In just over one week, the McKnight Foundation is heading to New York City for Climate Week NYC, where we’re honored to co-host The Performing Arts Light the Way: A Climate Week Celebration with our partners Food Tank and Broadway Green Alliance. This one-night event on Monday, September 22 at WNYC-NPR’s The Greene Space will bring together performance, food, and dialogue to celebrate the people and ideas leading us forward in the face of climate crisis.
Who’s coming with us? The artists and musicians. The farmers and researchers. Chefs and food advocates. Culture bearers and climate visionaries. All of them, leaders who work at the intersection of the arts, culture, climate, and communities. Healers who nourish people and neighborhoods, who show us how to imagine a future that is more just, abundant, and connected.
I’m excited to join in a conversation with Danielle Nierenberg, President of Food Tank, alongside an incredible lineup of performing artists, culture shapers, and food sustainability champions.
The evening will feature performances and reflections from: Pattie Gonia, drag queen, environmentalist, and LGBTQ+ activist, Tamika Lawrence, two-time Grammy-winning Broadway vocalist; Jennifer Noble and Eliza Ohman, celebrated performers and choreographers; Ricardo Levins Morales, Seitu Jones, and Douglas Ewart, McKnight Distinguished Artists; celebrity chef Sean Sherman, Founder of The Sioux Chef and North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS), who will lead an immersive tasting experience and conversation moderated by Kim Severson, national food correspondent at The New York Times; and Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, regenerative farmer and visionary behind Tree-Range® chicken systems.
Through live theater, movement, poetry, visual art, music, and immersive storytelling, we’ll explore how performing arts and food—two of the oldest expressions of human culture—can show us a human-centered way to navigate urgent challenges.
Investing in Artists, Culture Bearers, Farmers, and Food Leaders
This celebration may be one night, yet for McKnight, it reflects decades of commitment.
For 50 years, McKnight has invested in the arts and cultural ecosystem of Minnesota. We’ve supported more than 1,097 Artist and Culture Bearer Fellows, who enrich communities across the state with their creativity, wisdom, and rootedness. These artists and cultural bearers have helped our communities heal and grow in tangible ways, connecting us at the very core of what makes us human.
And for three decades, we’ve supported farmer-centered research and partnerships around the world to advance sustainable food systems—from communities of practice in the Andes and in East and Southern African to regenerative agriculture models in the Midwest. From Minnesota to across the globe, we’ve focused on building crop capacity, growing local economies, and protecting biodiversity.
Our community-level support has grown health, wealth, and security benefits for families and business owners, and we’ve supported planet preservation by bolstering those working at the intersection of arts, food, and climate. These long-term investments reflect what we know to be true: that supporting local leaders—artists, cultural bearers, farmers, Indigenous knowledge keepers, scientists, communities—can make change that lasts beyond our lifetimes.
A Moment That Demands Imagination and Action
As we kick off Climate Week, we know we are at a tipping point. The climate crisis is no longer abstract—it’s here. Yet so is an opportunity: to lead with culture, with care, and with collective vision.
This is where performing artists and cultural bearers play a vital role. They give us language to express our grief, fear, and curiosity. They remind us that joy and justice go together. They invite us into spaces of imagining that a different world and a different way is possible, and that in some places, it’s already taking shape.
Toni Morrison has said:
This is precisely the time when artists go to work.
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity,
no need for silence, no room for fear.
We speak, we write, we do language.
That is how civilizations heal.
As we gather in New York next week, we know the challenges before us are profound. Yet so is our own creativity, resilience, and determination to do something different. Through these performers and food leaders, we are reminded that real healing and hope means bringing our whole selves into the work of building a better future for all.
Learn more about the event here.
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Photo courtesy of Liam McGarry, Unsplash
