Denver Botanic Gardens

The Denver Botanic Gardens will create an exhibit interpreting the work of modernist sculpture artist Allan Houser (Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache, 1914–1994) in the context of the Gardens' diverse native plant collections and conservation goals. Houser's sculptures will be installed throughout the Gardens' twenty-three-acre York Street site to enhance and re-interpret the key gardens that highlight native plants. The exhibit and related programming stress the importance of safeguarding cultural inheritance closely tied to the land and group customs, which quickly vanish—just as native plant species do—without care and focused attention. The exhibit will further engage an ever-widening demographic of the local community and the region with the Gardens' mission—to connect people with plants—and will add Native voices to the dialogue of the Gardens' conservation priorities.