Monarchs could also be found in the formal gardens during the 2015 Brucemore Garden & Art Show. (photo/Cindy Hadish)

Find out how “seed bombs” can help monarch butterflies and other pollinators during an event at Cornell College. (photo/Cindy Hadish)

Our pollinators, particularly bees and monarch butterflies, need all the help they can get. An upcoming event at Cornell College in Mount Vernon will draw attention to their plight.

Mike Bianco, a visiting artist at Cornell, is holding a workshop on how to make “seed bombs” to help encourage pollination. The event, in room 313 of McWethey Hall, is from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, and is open to the public.

Mike’s exhibit, which opens this weekend, is focused on activism and using art to envision a sustainable future.

Learn more about the event and exhibit from Cornell College:

“Our Future Exists Because We Have Imagined It,” an exhibit by artist Mike Bianco, will be on display in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery from Nov. 1 through Dec. 6. There will be an artist’s reception from 2-4 p.m. Nov. 1 in McWethy Hall, and Bianco will give a lecture on his work from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 2 in Hedges Conference Room.

“Our Future Exists Because We Have Imagined It” is a project by Bianco, who is an artist, activist, and beekeeper, in collaboration with faculty members Michelle Mouton and Sandy Dyas, in dialogue with a larger community of students, faculty, and staff at Cornell College. The project emerges from Bianco’s practice devoted to art, activism, and collective “sustainable envisioning.”

The central goal of the project will focus on employing art to envision Cornell College as a sustainable campus of the future, and as a refuge for endangered pollinators. Bianco, Mouton, and Dyas will be working with students during the week of workshops that will take place during Bianco’s time on campus. The results of the collaboration will be displayed in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery over the course of the exhibition, and will be aggregated into a catalog to be published in 2016.

For the exhibit, Bianco will also present a new video installation, a seed bomb workshop, and the fourth installment of his ongoing project Eco-Chat, a dialogical piece that engages members of the public who are coping with forms of “Eco-Anxiety.”

Bianco will be holding discussion sessions and conducting the workshop during the course of his stay on campus, from Oct. 26 through Nov. 3. To reserve a spot for a discussion session, contact the artist at mjbianco@umich.edu.

Peter Paul Luce Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday 2 to 4 p.m. Programming at the gallery is funded through the Henry Luce Foundation Inc. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information contact Sue Coleman  or call 319-895-4491.