This year, particulate matter from the 45.7 million acres of Canadian forest that became engulfed in flames billowed out across Turtle Island’s eastern region, impacting air quality here in New York City in frightening ways.

Given the existing inequitable exposure NYC Black and Latinx communities already face to environmental hazards, including pollution, the fires have become a new stress frontier for our already taxed respiratory and nervous systems.

In this offering, Jess Turner will share insight on herbal remedies OSS Project gardeners can call upon to strengthen the lungs and calm the nervous system as we navigate poor air quality. She’ll lean heavily on familiar herbal friends like Jamaica (Hibiscus sabdariffa) and Oregano Brujo (Plecthranthus amboinicus) to share practical strategies becoming all the more important as climate-induced environmental hazards increase in incidence and frequency.

Together, Jess and attendees will make a lung elixir to call upon during future air quality events, a jar of which everyone will take home.

Spanish translation will be provided.

About OSS Project
OSS Project’s mission is to connect communities with artists to create gardens as places to empower, celebrate and reclaim identity and knowledge, using urban farming, storytelling, educational programming and community building as means to dismantle systemic and structural issues of social inequity and environmental justice.

Through community-led open calls, artists are invited to work in partnership with communities, resulting in collaborative creative processes in the form of gardens that serve as platforms for community self-development.