The Work That Reconnects in Academia – Visioning an imperfect but possible future

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By Eileen Laurie

recorded by author

A researcher makes a mask of a Brazilian bird with feathers from a city park; next to him another researcher wonders how to portray a cloud; on the floor at the back of the room, a third researcher turns art materials into the nitrogen molecule. Just an ordinary day in academia?

I would like to present the workshop I led in October 2022 at Lund University, Sweden, developed from an invitation from Christie Nicoson, PhD student at Lund University’s Agenda 2030 Graduate School. I had discussed my work as an artist with her, and we also spoke about sustainability, art and care and academic teaching and research. The workshop – Visioning an imperfect yet possible future: Art-based methods for sustainability researchers – was developed from these discussions. The participants in the workshop came from different disciplines, departments and fields. The goal was to learn new methods, try out new approaches, and to open the mind and stretch the imagination through the practice of experiential and embedded artistic activities. 

My art practice is about looking and really seeing what is around me. Today, this unavoidably means seeing a world that seems to be careening out of control.

I am an artist and educator and my art practice is inspired by the natural world and how people interact with this world and with each other. In my art education work with children, youth and adults, I encourage creativity, dialogue and connection, situating art-making within the context of our lived world. Like every visual artist, my art practice is about looking and really seeing what is around me. Today, this unavoidably means seeing a world that seems to be careening out of control. The latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022) from February 2022, was unequivocal in its findings on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. It does not look good. 

Working with visual art can help to push the pause button and create a space for reflection, creation and action.

Yet even the academics working in the fields of climate change and sustainability can find themselves stuck in certain patterns of behaviour and ways of thinking that hinder necessary change. The project SUSPLACE, Sustainable Place-shaping notes that “innovations for sustainability researchers often stay within a narrow comfort zone” and that “more unconventional ideas and action plans evoke discomfort or resistance”. Working with visual art can help to push the pause button and create a space for reflection, creation and action. The design of my Visioning workshop embedded art-making practices within the spiral of the Work that Reconnects and aimed to create a space for just such “unconventional ideas” and where “discomfort and resistance” could become points of departure, and not dead-ends.

After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation and a complete change in my working practices with a lot of online interaction and not much human-to-human connection, I was more than ready to facilitate a group process again, but also a bit nervous. My aim was to deliver a workshop that would be relevant to academia, with its specific codes, structures and unspoken rules. The participants were highly-educated and well-versed in scholarly debate, and obviously open to my proposal, as they had signed up for the workshop. My task was to facilitate the spiral in a way that made sense to them. 

How would things pan out for a group of people working with these methods together for the first time? 

Would they learn from embedded practices, or find it all too “touchy-feely”? 

I knew an important task was to create a “group container” for active listening, honest exchange, reflection and hands-on work.

I knew an important task was to create a “group container” for active listening, honest exchange, reflection and hands-on work (Lakey, 2020). To do this I would have to find the right pace and rhythm, and have a clear understanding myself about why I was working with specific practices and what I wanted to achieve. Any workshop, no matter what design or methods it builds upon, benefits from moving between ebb and flow, between speech and silence, between sharing and quiet reflection. My aim was to offer art-based and embedded activities that nonetheless converged into a coherent whole, and could be adapted by the participants for future use. 

The workshop was in three parts – a full-day workshop, two self-organised activities and a half-day workshop. We began on an uncommonly warm autumn day in October; maybe it was just “weather”; maybe it was a portent of something else – I decided to simply enjoy the feeling of the sun on my face. The very simple art materials – paper, scissors, glue, wool, feathers, modelling clay, etc. – were set up on a dedicated table, an “art invitation” typical of the Reggio Emilia approach (Reggio Children, 2022). To begin, I chose a simple and playful ice-breaker, a “convening” exercise of drawing stencils of our hands (The Re.imaginary Group, 2020). The activity linked us to ancient artists and set the tone for the entire workshop – not working with screens, not only with abstract concepts (as important as they are), but instead – hands-on.

Image 1- hand stencils

I then introduced the Work that Reconnects and the entire spiral, explaining that we would begin with Coming from gratitude and continue through three more stages. We began with a guided meditation that focused on all the senses. The participants then spoke in pairs about what they were thankful for. The energy in the room felt light and open; the participants were really willing to talk.

Despite my misgivings, the researchers did talk about their fears and the ways they avoided them, and the discomfort experienced.

We moved on to Honouring our pain for the world. I introduced the idea of working with our feelings of pain and grief with what I call the “litany of misery”, the endless, soul-crushing list of what is already lost and cannot be repaired, but must be faced. We then worked with open sentences, journaling and a group reflection. Having gone through the spiral many times, I have come to understand that grief for the world comes from love for and connection to this world. Yet Honouring our pain always seems too soon, too hard. All I could do was trust the process and continue. Despite my misgivings, the researchers did talk about their fears and the ways they avoided them, and the discomfort experienced. Before beginning the sharing activities, I emphasised that everyone had the freedom to decide how much and what to share, but in retrospect I realise that I need to be more explicit in future that “what we say in the room, stays in the room”. 

After lunch, as we moved into Seeing the world with new eyes; it was time for the more-than-human world to enter the room. We began with an interview with nature, adapted from Deep Nature Play by the inspiring nature educator Joseph Cornell (Cornell, 2018). Working in pairs, the participants took on the role of a rock, natural feature or an animal. This led into the next activity – choosing to be a more-than-human being and creating a mask to represent this for the Council of All Beings. One participant commented that the mask-making and the Council meant she was not just “left alone” with painful emotions of the morning, but could process them through practical and creative activity. I thanked her and said this was part of the spiral’s design. And made a note to myself to remember what I had just said!

I felt that the full ceremonial version of the Council of All Beings was not suitable for this specific academic environment and time available. During the mask-making session, the participants very quickly had a clear idea of the being they wanted to represent and what the mask would look like. The simple art materials were used in a great variety of inventive ways – at the end, we had masks representing clouds, nitrogen, snails, blue-throated macaws and much more.

Image 2 – mask wearers

For the Council the participants sat in groups of four and each person had time to talk about the powers and perspectives of their more-than-human being, about relationships with other beings and the problems caused by humans. The next stage was to offer suggestions to humans on how to take better care of the planet, our shared home. Active listening is absolutely key in this type of activity, and as I walked around listening to the Councils, it struck me how rarely we do this in our everyday lives:

How often do we just listen, not just take turns until we can finally say what we want to say? 

We wrapped up the first day of the workshop with self-organisation: the participants set up meetings to create a mind-map of Malmö, the third-largest city in Sweden to prepare for the stage of Going forth. The mind-map drew on the work of Transition UK (Hopkins, 2022), and asked three questions: 

What do you want to keep? What do you want to give up? And what needs to be repaired?

I also requested that the participants try a nature activity known as the sit spot, and that they spend at least 30 minutes alone in a natural environment and focus on really seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting what was around them.

…the participants developed three sketches off the cuff, and acted them out: keep, give up, repair. It was very entertaining.

Just over a week later we met again, for a morning session on Going forth. To bring the ideas from the mind-map to life, the participants developed three sketches off the cuff, and acted them out: keep, give up, repair. It was very entertaining; the participants very quickly came up with great ideas and used the physical space, gesture and story to bring the city to life. And I was faced again with my own discomfort; I had been worried that drama activities would be “too much”, but the invention, humour and intelligence of the participant-actors made it clear that I was mistaken. I will include more playful acting exercises in the next workshop I facilitate! We moved on to create our vision of an imperfect but possible Malmö in 2050. I asked the participants to consider questions like:

What if we took play seriously?  What if we followed nature’s lead?  What if we slowed down? 

The groups first discussed the kind of future they wanted. Using a large paper map of Malmö, they then built their vision with tape, stickers, pens and modelling clay. They reimagined a slower, more caring city, with, for example, no cars, canals throughout for transport and pleasure, food production on land and sea, and even large areas for humans and animals to play. The visions were presented and the discussions continued. It was an engaged and creative process. And, again, there was a learning for me: truly imagining a better future takes time. A longer session would have enabled more preparatory activities to help the participants unleash their imagination to dream the future. Yet in the short time we had, the visions were impressive and inspiring.

image 3: Malmö map

Knowledge about the perilous state of our planet is one thing, the workshop took the participants beyond this “knowing”.

And then, all too soon, it was time to finish. The closing circle was brief but generous. These participants work every day with ideas and concepts, problems and solutions. They brought their knowledge and verbal eloquence with them; we built on this with activities rarely found in seminar rooms. Qualitative inquiry and the “messy” art-based, experimental and affective methodology applied in this workshop can generate and enable new ways of understanding and articulating subjectivity. Knowledge about the perilous state of our planet is one thing, the workshop took the participants beyond this “knowing”. They not only thought more broadly about what kind of world they wanted to live in and how to bring about this world. They also participated in embedded, experiential learning that could be adapted for both teaching and qualitative research.  

Designing a workshop that made sense and also tested boundaries was a very enjoyable challenge for me, and one I look forward to again in the future. I also received detailed and insightful written feedback from the participants that will enrich my next workshop. I hope very much that the participants will have the opportunity to apply their learning from this experience in ways that are meaningful to their own research practice. 

I am going to end with a link to a poem by Kathleen Jamie, a poem from my home country of Scotland – a reflection on what the more-than-human world thinks of our conferences and talks and directives and agreements. Enjoy!

What the Clyde said, after COP 26, Kathleen Jamie
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/what-the-clyde-said-after-cop26


References

Cornell, J. B. (2018). Deep nature play: A guide to wholeness, aliveness, creativity, and inspired learning. Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Hopkins, R. (2022). From what if to what next. From What If to What Next. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://fromwhatiftowhatnext.libsyn.com

IPCC. (2022, February 28). Climate change: A threat to human wellbeing and health of the planet. taking action now can secure our future. IPCC. Retrieved November 26, 2022, from https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/02/28/pr-wgii-ar6

Lakey, G. (2020). Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for success with diverse learners. PM Press.

Pearson, K. R., Bäckman, M., Grenni, S., Moriggi, A., Pisters, S., & de Vrieze, A. (2018). Arts-based methods for transformative engagement: A toolkit. SUSPLACE. https://doi.org/10.18174/441523

Reggio Children. (2022). Reggio Emilia Approach. Reggio Children. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach

The Re.imaginary Group. (2020). Reimaginary – re-imagining possibilities for just and ecological societies. The Reimaginary Group. Retrieved November 26, 2022, from https://www.reimaginary.com


Recorded by Evangelia Papoutsaki

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Eileen Laurie is an artist and art educator. Born in Scotland, Eileen has a Master of Arts degree from Glasgow University and has studied fine art in Northern Ireland and Sweden. Her art practice focuses on the more-than-human world and its interactions with humans. Eileen creates illustrations, prints, textile work and Land Art. In art education work, she works in schools, universities, and different communities, creating a space for creativity, dialogue, and connection. The Work that Reconnects has been part of her life since 2009, and Eileen looks forward to facilitating many more workshops following the spiral.

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