Return to Prairie: Textiles for Green Burial Awareness

September 3 – December 21, 2024

This exhibition of fiber art encourages visitors to consider the environmental impact of end-of-life decisions. Sherry Haar, a fashion studies professor at Kansas State University known for her expertise of natural dyes, co-curated the installation, which includes wearable art, quilts, and a felted coffin designed to stimulate discussion about preparations for death and sustainable burial.

Clothing and textiles are integral to our daily lives, yet the fashion industry is a significant contributor to overconsumption, waste and pollution. Haar’s fiber art highlights one response to this problem: natural or green burial. Haar transforms undyed fiber and fabrics using prairie and local plants such as big bluestem, coreopsis, goldenrod, Osage orange, sumac, sunflower, switch grass, and walnut. She employs sustainable strategies in her designed, patterned, felted, sewn and machine-quilted works.

Through the lens of natural dyes and prints from the tall grass prairie, Haar's work invites reflection on our choices and their implications for human and environmental well-being. Return to Prairie aims to inspire conversations about sustainable end-of-life practices and showcase the beauty and utility of local color and print.

Guest artist Kelsie Doty, an assistant professor of fashion studies at K-State, collaborated with Haar on a memory quilt honoring their grandmothers included in the exhibition.

Major Sponsor: Greater Manhattan Community Foundation’s Lincoln & Dorothy I. Deihl Community Grants Program

Related events

Botanical Printing Workshop for Adults
Saturday, September 7, 2024, 9 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Create eco-prints on paper with plants from the Beach Meadow. $15 supply fee per participant. Registration required.

Artist Talk: Natural Color and Print from the Prairie
Thursday, October 10, 2024, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Join fiber artist Sherry Haar as she takes us through methods of dyeing and printing with local plants on textiles. Free and open to all

Natural Burial at Kansas’ Heart Land Prairie Cemetery
Thursday, November 7, 2024, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
A conversation about green burial and personal experiences with Sarah Crews, Director of Heart Land, and Kelly Parker who buried her spouse at Heart Land. Free and open to all