung Kim wonders how landscapes make our lives better. Not just aesthetically, but how we as humans are part of these natural and built systems that have such a profound impact on human resiliency and belonging. Her first public talk in 2.5 years, Mikyoung’s Play and Restoration emerged from a consolidated incubation period of creativity. On March 30, she focused on the role public space plays in our semi-post pandemic world in reconnecting and restoring public engagement in our global cities, as well as the ethics of design and our collective goal of creating healthier and more equitable cities that spark our collective imagination.
About Our Speaker
Mikyoung Kim is an international landscape architect, urban designer, and founding principal of Boston-based Mikyoung Kim Design, which is the 2022 ASLA Firm of the Year. Mikyoung has received the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum Design award and the ASLA National Design Medal. Her studio has been named by Fast Company as one of the innovative architecture firms in the world and her talented and collaborative team has received the 2022 Fast Company “Innovation by Design Award” for their work for Ford’s Michigan Central. As a thought leader on restorative urban design, her ideas and work have been highlighted in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, National Geographic, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Architectural Record, Dwell, Surface, Garden Design, and the Chicago Tribune.
Thank You to Our 2022-2023 Sponsors
Join Us As a Sponsor Today!
Email Jennifer Downham at jdownham@mplsparksfoundation.org
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About the Next Generation of Parks Event Series
In 2010, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation helped jump start a conversation about parks design and city-building with our first Next Generation of Parks™ Event Series, hosting landscape designers and park advocates whose work includes The High Line in New York and London’s Green Grid. We have produced a lecture series nearly every year since, always with the goal of demystifying the impact of great design – inspiring thousands to be champions for dynamic, vibrant public space in Minneapolis and throughout the region.
Series Videos 2010-2021
Find more on our YouTube and Vimeo channels.
Past Presenters 2010-2020
- Sabina Ali, Co-Founder & Chair, Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee
- Adam Regn Arvidson, author of Wild & Rare: Tracking Endangered Species in the Upper Midwest
- Paul Bauknight, Project Implementation Director, Minneapolis Parks Foundation
- Gia Biagi, Principal of Urbanism, Studio Gang
- Monica Bryand, wildlife photographer and Executive Director of Urban Bird Collective
- Kofi Boone, Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University
- Bruce Chamberlain, Minneapolis Parks Fellow, Minneapolis Parks Foundation
- Maurice Cox, Detroit City Planner
- Roger Cummings, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Juxtaposition Arts
- Jamie Dean, Principal Designer and Program Manager of London’s Green Grid
- Dudley Edmondson, wildlife photographer and author of Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places
- Adriaan Geuze, WEST 8
- Robert Hammond, Friends of the High Line
- Eelco Hooftman, GROSS.MAX
- Mark Johnson, co-founder and principal, Civitas
- Janet Lansbury, parenting expert and author
- Tom Leader of Tom Leader Studio with Sheila Kennedy of KVA Architects
- Tabitha Montgomery, Executive Director, Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association
- Laurie Olin, founding principal of OLIN
- Kate Orff, Founder & Principal, SCAPE Landscape Design
- Gil Penalosa, Founder and Chair of the Board, 8 80 Cities
- Sean Sherman, Founder and CEO, The Sioux Chef
- Mitchell J. Silver, Commissioner, NYC Parks and Recreation
- Dr. Marla Spivak, Founder, Spivak Honey Bee Lab, University of Minnesota
- Ambreen Tariq, outdoorswoman, founder of @BrownPeopleCamping, author of Fatima’s Great Outdoors
- Lisa Tziona Switkin, of James Corner Field Operations
- Dana Thompson, Co-owner & COO, The Sioux Chef
- Florence Williams, Journalist and author of The Nature Fix: How Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative
- Lily Yeh, Founder, Barefoot Artists
- Dr. Robert Zarr, Park Rx America