August 6, 2026 - Cellist Matt Haimovitz, Claudia Rankine on "Triage," and The Great Elephant Migration

Cellist Matt Haimovitz discusses Neighbors, a three-track EP created after federal immigration operations brought fear and protest to his new home in the Twin Cities. Recorded with University of Minnesota students and colleagues, the project includes a reimagining of Ernest Bloch’s “Prayer” incorporating the words of Minneapolis activists. Matt Haimovitz is a multi-Grammy-nominated cellist and assistant professor of cello at the University of Minnesota.Claudia Rankine discusses Triage, a genre-defying work that moves among novel, memoir, criticism and visual art. Through two women whose decades-long friendship begins with a game of collapsing to the ground, Rankine examines grief, solidarity, self-protection and the demand to act amid relentless loss. Ruth Ganesh discusses The Great Elephant Migration, which brings one hundred life-size elephant sculptures to Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. Indigenous artisans in southern India made the herd from lantana, an invasive plant threatening elephant habitat. The free installation runs August 8 through September 13 and explores how humans and wildlife can share the planet