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Loving Orphaned Space, the art and science of belonging to Earth celebrates the power of art and science to expand our thinking about our relationships to the world around us, bringing attention to the overlooked and ignored. Relevant to issues from biodiversity, equitable access to green space, to climate change, the book shares examples of how we might build new relationships with Earth. Catalyzed by the work of artists such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles and M. Jenea Sanchez, the book is a guide to seeing everyday space as a portal through which we can discover old stories and tell new ones about how we dwell on Earth. Charting new paths can be challenging and complicated, the author reveals, but good stories always have twists and turns.

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Mrill Ingram gets it right in this hopeful yet haunting book: the only way to restore purpose and power to abandoned, uncared-for spaces is to re-story them as places of the heart. Always a deep, compassionate thinker, Ingram now joins the ranks of America’s most compelling writers—Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gretel Ehrlich, Janisse Ray, and Rebecca Solnit—who help us reflect on broken landscapes and our longing to heal them to heal ourselves.

— Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities.

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Ingram’s stories have changed the way I see and think about the land around me. I now see orphaned land wherever I go, and because of this book, I know how—and why—to love and care for these places. — Samuel Dennis Jr., Director of the Environmental Design Lab UW-Madison

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In a time when people need places to gather and be outside in nature, Loving Orphaned Space is an essential guide for how to activate forgotten spaces in our landscape. —Stacy Levy, environmental artist

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• Winner 2022 AAG John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize.

• READ the first chapter at Temple University Press

• Hear a cool radio segment created by Jose Teixeira for WORT radio.

• Listen to my interview on the New Books Network with Stentor Danielson

• LISTEN to my 2021 online presentation for the 4S conference 

• WATCH the book launch at Art+Literature Laboratory with readings by the author and presentations from artists Kristin Thielking, Lisa Beth Robinson, and Lillian Sizemore, with a moderated QnA with writer Erik Ness

• READ my blog post for North Philly Notes, May 18, 2022

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