Finding Home Among the Stars

The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, in partnership with the Mead Public Library, invites the public to a hybrid in-person and online program exploring how people across cultures have looked to the stars for direction, meaning, and a sense of home. The program features Travis Novitsky, an Anishinaabe photographer and night-sky advocate from the Grand Portage Nation, and Robert Mathieu, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Wisconsin Academy Fellow. Through story, imagery, and science, the speakers connect Indigenous star knowledge, night-sky photography, and celestial navigation on Earth and in space. In-person attendees are invited to view a digital slideshow of Travis Novitsky’s night-sky photography prior to the program.