In Iquitos, Peru, a library of preserved plants holds more than botanical information. It offers a connection to generations of knowledge about how people understand and use the natural world.
For New Brunswick filmmaker Greg Hemmings, that collection became the subject of a documentary — and deepened his understanding of conservation.
On Oct. 10, Hemmings and ethnopharmacologist Dr. Dennis McKenna will bring that conversation to the Dunn Theatre at Huntsman’s Fundy Discovery Aquarium in Saint Andrews.
Beginning at 6:30 p.m., “Bridges to Ancestral Wisdom: Listening to Nature’s Teachers” will combine talks, documentary screenings, audience discussion and live music by Ryan LeBlanc, exploring plants, Indigenous knowledge and Amazonian conservation.
Their collaboration began with a different story.
Around 2018, Hemmings was developing First Trips, a documentary series following people approaching psychedelic therapy for the first time. Through a mutual connection, he contacted McKenna, whose work he already knew.
Soon, the scientist was accompanying him to broadcaster pitch meetings in New York.
“Here’s this guy who’s an absolute legend in pop culture, just following me around in my world,” Hemmings recalled.
The pandemic interrupted the project, but their relationship continued. McKenna brought Hemmings another idea: a film about an underfunded Amazonian herbarium.
The resulting documentary, “BioGnosis: Bridges to Ancestral Wisdom”, follows people working to preserve plants and traditional knowledge around Iquitos. Filming included a 2021 visit to the Herbarium Amazonense at the National University of the Peruvian Amazon.
The McKenna Academy describes a collection of approximately 150,000 specimens. Its initiative aims to renovate the herbarium, digitize specimens for a globally accessible database and document the knowledge of curator Juan Ruiz.
Preserving physical specimens is one task; preserving the knowledge surrounding them is another. For Hemmings, the stakes extend beyond what researchers might discover in a plant to what disappears when knowledge is no longer passed on.
Saturday’s program will also explore coca, ayahuasca and huachuma, known as San Pedro cactus.
Hemmings travelled with McKenna to Peru’s 2025 Wisdom of the Leaf Coca Summit. He expects Saturday’s discussion to challenge assumptions shaped by coca’s association with cocaine and examine its cultural significance.
“One of the great things about this community is the very passionate drive for conservation, sustainability and biodiversity,” Hemmings said.
What began as curiosity about healing became an education in the relationship between human well-being, ecosystems and the people who protect them.
“As a curious filmmaker, that’s why I love what I do — I get to learn something new all the time,” he said.
The evening runs until 10 p.m. Tickets are $25 plus tax and fees. Booking information is available through Huntsman Marine Science Centre. The event invites audiences to consider whose knowledge survives, and how.
