The PETAL Project

Resistance Tunes & Craftivism!
Sunday, June 14
2-4 pm
On the Denton Downtown Square lawn - bring a picnic, blanket and chairs. Enjoy live tunes and family friendly activities.

PETAL will be SEEDING INTENTIONS with ya - write a community or personal intention on the seed packet, grab some seeds, and go plant & grow your intention! We build community resilience through intentionality & sharing seeds of care.

DZAP will have paper & markers to MAKE YOUR OWN MUTUAL AID ZINE! Everyone can do it! Share your knowledge, special interests, and niche topics - shout it from the rooftops - And MAKE IT A ZINE!! Community resilience is DIY - do it yourself, we do it together!

✨🌱Exciting new garden project! 🌱✨
We will be partnering with Trinity Presbyterian Church to revitalize & manage their community garden space! This beautiful garden has raised beds, an in-ground plot, compost area, beautiful big tree neighbors, is surrounded by wildflowers, and will allow us to do year-round & perennial gardening! The garden space will be a community project with harvests going to our volunteers and the kitchen at Our Daily Bread shelter.

First we gotta help spruce it up! Join us:
Saturdays, May 23rd & 30th, 9-11am for garden workdays. 2200 N. Bell Ave., Denton, TX 76209 🌻

Thank you to our Litter Clean Up Crew - Go Trash Pandas! 🦝 We cleaned up a few neighborhood blocks & kept litter from breaking down in our storm drains, waterways, & habitat corridors. Happy Earth Day 🌎💚

Join us for a pop-up show and artist talk with photographer and documentary filmmaker Vahid Valikhani, whose work bridges photography and film to examine social, cultural, and historical dynamics through the lens of landscape.

Thursday, January 29th, 6-8pm at the Greater Denton Arts Council (400 E. Hickory St., Denton, TX 76201).
Free, all-ages, light refreshments provided.

Vahid’s photographic practice began with documenting constructed, altered, and often overlooked landscapes. His projects investigate the relationship among the environment, society, and the state, revealing how landscapes become sites of political agendas, consumerism, and environmental consequences. Shaped by experiences of displacement and adaptation, his cross-cultural perspective informs an ongoing exploration of belonging and the political dimensions of place. Reflecting on his approach, Vahid notes: “My creative process has been reshaped by displacement, politics, and cultural expectations. Photography became not only a way of navigating unfamiliar surroundings, but also a tool to process the cultural and social aspects of the place I inhabit.”

Vahid is the author of the monograph Nebraska, Tampa: The Return to the Streets (Tavaali Publication, 2025) and currently serves as Director of the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery at the University of Dallas. At the event, guests will have the opportunity to view selected works from his series Forms of Light, Elegies, and The Othered Eye, which reflect his sustained engagement with environmental and cultural narratives.

vahidvalikhani.com