Salon Series in the Garden: Urban Ecology

  • Tue 25 September 2018
  • 7 pm

On the occasion of the garden expansion within the gallery’s public courtyard, join Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles and Manuela restaurant for their second salon, which will focus on the strategic placement of natural spaces in urban environments and their impact on making a healthier city. Mia Lehrer, noted LA-based Urbanist of Studio-MLA, and Beth Pratt, California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, will share their unique knowledge, illuminating the ways in which ecological thinking can apply to civic infrastructure. This conversation will be moderated by Alissa Walker, Curbed LA Urbanism Editor. ‘Salon Series in the Garden’ is a distinctive dining experience for creative thinkers interested in the culinary and visual arts. Each salon brings together noted guest speakers to explore various topics pertaining to art, architecture, nature, food, and music. The ideas shared in the conversation will then foster further discussion over a family-style meal by Chef Kris Tominaga.

7 pm Welcome cocktail 7.30 pm Conversation and dinner

Family Style Dinner by Chef Kris Tominaga
 Buttermilk biscuits & buckwheat honey butter Crudites, garden tomatoes & garden pickled okra, garden herb pistou ~ Shaved carrot, cucumber, grapes, wild rice, ricotta salata, garden mint Grilled grass-fed skirt steak, garden arugula, red onion, pickled pepper, smoked olive butter Salmon, corn, urfa pepper, lemon & garden oregano Broccoli de cicco, lemon, fiore sardo, anchovy bread crumbs, olive oil Butterball potatoes, creme fraiche, pickled onion ~ Chocolate silk pie, pistachio tart, tonka cream Tickets to this event are $60. Price includes welcome cocktail, conversation, and family style meal with a glass of wine. Spaces limited, please book your place here.   About Mia Lehrer Mia Lehrer, FASLA, founded MLA with a vision to improve quality of life through landscape. She is internationally recognized for progressive landscape design, advocacy for sustainable and people-friendly public places, and catalyzing work for a climate-appropriate future. Mia has led the design and implementation of ambitious public and private projects, including the Hollywood Park Racetrack redevelopment and its new LA NFL Stadium, the LA County Natural History Museum Gardens, Vista Hermosa Natural Park, and many Los Angeles River-related projects. She earned her Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and lectures and teaches around the world. Among recent accomplishments, she serves on the US Fine Arts Commission and received the ASLA’s LaGasse Medal last year.   About Beth Pratt A lifelong advocate for wildlife, Beth Pratt has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty-five years, and in two of the country’s largest national parks: Yosemite and Yellowstone. As the California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, she says, 'I have the best job in the world—advocating for the state’s remarkable wildlife.' Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she now focuses her work on helping wildlife in cities. 'What I love about my work with the National Wildlife Federation and our partners is how it transforms people, myself included. As someone who spent most of my career working in remote wilderness areas, my main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating co-existence strategies in our human spaces. The future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.' Beth also leads the #SaveLACougars campaign to build the largest wildlife crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction, and her conservation work has been featured by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC World Service, CBS This Morning, the Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, and NPR. Beth obtained a BS/BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MBA from Regis University, earned the LEED AP credential, and trained with Vice President Al Gore as part of his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. In 2007, she traveled to Japan as part of a month-long Rotary International Professional Exchange to study business and national park operations. Her book on urban wildlife conservation,'When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: People and Wildlife Working It Out In California,' was published by Heyday Books in 2016. She has given a TEDx talk about coexisting with wildlife called, 'How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World,' and is featured in the new documentary, 'The Cat that Changed America.' Beth spends much of her time in LA, but makes her home outside of Yosemite, 'my north star,' with her four dogs, two cats, and the mountain lions, bears, foxes, and other wildlife that frequent her backyard.   About Alissa Walker Alissa Walker connects people with their cities through writing, speaking, and walking. She is currently the urbanism editor at Curbed and her writing has appeared regularly in Los Angeles Magazine, LA Weekly, Dwell, Fast Company, GOOD, Gizmodo, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as on the KCRW public radio show DnA: Design and Architecture. She has been named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow for her writing on design and urbanism, Journalist of the Year by Streetsblog Los Angeles, and in 2015 received the Design Advocate award from the LA chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She is also the co-founder of design east of La Brea, a nonprofit that has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants supporting its LA design events. Alissa lives in a 1912 Craftsman on the art alleys of LA’s Historic Filipinotown where she throws ice cream socials, tends to a drought-tolerant garden, and relishes life in LA without a car. Read more at her blog, A Walker in LA, and follow her at @awalkerinLA on Instagram and Twitter.

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