We are excited to have our first Nature Tea outside of Brooklyn since 2019.
Join us to celebrate Spring in The Bronx at Van Cortlandt Park!
Featuring:
Nature Walk 2pm
With Van Cortlandt Park Alliance staff
Tea experiences from 2:30pm
With Nizar Gartit for Moroccan Tea
Garden herbal tastings
and more
Odes to Common Things Poetry from 2:30pm
With Robin Lampman
Washi Paper Making from the Paper Mulberry Tree from 2:30pm
with Michele Brody the Bronx River Art Center
FREE events. Space is limited.
Registration opens on May 16, 2025.
Meet Nizar Gartit:
Nizar Gartit at Spring Blossom 2023. Photo by Katie Gee Salisbury
Nizar is a Moroccan culture advocate and the founder of the Women's Museum of Marrakech, the first institution in Morocco and North Africa dedicated to showcasing the history, culture, and creativity of Moroccan women.
His passion for preserving Moroccan heritage goes beyond museum walls. Nizar brings traditional practices to international audiences, notably through Moroccan tea ceremonies he leads in New York City. These gatherings offer a sensory experience rooted in ritual and hospitality, allowing people to connect with Moroccan culture in a deeply personal way.
In the contemporary art world, Nizar has emerged as a significant curator, with a portfolio that spans photography, painting, and multimedia installations. His exhibitions provide platforms for both emerging and established artists, encouraging artistic dialogue and celebrating diversity in expression.
Through his wide-ranging initiatives—blending tradition, innovation, and social impact—Nizar reflects a blend of vision and rootedness, all driven by a deep belief in the power of culture to connect and inspire.
Meet Michele Brody:
Paper making at Summer Tea 2024, Photo by Katie Gee Salisbury
Michele Brody with Summer Tea 2024 participants. Photo by Katie Gee Salisbury
Growing up in a family of builders, she was inspired to construct forts from natural materials in the woods of 1970s Staten Island, suggesting a future inspired by nature and the built environment.
In 1994, Brody earned an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, marking the beginning of a 30-year career as an independent installation artist. Grants and artist residencies awarded by respected institutions such as NYFA, NYSCA, LMCC, Pollock/Krasner Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, Skowhegan, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Wave Hill allowed her to maintain a full-time creative practice as a mixed-media environmental artist outside of traditional gallery markets.
Michele has created commissioned installations in France, Costa Rica, Germany, and Taiwan alongside national shows in Chicago, Indiana, Arizona, and Vermont. Collaborations with NYC exhibition venues showcasing her work include LES Tenement Museum, Hudson Guild, Bronx Museum, NY Botanical Gardens, and the artist-run spaces of JVS Project Space and AAA3A.
She is currently preparing for her Artist Studio Program Spotlight, solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center, as she concludes a 3-year Artist-in-Residence.
Michele will introduce the Japanese tradition of making washi paper from Kozo, or the mulberry tree. Participants will be invited to re-purpose the used tea leaves from the day’s tea ceremonies by adding them to the paper, which is then dried and used for the Odes to Common Things poetry writings by the community members.
Meet Robin Lampman:
Robin Lampman at Spring Tea 2024. Photo by Katie Gee Salisbury
Robin is a published poet and an educator with 35 years of experience teaching in universities, high schools, and elementary schools. She has a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education and has taught literature in two languages in the public schools in New Mexico, Texas, and New York as well as at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and the American School of Madrid in Spain. She has also taught English as a Second Language to adults at the University of Texas in Austin and at the El Paso Community College in El Paso. Texas.
She produced a volume of poetry by eighth graders in East Harlem which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and published by the Big Read. For the last several years she has been teaching writing classes for The Noble Maritime Collection. She developed and taught an adult class on Poetic Forms and taught classes on the reading and writing of literature in two languages.
Robin is Editor in Chief of Unspoken Word, an online international literary magazine, and she is Director of Poetry and Tea for Tea Arts and Culture.
Special thanks to:
This program is partially funded by a 2025 Cultural Immigrant Initiative grant from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Councilman Eric Dinowitz of Council District #11.
