Our Humanity is Bound To Each Other
In November 2024, Portland Japanese Garden and Japan Institute welcomed Lungi Morrison to Portland for a series of events that explored the increasingly relevant themes of reconciliation, social integration, and Indigenous knowledge. Morrison, a granddaughter of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has lived and worked across the world, including her current base and native nation of South Africa. She currently serves as Board Member of Lalela, an organization that uses art to foster social cohesion, trauma healing enabling youth from predominantly underserved communities to transcend and dream beyond their challenging lived experiences. Through its curricular based after school arts program Lalela (which means ‘to listen’ in Zulu) has recently achieved 100% high school graduation record among participating youth (who have gone onto to receive university education, with others becoming entrepreneurs, peer educators and Lalela advocates).
Morrison sat down to discuss her work and partnership with Portland Japanese Garden and Japan Institute between two special programs she participated in, a panel discussion linking the Japanese artform of kintsugi to ways communities can use art to heal “broken” aspects of humanity and a lecture on how Indigenous knowledge, a subject in which she is a scholar, can drive social impact. She was ecstatic to return to Portland and walk the Garden.
“I was moved to tears,” Morrison shared, fondly thinking back to a tour she had just taken with Steve Bloom, CEO of Portland Japanese Garden (2005-2025). “It evokes such emotions—the curation, the structure, the way that you’ve incorporated so many different styles of Japanese gardens into one space. And then obviously the space itself is so serene and peaceful. I wish there were more around the world. It inspires calm and a sense of reflectiveness, a sense of grounding, self-love and value for life, ease of breath—all thanks to nature so beautifully exhibited. You feel whole here. I wish my grandfather could come down one last time and make his way around this beautiful garden because it’s the gift of peace he so yearned for in the world.”
Morrison’s career, which has taken her around the world, a career spanning varying cultural institutions and governmental organizations, has had a common theme of drawing from ancient modalities and knowledge systems, she is particularly impassioned about drawing from her African heritage and indigenous practices across the world. In addition to her work with Lalela, she established Ifẹ̀ Consult a multi-faceted consultancy that triangulates key disciplines, Pan-African art, cultural diplomacy, and tourism underpinned by her inherent life-purpose to contribute to addressing social injustices via social impact and philanthropic initiatives.
A Child of Exile
Passionate in her efforts to uplift Africa, Morrison has lived all over the continent and far beyond, with time spent in Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, New Zealand, Brazil, Norway, the U.K., and the U.S. While her globetrotting today is something she’s grateful for, it began in unfortunate circumstances. She’s a self-described “child of exile,” who was born in South Africa but raised elsewhere for fear of her and her family’s safety during her native nation’s struggle to liberate itself from apartheid.
Her parents, both young student activists were affiliated with political groups that were targeted by the then-ruling government. After a number of raids in homes and schools that would eventually result in the disappearance and sometimes murder of these activists, Morrison’s parents went into exile. “They wanted to stay alive and continue to fight for freedom, rather than stay in the country and eventually be killed,” she notes.
Morrison was eventually able to return home to South Africa, but the life of perpetual movement did not end. In fact, it’s become a trait inherited over generations. “My parents moved around a lot,” she shares. “I then ended up moving around a lot myself. My son too has become somewhat of a nomad and lived in at least three continents by the age of 10. He is now 17 year old. Together, we lived across the [African] continent, I’ve lived in Brazil, the U.S., in New Zealand, in London as a diplomat—it’s a huge privilege that I certainly don’t take for granted.”
Seeing so much of the world and meeting so many different people has only affirmed Morrison’s belief in humanity’s promise, affirming words by her grandfathers “we are each made for goodness.” “We are all individuals with unique gifts and talents that can make a difference for ‘good’, something the world desperately needs right now,” she notes. “For instance, even though I’m from Africa and you [Ed: Lungi was speaking to me here] are American, I feel that we in essence the same. We all want the same things. We want to thrive, to feel we can move about uninhibited in the world. We want security and safety, for our family to be successful, we want to be successful as individuals too. We also feel this need to give back, we want to leave meaningful legacies in the world. I suppose most people do, this I understand to be our ‘common and shared purpose.’”
“Ubuntu is an African principle of philosophy I often reference—it’s the principle that, ultimately, my humanity is bound to yours. How can my sense of being a person be fully formed if I do not see you as a human being first? My cousin, Mungi Ngomane, writes about this in her beautiful book Everyday Ubuntu with its foreword by our grandfather.”
Partnering with Japan Institute
Morrison had been previously working as the Director of Institutional Advancement for Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town when she connected with Bloom, and Paula Esguerra, Director of Japan Institute’s International Exchange Forum (2022-24). “They were interested in collaborating and told me about Portland Japanese Garden. The more I researched and learned about the Garden’s origins and the work that was done to turn the community around, the more I couldn’t wait to get here.”
Eventually, the relationship would blossom into her participation in Japan Institute’s peace programming in South Africa, which were hallmarked by two Peace Symposia in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Both free and public gatherings explored the evolving role of art, cultural institutions, and public spaces as a platform for peace-building and community engagement. Morrison was joined as a panelist and speaker by an impressive roster of visionary leaders in a variety of fields that share similar aspirations for a better society but often don’t intersect. She believes it was a successful endeavor.
“Without imposing or claiming to have all of the solutions, the symposia sparked key conversations on important topics like learning from nature so it can be used in conflict resolution and peacemaking,” she praises. “We needed it more than we actually realized. South Africa has only recently engaged with democracy. We’ve been busy building this country, but there is still a lot of pain. Japan Institute allowed us to sit for a moment and understand that we have some healing work to do. The symposia reminded us South Africans of the conversations we need to have. It is now up to us to have them.”
“One of the things I think Japan Institute gifted us was inspiring us to not be afraid at looking at our pain, instead looking at it as a means in which we can collectively create opportunities for healing. The symposia were incredible—they reminded us where we come from, what we need to do more of, and that nature can guide us. I think the impact of the symposia will continue long beyond the time that they took place.”
Healing Through Nature
One of the things about Japan Institute that Morrison connects with on a personal level is how nature is imbued in of all of its efforts. The Institute was established in 2022 as a global cultural initiative of Portland Japanese Garden to expand its programming more broadly around the world, deepen international partnerships, and continue to engage diverse people through shared experiences and conversations about peace and beauty. An endeavor that grew in a public garden, Japan Institute always ties everything back to our connection and place within nature.
For Morrison, nature was a balm as she traversed the African continent growing up. “The human mind and spirit hold onto good things—the body has this incredible system that tries to protect you from trauma, such as the kind you get from being a refugee,” she says. “And so, as a child of exile, the landscapes I lived in offered some peace and solace. Nature is a wonderful friend to have along one’s journey. Nigeria, being a tropical environment, is very hot, very green, very lush. I remember massive trees and going to swim at the [International Institute of Tropical Agriculture], which felt like a utopia. I remember the smell of the tobacco that was farmed where I lived in Zimbabwe and the drier landscape of Lesotho, is soil and sacred earth.”
“I have appreciation for nature in many different ways—there are the obvious benefits we derive from it such as food and commerce, but nature’s ecosystem is the ultimate nurturer, nature is medicine. These gardens are high up there in terms of the peace, healing, serenity, and sacredness that nature provides. It’s a wonder to come to a place like Portland Japanese Garden and be reminded of the rudimentary benefits we can enjoy.”
Morrison concluded the conversation with praise for the Garden’s home city of Portland. “I’m a big traveler and I’m just over the moon to finally be back here,” she glows. “I’ve just found Portland really relaxing. I’m having fun just being among people, walking around the city and its different communities—it’s incredibly beautiful. When I speak to friends back home briefly, they say, ‘You sound so happy over there in Portland.’ I’m say, ‘Oh yes, I am. I might not come back.’”
Written by Will Lerner, Communications Manager for Portland Japanese Garden & Japan Institute.