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We are a vibrant digital platform that invites you to join the movement towards anti-colonialism, decoloniality, and decolonization.

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Lifestyle → Sustainability Directory → Glossary

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Lifestyle → Aspire → Adapt → Amplify → Sustainability Lifestyle Library

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About the Tookit — Collective Imagination Practices Toolkit

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About the tools and practices of Collective Imagination; methods you can use to create the conditions for enacting new and different futures.

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Commoning Our Cities: Mary Miss, Silvia Federici, Peter Linebaugh

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Commons and Commoning: a Progressive Vision of a Good Society

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Commons and Commoning: a Progressive Vision of a Good Society

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Commons and Commoning: a Progressive Vision of a Good Society

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CALL/ City as Living Laboratory raises environmental awareness and promotes the sustainable development of urban communities through the arts. CALL’s collaborative initiatives bring together diverse groups of creatives, scientists, and communities to make the complex comprehensible and to create a

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UNESCO - Dive into intangible cultural heritage!

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Teaser video of 'Dive into intangible cultural heritage' project © UNESCO Discover multiple ways to navigate through a dynamic and interactive space of vibrant intangible cultural heritage practices and expressions. See how together they represent a rich cultural diversity. Made thanks to the generous support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands© Kin...

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Negotiating Social Impact Rights in Documentary Film

New CMSI Report

The Climate Movement Should Be Funnier

Science Friday

Center for Media & Social Impact selected for Kennedy Center Community Partnership

Comedians using laughs to teach audience about climate change

ABC Nightline

Spotlighting Storytelling and Social Change

The Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI) is a creative innovation lab and research center that focuses on media for equity and social justice. Our work bridges boundaries between scholars, media producers, social justice organizations, and communication practitioners.

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We showcase and analyze media for public knowledge and action-media made by, for, and with publics to address the problems that they share.

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The Journal of Art & Ecology is published once a year by the graduating cohort of the MA Art & Ecology program at Goldsmiths University of London. Currently on Volume 3, It exposes and exhibits new online work, reflection, and research.

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Life Without Fear: A Guide for BAME Communities

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Our Goal: Cite and engage these people!

The goal of the Environmental and Climate Justice Syllabus is to assemble readings, articles, case studies, and biographies from key writers, scholars, and activists working for environmental freedom (to borrow Malini Ranganathan's phrase!). Our emphasis, here, is to generate a searchable and citable list of Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx individuals, organizations, and movements which are indispensably foundational in the continued fight for environmental and climate justice. We are also expanding the syllabus to represent more non-US/non-Global North scholars. We also provide a few (not too many!) resources from allies whose work is deeply engaged throughout the syllabus.

We also have an affectation for planning, urban studies, and/or ecological perspectives on these topics given the emphases of our work. Lastly, we freely mix resources on environmental justice, climate justice, and (increasingly) disaster, energy, and food justice to emphasize the interconnections between these movements in the wake of climate change.

Contributors and Contributing to the Syllabus

The Environmental and Climate Justice Syllabus was initiated through an unexpected crowd-sourcing of information on Twitter. The interdisciplinary outpouring of resources was formative and generated the base of the syllabus here. As such, the database remains an open resource for all.

If you would like to suggest resources for the syllabus (especially your own recent publications!), please follow the "Contact" link at the top of the Just Environments Lab website to send us your suggestions. This is a dynamic and ever-changing syllabus!

Use the syllabus as you'd like, but CITE THESE PEOPLE!

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Our Goal: Cite and engage these people! The goal of the Environmental and Climate Justice Syllabus is to assemble readings, articles, case studies, and biographies from key writers, scholars, and activists working for environmental freedom (to borrow Malini Ranganathan's phrase!).

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The Environmental Performance Agency (EPA) is an artist collective founded in 2017 and named in response to the ongoing rollback of Federal environmental policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Appropriating the acronym EPA, the collective’s primary goal is to shift thinking around the terms environment, performance, and agency – using artistic, social, and embodied practices to advocate for the agency of all living performers co-creating our environment, specifically through the lens of spontaneous urban plants, native or migrant. Current EPA Agents include Catherine Grau, andrea haenggi, Ellie Irons, Christopher Kennedy, and spontaneous urban plants. Learn more

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Historically, the UK has contributed some of the highest levels of carbon emissions in the world. The UK and the rest of the Global North has hugely profited from extracting resources, destroying ecosystems, and displacing people as part of the colonial system. Many of our current structures were built on the legacies of this exploitation, including our banks, land ownership, migration policies, and political structures.

Climate impacts in the UK manifests along the same fault lines as on a global scale; race, socio- economic class, gender, sexuality and disability all factor into the likelihood of being exposed to toxic air pollution; to live near waste incinerators and wastewater plants; to have more or less access to nature and fresh food; to live in fuel poverty; and to access the tools we need to sustain our health and wellbeing.

This Toolkit section includes resources from artists and organisations in the UK, highlighting the UK's historical and modern climate impacts.

- Image credit: performance from Drill Minister - Season for Change

JB Highlights

The Colour Green Podcast

A six-part series hosted by Baroness Lola Young, in conversation with artists and activists of colour, exploring the connections between nature, racial justice and climate change.

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Additional resources

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Educational tools and campaigns

Creative responses>

Shado Magazine

A multimedia platform capturing the inspiring ways and creative approaches in which we can See Hear Act and Do, to cultivate a culture led system change towards social justice. Their third print issue was dedicated to climate justice.

Black2Nature

Black2Nature, created by teen birder Mya-Rose Craig seeks to close the access gap for people of colour in the UK with the countryside, providing support and educational resources about nature.

Landworkers' Alliance

The Landworkers' Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of their members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone.

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Climate Justice in Britain - Julie's Bicycle

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Historically, the UK has contributed some of the highest levels of carbon emissions in the world. The UK and the rest of the Global North has hugely profited from extracting resources, destroying ecosystems, and displacing people as part of the colonial system.

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Now is the Time for a Statewide Campaign for Outdoor Learning! - Ten Strands

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Want to take a little quiz? Come on, it’ll be fun. Just answer this one question before you get started reading the rest of this article. Which of the following are widely accepted benefits associated with TK–12 students spending time learning outdoors? (Check all that apply.) ▢ Improved Ability to Concentrate/Focus Upon Returning to the […]

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COVID-19 planning templates, reopening protocols, and additional resources that support school nutrtition programs in return to school planning efforts.

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Now available on Adaptation Community: The new movie series "Living Adaptation" showcases best practice examples of climate change adaptation measures in agriculture and rural development. It contains four short video clips presenting best practices from GIZ India, Madagascar, Ethiopia, and a regional project in southern Africa.

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Agroecology Training: Towards sustainable food systems - Introducing the transformative approach of agroecology - Adaptation Community

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This training provides a contemporary understanding of agroecology and related concepts. It combines theoretical and practical elements and identifies entry points for introducing agroecological approaches into development cooperation projects. Given that the choice of suitable agroecological practices is dependent on the project context, we will not focus on concrete practices but approach agroecology from a strategic perspective.

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Agroecology Leadership Academy – Cultivating Transformation - Agroecology TPP

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Agriculture is crucial for many African economies. However, current agriculture and food systems face challenges due to climate change and non-climatic stresses. To address these issues, increasing resilience of food systems and ecosystems is essential, and an agroecological transition towards sustainable agri-food systems is considered a central task for the future. The EU-cofunded action “ProSilience”Continue reading “Agroecology Leadership Academy – Cultivating Transformation”

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Community Psychology: Social Justice Through Collaborative Research and Action

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Community psychology goes beyond an individual focus and integrates social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and international influences to promote positive change, health, and empowerment at individual and systemic levels.

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Home - Asset-Based Community Development Institute

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To create resilient and thriving communities by teaching local people and organizations how to identify, nurture and mobilize existing community assets and talents for change.

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ReGeneration Rising Podcast — Coming Home to Life

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A Guide to Creating Your Very Own Grief Ritual Recipe Book

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A Guide to Creating Your Very Own Grief Ritual Recipe Book

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The Dinner Party is building a community of 21-45 year olds who have each experienced the loss of a parent, partner, child, sibling, other close family member, or close friend.

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Breaking bread for the loss of places, species, and planet in the wake of the 2018 U.N. Report

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Introduction_ The Social Turn (part of ART_31925_Participatory and Socially Engaged Art)

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Introduction_ The Social Turn (part of ART_31925_Participatory and Socially Engaged Art)

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How We Adapt to Climate Collapse: Transformative Adaptation with Rupert Read and Manda Scott

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Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice

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Looking at knowledge as a shared resource: experts discuss how to define, protect, and build the knowledge commons in the digital age.Knowledge in digital

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We live in a world where captains get arrested for saving people's lives on the sea; where a person downloading scientific articles faces 35 years in jail; where people risk charges for bringing contraceptives to those who otherwise couldn't get them. Folks are getting in trouble for giving food to the poor, medicine to the sick, water to the thirsty, shelter to the homeless. And yet our heroines care and disobey. They are pirates.
Pirate Care is a research process - primarily based in the transnational European space - that maps the increasingly present forms of activism at the intersection of "care" and "piracy", which in new and interesting ways are trying to intervene in one of the most important challenges of our time, that is, the 'crisis of care' in all its multiple and interconnected dimensions.

These practices are experimenting with self-organisation, alternative approaches to social reproduction and the commoning of tools, technologies and knowledges. Often they act disobediently in expressed non-compliance with laws, regulations and executive orders that ciriminalise the duty of care by imposing exclusions along the lines of class, gender, race or territory. They are not shying risk of persecution in providing unconditional solidarity to those who are the most exploited, discriminated against and condemned to the status of disposable populations.

The Pirate Care Syllabus we present here for the first time is a tool for supporting and activating collective processes of learning from these practices. We encourage everyone to freely use this syllabus to learn and organise processes of learning and to freely adapt, rewrite and expand it to reflect their own experience and serve their own pedagogies.

Please Note: The Pirate Care Syllabus is in a permanent state of being work in progress. Some topics and sessions are rather bare and under development, while others are more complete. We welcome suggestions and proposals for collaborations on expanding or re-visiting existing topics.

1. Caring is not intrinsically "nice", it always involve power relations. Processes of discipline, exclusion and harm can operate inside the matrix of care.

2. Care labour holds the capacity to disobey power and increase our collective freedom. This is why when it is organised in capitalist, patriarchal and racist ways, it does not work for most living beings. We are in a global crisis of care.

3. There are no wrong people. Yet, caring for the "wrong" people is more and more socially discouraged, made difficult and criminalized. For many, the crisis of care has been there for a very long time.

4. Caring is labour. it is necessary and it is skilled labour.

5. Care labour is shared unfairly and violently in most societies, along lines of gender, provenance, race, class, ability, and age. Some are forced to care, while some defend their privilege of expecting service. This has to change.

6. Caring labour needs full access to resources, knowledge, tools and technologies. When these are taken away, we must claim them back.

&mldr;

Pirate Care is convened by Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak.

Contributors to the Syllabus: Laura Benitez Valero, Emina Bužinkić, Rasmus Fleischer, Maddalena Fragnito, Valeria Graziano, Chris Grodotzki, Mary Maggic, Iva Marčetić, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Morana Miljanović, Power Makes Us Sick (PMS), Zoe Romano, Cassie Thornton, Ivory Tuesday, Ana Vilenica.

Contributors and translators of Flatten the Curve, Grow the Care: a collective note-taking exercise: Janneke Adema, Cooperation Birmingham, Maddalena Fragnito, Valeria Graziano, Antonia Hernández, Rebekka Kiesewetter, Katja Laug, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Tomasso Petrucci, Dan Rudmann, Tobias Steiner.

Contributors to the exhibition Pirate Care: Learning from Disobedience: Laura Benítez Valero, Emina Bužinkić, Maddalena Fragnito (Soprasotto), Iva Marčetić, Paula Pin (Biotranslab/ Pechblenda), Planka, Power Makes Us Sick (PMS), Sea-Watch, Ana Vilenica and Women on Waves.

Contributors to the 2019 Conference at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University: Agustina Andreoletti (Academy of Media Arts Cologne) | Mijke van der Drift (Goldsmiths University of London / Royal Academy of Art, The Hague) | Taraneh Fazeli (curatorial fellow, Jan van Eyck Academie and Canaries collective) | Kirsten Forkert (BCU) + Janna Graham (Goldsmiths) + Victoria Mponda (Global Sistaz United) | Maddalena Fragnito (Soprasotto) | Valeria Graziano (CPC) | Derly Guzman (Planka) | Toufic Haddad (Kenyon Institute) | Jelka Kretzschmar + Franziska Wallner (Sea-Watch) | Andrea Liu (Goldsmiths University of London) | Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak (Memory of the World / CPC) | Power Makes Us Sick (PMS) | Gilbert B. Rodman (University of Minnesota) | Zoe Romano (WeMake / Opencare.cc) | Deborah Streahle (Yale) | Nick Titus (Four Thieves Vinegar Collective) | Kim Trogal (UCA) | Ana Vilenica (LSBU) | Kandis Williams (Cassandra Press) | Kitty Worthing (Docs Not Cops) + James Skinner (Medact) | John Wilbanks (Sage Bionetworks/ FasterCures).

Contact: info@pirate.care

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Network of activists, researchers and practitioners against the criminalisation of solidarity & for a common care infrastructure.

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Commoning and Changemaking - Schumacher Center for a New Economics

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An essay on socio-economic transition from the introduction of The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transition Ahead, written David Bollier and published by The Schumacher Center for a New Economics.

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An education movement bringing more awareness of emotions and multipotentiality into learning spaces.

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Emotional and Ecological Literacy for a More Sustainable Society

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Emotional and Ecological Literacy for a More Sustainable Society

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Diversifying the Environmental History Syllabus 

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Diversifying the Environmental History Syllabus 

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The Syllabus Project: Expanding the Environmental History Syllabus

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Creating Diverse Environmental History Syllabi

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Decolonize your Environmental History syllabus! Collaborate with us to create a bibliography of diverse readings in environmental history.

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Shifting Focus: alternative pathways for communities and economies | Community Economies

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This resource kit on asset-based community and economic development by Jenny Cameron and Katherine Gibson has been used by communities in Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and elsewhere.

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"The bus" is a central figure in a methodology for collective inquiry that emerged as a response to the need for difficult, honest and sober conversations where the integrity of relationships are prioritized above the emotional charge of the content being discussed. The methodology is being tested by our research group as a container for conversations about colonial continuities and decolonial possibilities.
The basics
"The bus" has a structure of four decks or levels of engagement. The first deck is the most basic. The narrative below is an example of what would be used to create and hold the space for this methodology with a group of participants.

Imagine everyone in the room as single deck buses full of passengers of different ages. In each bus, there is a driver, passengers gathered at the front, in the middle and at the back. On your own bus, there are passengers you know and passengers you don't know. There are passengers who are drawing your attention, others who want to hide from you. In this space, any encounter between individuals will be an encounter of "buses". The point of this first exercise is to learn to observe and sit with the people on your bus, without judgement. In order to create the conditions for this to happen, you will be shown a bus-response-inducing stimulus and be asked to draw your bus focusing on three passengers within it that call your attention: one at the front, one in the middle and one at the back. You will register what each passenger is saying with a speech bubble, a thought bubble and a heart bubble, representing what is being said, what is being thought (and why) and what is being felt and anticipated (e.g. hopes, attachments, fears and anxieties). You will be given sometime to sit with what is happening on your bus and to observe what is happening with the process of observation. In relation to your passengers, pay attention to their age and form (are they human?), whether there is trauma involved, their level of tolerance for uncertainty and their response to being observed. In relation to your own observation (you observing yourself observe), pay attention to your relationship to the activity itself: are you worried about following instructions accurately? are you adapting the task? are you distracted? are you resisting it? There is no right or wrong here, just observe.

Next you will be asked to sit in pairs to share what you want to share in relation to what you have learned from your observations. It is important to emphasise that you are not being asked to describe what is happening on the bus or in the observation itself, but what you are learning about the bus and the process of observation in general terms. You can use your drawing as an example if you want, but the focus of the conversation needs to be meta-analytic (related to the process of learning itself) and not confessional (related to yourself). Then, you will be asked to sit in groups of four and report on what you are learning from listening to other people's reports of their learning. Finally you will be invited to share with the group 1. one thing that may have surprised you and 2. the current state of your bus: whether things seem a)ok, or b)things are being processed, or c)if there is something "burning" that needs to be expressed or vented. If we take the metaphor of the bus further, sometimes, when the bus is travelling too fast or through winding or rocky roads, individual passengers can become nauseous and therefore the bus needs to stop so that they can "vomit". In this methodology, the "holding the (vomit) bucket" phrase is used as an invited agreement for non-judgemental listening of something you may not completely identify with (within your bus), but that needs to be expressed. If you ask for "the bucket", we will check with the group if people are ok with listening to something potentially triggering without judgement and without being triggered. Those who feel that they may be triggered at that moment (regardless of the reason) may choose to leave the space for a while.
The other decks
"The bus" can also be conceptualized as a four deck vehicle representing four layers of selfhood: 1)me, 2)me and you, 3)me in you, and 4)neither me nor you ("us" in an "I" beyond form and time). The first, basic layer of the bus represents one lifetime of a self within a bounded body: all the experiences of one's embodiment in flesh, time, and space. Therefore, within "the bus" a person would find aspects of the psyche related to hers/his responses to being socialized within their social groups. On the second deck of the bus (me and you), a person would find the communities they have a connection with also within the bus (both positive and negative connections). On the third deck of the bus, there is one living organism, consisting of different cells and organs known and unknown in different forms. The larger organism metaphor (represented by planet earth) emphasizes co-constitution, co-dependency, co-vulnerability, entanglement beyond what can be cognitively registered, as well as a larger temporality where responsibility extends beyond one's species and lifetime. The fourth deck of the bus (neither me nor you) represents a metaphysical level of selfhood beyond time and space, that exists alongside the different temporalities and embodiments represented on the other decks and that stands for the co-constitution of death and creation, shadow and light as the source of both destruction, creativity and possibility.

It is emphasized that our modern socialization has given us language for decks 1 and 2, but has stripped us of language for decks 3 and 4. This is partly due to the fact that the Enlightenment legacy of this socialization attempts to reduce being to knowing and knowing to controlling (I think therefore I am), while decks 3 and 4 represent being that cannot be reduced to knowing and that are beyond human control. This desire for control also affects the quality of language used to describe and manage decks 1 and 2, what we call "thick language". Thick language works like a heavy blanket that tries to envelope and restrict the movement of the world into fixity in meaning. In contrast, thin language works like a veil that allows for flow, flexibility, mobility and play of meanings, in the understanding that meaning, although necessary, cannot apprehend reality and that being cannot be reduced to knowing: the world cannot fit any box. Work on decks 3 and 4 necessarily require "thin language". If "thick language" is used, these decks are captured back in boxes that will tend to be defended and protected as the "truth", in efforts steaming from desires to eliminate uncertainty and indeterminacy.

If the bus decks are introduced in a collective inquiry, participants are asked to pay attention to which deck they are called to attend to, and to develop more familiarity with the decks they have not been encouraged to explore.
Academic talk
This methodology is counter-intuitive because our social experience demands and rewards displays of coherence, self-transparency, purity and control, therefore most of us have not been encouraged and are not used to talking about internal complexity, diversity or contradictions. As we do not have a established vocabulary to express these aspects of the self, we tend to repress them. When we repress something we dis-identify with within ourselves, we will tend to project it outward, as a trait we don't like in others and sometimes this is perceived as a threat, prompting justifications for hate and even extermination. In other words, if we cannot sit with our own complexity and indeterminacy, we will not be able to sit with the complexity and indeterminacy of the world around us. The denial of these complexities and fear of the unknown create a desire to make the world fit in a box of certainties that offer us (false) securities and creates harmful projections and unrealistic expectations that are very damaging to our relationships. Our attachments to the illusion of control over these boxes and fears of the unknown and of uncertainty create the fragilities that make it almost impossible for us to not want to control our lives, relationships and each other. Trust becomes conditional on predictability and affirmation (of boxes). Therefore conversations that expose what does not fit in or that which is hurt by the boxes we hold dear in order to feel safe, break the agreement of predictability and affirmation and are perceived as uncomfortable, threatening or (self)destructive.

Depending on how the methodology is used and experienced, the figure of "the bus" can support individuals and groups

to register experiences of selfhood beyond meaning inscribed in self-image, identity, and codified understanding

to examine the affective dimension of our relationship with knowledge and knowledge production

to face and sit with paradoxes, contradictions, complexities and diversities internal to the self

to identify the relationship between external social demands and individual affective, intellectual and subsistence investments

to observe the symptoms and effects of one's attachments to coherence, authority, certainty, virtue, mastery, leadership, superiority and control

to articulate and assess projections and unexamined compensatory patterns of addiction

to build stamina to engage productively and agonistically with dissonance, dissensus, complicity, conflict, ambivalence, divergence, indeterminacy, and imcommensurability

to develop dispositions of self-permeability and affectability where relationships not mediated by knowledge or desires for identification or dis-identification

to discern between wants and needs and their sources

to reduce collective anxieties and to transform conflict into generative experiences

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"The bus" is a central figure in a methodology for collective inquiry that emerged as a response to the need for difficult, honest and sober conversations where the integrity of relationships are prioritized above the emotional charge of the content being discussed. The methodology is being tested by our research group as a container for...

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Radical Friends: Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and the Arts

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Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) offer unique tools for translocal peers to encode rules, relations and values into their joint ventures using blockchain technology. This new book, edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, who have been at the forefront of investigations into the relationship between DAOs

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Collective Creative Practices for Transformation | Plurality University Network

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‘Collective Creative Practices for Transformation’ is an open and collaborative research project that aims to gather practitioners, artists and researchers who participate in these kinds of practices in order to exchange ideas, discuss common issues, share methods, towards the delineation of an emerging field of practice. We define a collective creative practice as follows : A project led by individuals or organizations (artists, researchers, activists, public institutions,…

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Welcome to Community Savers We are an affiliation of women-led and neighbourhood-based groups and community networks bringing residents together to share ideas, experiences and strategies for addressing poverty and inequality in our neighbourhoods, towns and cities.

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At Work in the Ruins w/ Dougald Hine, Bayo Akomolafe, Stephen Jenkinson & Vanessa Andreotti

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Living a Radically Simple Permaculture Life on 1/4 Acre | Creatures of Place

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Keynote: A Complexity Approach to Decolonization (and a decolonial approach to complexity)

November 10, 2023.

download power point presentation PDF

GTDF inquiry & experiments mentioned in the CIARS keynote

Po-ethic exercises

Books

Talks

Top 10 academic texts (articles and chapters)

Much of the work of this international collective has happened in unceded Musqueam lands (where the University of British Columbia is located). We would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Musqueam People for enabling us to carry out this work in their lands. We also want to acknowledge the ongoing inspiration and guidance provided to our collective by the Teia das 5 Curas Indigenous network..

We are grateful for the support received from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada and the long-term support of the Musagetes Foundation for the research, artistic creation and dissemination of this work.

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CIARS: 12th Annual Decolonizing Conference Keynote: A Complexity Approach to Decolonization (and a decolonial approach to complexity) November 10, 2023. download power point presentation PDF GTDF inquiry & experiments mentioned in the CIARS keynote Four socially sanctioned denials GTDF gift contract: theory of change The BUS within us: self-diffraction The house modernity built: systemic critique...

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Priya Parker: virtual gathering resource

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Priya Parker: virtual gathering resource

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Priya Parker: the new rules of gathering resource

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Priya Parker: the new rules of gathering resource

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INHABITANTS is a feature documentary that follows five Native American Tribes across deserts, coastlines, forests, and prairies as they restore their traditional land management practices.

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INHABITANTS is a feature documentary that follows five Native American Tribes across deserts, coastlines, forests, and prairies as they restore their traditional land management practices.

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"Inhabit" is a documentary film project that aims to expand the reach and relatability of permaculture. Permaculture is a design science based on the observation and replication of patterns and relationships found in nature; it is an approach to designing sustainable systems of agriculture, community, economics, politics, and more.

We will travel in a solar and veggie-oil-powered bus documenting the people and projects currently giving voice to permaculture in the Northeast. We will look at permaculture practices in rural, suburban, and urban environments to break away from the conception of it being purely agricultural, and we will explore the breadth of its application to current local and global challenges - from issues of food, water, and medicine, to governance, economy, and culture.

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"Inhabit" is a documentary film project that aims to expand the reach and relatability of permaculture. Permaculture is a design science based on the observation and replication of patterns and relationships found in nature; it is an approach to designing sustainable systems of agriculture, community, economics, politics, and more.

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Across the country people are feeling things can't keep going as they are.

The climate crisis, inequality, division and widespread discrimination show our political and economic systems are not serving the wellbeing of people or the planet. But people from all walks of life are coming together to turn this around and build a better future. Communities are stepping up to address the big challenges they face by starting local.

If we wait for governments, it will be too late. If we act as individuals, it will be too little. But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, and it might just be in time. Transition Together supports people to connect locally to build more sustainable and equal communities where we have control over our day to day lives. Explore our groups, upcoming events, news and stories, plus the support and funding we offer for community-led change.

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Transition Together - Transition Together

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Building Resilient Communities Across Britain Across the country people are feeling things can't keep going as they are. The climate crisis, inequality, division and widespread discrimination show our political and economic systems are not [...]

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Why grow food: Wise words from permaculture & regenerative educator Abi Mordin

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Meet the teacher: Abi Mordin on Justice through Food

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From the publisher's website]: The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

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If you are interested in learning more about the Art of Hosting, here are some ways to connect:

Facebook group - Follow our activities and connect to the wider community

The List Serve - Take part in the ongoing email conversation about AoH practices

Vimeo - Watch videos illustrating what the The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter is all about

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If you are interested in learning more about the Art of Hosting, here are some ways to connect: Facebook group - Follow our activities and connect to the wider community The List Serve - Take part in the ongoing email conversation about AoH practices Vimeo - Watch videos illustrating what the The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter is all about

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Civic Square: "Demonstrating neighbourhood-scale civic infrastructure for social, ecological, economic, and climate transition."

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Civic Square: "Demonstrating neighbourhood-scale civic infrastructure for social, ecological, economic, and climate transition."

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Demonstrating neighbourhood-scale civic infrastructure for social, ecological, economic, and climate transition.

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Feeling overwhelmed by big problems society faces, whether that be poverty or the environment, is normal. But rather than being shut down by those feelings, we can use them to open our imagination.

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The work we're doing to deepen collective imagination practice (where a network of individuals and communities come together to imagine pathways to a better world, rehearsing and participating in the futures they want to see). Collective imagination gives us the freedom to dream and rewild, breaking out of cycles of despair to move towards a more hope-filled future.

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Transformative power of civic engagement

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Transformative power of civic engagement

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The Transformative Power of Civic Engagement

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About the Shieling Project - About the Shieling Project

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Do you want to milk a cow, build a bothy, or plant a forest? Be an archaeologist, a poet, a weaver? Come outdoors and get stuck in to shieling life with us at our off-grid learning centres in Struy & Gartymore.

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Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. We raise and distribute life-giving food as a means to end food apartheid. With deep reverence for the land and wisdom of our ancestors, we work to reclaim our collective right to belong to the earth and to have agency in the food system. We bring diverse communities together on this healing land to share skills on sustainable agriculture, natural building, spiritual activism, health, and environmental justice. We are training the next generation of activist-farmers and strengthening the movements for food sovereignty and community self-determination.

Our food sovereignty programs reach over 50,000 people each year, including farmer training for Black and Brown growers, reparations and land return initiatives for northeast farmers, food justice workshops for urban youth, home gardens for city-dwellers living under food apartheid, doorstep harvest delivery for food insecure households, and systems and policy education for public decision-makers.

Soul Fire Farm Institute Inc is a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization. Learn more about our work by reading our FAQ.

Event Booking

Request us for a workshop, keynote, lecture or youth event

Our Store

Purchase our farm products and merchandise

Donate

Support our work and our team by making a donation

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Ending racism and injustice in the food system

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The Ladakh Project of Local Futures focuses on relocalizing food systems and documenting traditional practices. We host workshops, and more.

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Resources - Free Downloads * Videos * Links * Shop

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Free downloads, permaculture related videos, links to other websites and our shop where we offer a range of publications, dvds and teaching aids.

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Together Resilient: Community and Climate Disruption - Community Builders Forum 4

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design activism beautiful strangeness for a sustainable world Alastair Fuad-Luke London • Sterling, VA publishing for a sustainable future

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Skye Jin is a multimedia artist MFA, permaculture designer and educator. Founder of Art+Science+Permaculture and GardeningisActivism.com working with the the role of aesthetics in the climate crisis and community co-creation. Co-editor of the magazine PERMAKULTUR.

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Welcome to The RYSE - The Radical Youth Space for Educations - our project to build a radical educational space for youth organisers, the space we need if together we are going to weave truly transformative social movements - aka:

​

A Home for our Generation to Learn the Art of Disobedience

This

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Welcome to The RYSE - The Radical Youth Space for Educations - our project to build a radical educational space for youth organisers, the space we need if together we are going to weave truly transformative social movements - aka: ​ A Home for our Generation to Learn the Art of Disobedience This

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A future where humans thrive as part of the Earth’s ecology.

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Jenna Ashton
Described as invasive, a nuisance, and squatters by not only most mainstream media outlets but also by a number of wildlife charities, the much-maligned Canada Goose populations of the UK are important members of our more-than-human urban communities.

The Canada Goose is a legacy-animal of colonial extraction. Imported by the wealthy from North America in the 17th Century, the current goose populations of the first industrial city, Manchester "Cottonopolis" , live along the canals that once transported goods across the Pennines. Her body is a site of experience, watery archive, and historical witnessing across the intersections of colonialism, climate change, and gender oppressions (her ability to reproduce very effectively is deemed troublesome.)

Attitudes towards the Canada Goose can act as a yard stick for testing and expressing how the stresses of social and environmental injustice shape the functioning of inner-city communities. An "art of attentiveness" to the needs and interests of the honking, loitering goose may help us better connect to and explore that which is negated and deemed dispensable under conditions of raging inequalities. Specifically, the geographies of geese movement, expression, and agency within encounters and interactions with humans and other animals in the neighbourhoods in which they live offer a new strand of enquiry for the anthropocentric discipline of Heritage Studies; as well as for place-based heritage practice and policy-making, and ecological (re)thinking of organisations such as the Canal & River Trust that care for their habitat.

In 2019, the stray/free-roaming dogs in post-war Prishtina (Kosova) activated my attentiveness to the potential of a living landscape as a site of multispecies enquiry for rethinking processes of memorialisation and heritage-making in the city . This is also true for the Canada Goose. During my arts-practice research in neighbourhoods in North Manchester (UK) on community climate resilience (2020-23), I have been trying to make sense of what residential community actually is in a diverse and spatially and culturally complex post-industrial city area; how community functions, how it perceives itself, who even makes up community in people's every day's experiences and imaginations. The geese - and not one or two but pretty large families - should be considered part of these community explorations given they are permanent, prominent residents. They make their nests along the Rochdale Canal and regularly saunter across swathes of yet-to-be developed land, waddle up the side streets, casually passing by a corner newsagent. They are bold and a bit nosy, but pretty passive and not bothersome.

The body of a Canada Goose is the size of a medium dog and the neck can stretch to a good 5ft tall. It's perhaps understandable that these beautiful but imposing birds can inspire awe but also nervousness. The geese, really, are the most visible wild animals in these urban neighbourhoods. The remaining green spaces in the area are either ex-industrial so-called wastelands (under threat of development) or sites of demolished council housing that have already been earmarked for new private housing. The geese are so much part of the everyday environment that some residents clearly feel very protective of them, as they would their pet dog or cat. With other residents, the language is one of empathy and shame about any accidents, thefts or killings that take place, and a sense of trying to exert the rights of the Canada Goose to exist as any other local resident. Others describe them as "aggressive", but their hissing and peck threats are launched only if you get too close to their babies in the summer.

I want to bottom out the complexity of the relationships between people and the flocks. Importantly, the geese are consistent witnesses to the changes and shifting landscapes around them. For example, it's not only working class residents who are negatively impacted by housing development on their few green spaces, but the geese also become displaced as more and more of their home next to the canal is encroached upon.
Animal Geographies for Heritage Studies
Heritage studies is still evolving as a disciplinary area with varied methodologies, bringing together perspectives and approaches from sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, archaeology, geography, history, and the arts. Heritage Studies demands we think critically about heritage as a concept and performance, and its materialisation, how it pertains to identities, power, and ethics. Heritage is made by categorisations and value systems. Heritage studies concentrates upon the political dynamics of this contemporary and historical heritage-making, and who gets to shape decisions about what we express care for, and how values get attributed to spaces, things, people and processes.

Co-production and values-led practices are espoused by the more recent "turn" described as critical heritage studies. Critical heritage studies emerges officially as a disciplinary approach in the 2000s, inspired by earlier anti-colonial, black and indigenous, and feminist thinking. The Manifesto of the ACHS claims the discipline should challenge 'nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, cultural elitism, Western triumphalism, social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, and the fetishising of expert knowledge' (ACHS). Specifically, as stated by the Manifesto, 'we argue that a truly critical heritage studies will ask many uncomfortable questions of traditional ways of thinking about and doing heritage, and that the interests of the marginalised and excluded will be brought to the forefront when posing these questions.' The ACHS approach therefore demands a programme of research and practice engaging with diverse content and authorship and methodologies. It also encourages learning programmes driven by social and environmental justice concerns.

Heritage as a social practice, then, is to try and understand the social situatedness and complexity of perspectives, meanings and values attributed within our environments. Heritage as a social practice is generated, renewed and reproduced by people through space and time. The material world and its creative acts are both the remnants and the drivers of a continuous and fairly contentious cycle of narrative and storytelling which is continuously shifting, informed by desires and demands, visibility and invisibility, eradication or permanence, aesthetics and taste, oppression and subjugation. Although some people would like "heritage" to be a fixed selection and prescribed set of standards confirming certain ideals of national identity, in practice, it is always in flux, being shaped externally and internally.

For me, this is what makes heritage studies an exciting developing field.

So ... animals. This is the missing part of Heritage Studies theory and practice for the aforementioned goals and approaches of the discipline. Animal geographies will necessarily complicate the narrative around value-systems. Not only for how animals are advocated for within environmental management, tourism, cultural expressions and practices, and so on, but also how animals themselves shape generate, renew, reproduced heritage practice and theory. Animal Geographies may help to evolve these methodologies for an expanded Heritage Studies that take seriously heritage as more-than-human.
Arts-practice research with the Canada Goose
Arts practice as research can focus on the gaps into which fall the stories of people and species that inhabit and love places differently with less glory, but with pride, creativity, quiet knowledge, and more goose poo. As an arts-practice researcher I want to take time to think through my methodology for working with the geese, the nearby residents, users of the canal, and the Canal and River Trust who are the primary organisation caring for geese environs in Manchester. Building on my previous work, I know that arts-practice research can enable the geographies and lives of the geese to be better understood and, perhaps, loved a little better than they are now.

What form(s) the practice takes, I am not sure yet. I keep returning to Mieke Bal's work around image-thinking and artmaking as cultural analysis, which of course is in relation to the exploration of human cultures. What artmaking is relevant for analysis of goose cultures, especially beyond the stereotyping promulgated by the written word? If artmaking involves goose participants, what ethical issues need to be addressed? Importantly, will this artmaking as analysis (although useful for theoretical reconceptualization) actually help the welfare conditions of the Canada Goose populations in Manchester? Similar to the mantra of human-focused action research, do no harm, there is also a responsibility of do some good.

All photographs are copyright of the author.

Dr Jenna C. Ashton (Jenna.Ashton@manchester.ac.uk // @heritagemcr

Jenna Ashton is an artist, curator, producer, and Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the Institute for Cultural Practices, University of Manchester. She is also the Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures and an Associate Member of the Sustainable Consumption Institute, UoM. Jenna's arts-led interdisciplinary research explores community cultural practices, knowledge, creativity, and economies; multispecies living; storytelling "place"; feminism and inequalities. She is the editor of 2-volume collection "Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change" (2017/18). Upcoming book publications include "Feminist Co-production: As a Crochet Textile Playground" (2024), "Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Gender" (2025), and "Urban Communities and Climate Justice: Insights from Arts-Practice Research" (2025).

Jenna Ashton
Described as invasive, a nuisance, and squatters by not only most mainstream media outlets but also by a number of wildlife charities, the much-maligned Canada Goose populations of the UK are important members of our more-than-human urban communities.

The Canada Goose is a legacy-animal of colonial extraction. Imported by the wealthy from North America in the 17th Century, the current goose populations of the first industrial city, Manchester "Cottonopolis" , live along the canals that once transported goods across the Pennines. Her body is a site of experience, watery archive, and historical witnessing across the intersections of colonialism, climate change, and gender oppressions (her ability to reproduce very effectively is deemed troublesome.)

Attitudes towards the Canada Goose can act as a yard stick for testing and expressing how the stresses of social and environmental injustice shape the functioning of inner-city communities. An "art of attentiveness" to the needs and interests of the honking, loitering goose may help us better connect to and explore that which is negated and deemed dispensable under conditions of raging inequalities. Specifically, the geographies of geese movement, expression, and agency within encounters and interactions with humans and other animals in the neighbourhoods in which they live offer a new strand of enquiry for the anthropocentric discipline of Heritage Studies; as well as for place-based heritage practice and policy-making, and ecological (re)thinking of organisations such as the Canal & River Trust that care for their habitat.

In 2019, the stray/free-roaming dogs in post-war Prishtina (Kosova) activated my attentiveness to the potential of a living landscape as a site of multispecies enquiry for rethinking processes of memorialisation and heritage-making in the city . This is also true for the Canada Goose. During my arts-practice research in neighbourhoods in North Manchester (UK) on community climate resilience (2020-23), I have been trying to make sense of what residential community actually is in a diverse and spatially and culturally complex post-industrial city area; how community functions, how it perceives itself, who even makes up community in people's every day's experiences and imaginations. The geese - and not one or two but pretty large families - should be considered part of these community explorations given they are permanent, prominent residents. They make their nests along the Rochdale Canal and regularly saunter across swathes of yet-to-be developed land, waddle up the side streets, casually passing by a corner newsagent. They are bold and a bit nosy, but pretty passive and not bothersome.

The body of a Canada Goose is the size of a medium dog and the neck can stretch to a good 5ft tall. It's perhaps understandable that these beautiful but imposing birds can inspire awe but also nervousness. The geese, really, are the most visible wild animals in these urban neighbourhoods. The remaining green spaces in the area are either ex-industrial so-called wastelands (under threat of development) or sites of demolished council housing that have already been earmarked for new private housing. The geese are so much part of the everyday environment that some residents clearly feel very protective of them, as they would their pet dog or cat. With other residents, the language is one of empathy and shame about any accidents, thefts or killings that take place, and a sense of trying to exert the rights of the Canada Goose to exist as any other local resident. Others describe them as "aggressive", but their hissing and peck threats are launched only if you get too close to their babies in the summer.

I want to bottom out the complexity of the relationships between people and the flocks. Importantly, the geese are consistent witnesses to the changes and shifting landscapes around them. For example, it's not only working class residents who are negatively impacted by housing development on their few green spaces, but the geese also become displaced as more and more of their home next to the canal is encroached upon.
Animal Geographies for Heritage Studies
Heritage studies is still evolving as a disciplinary area with varied methodologies, bringing together perspectives and approaches from sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, archaeology, geography, history, and the arts. Heritage Studies demands we think critically about heritage as a concept and performance, and its materialisation, how it pertains to identities, power, and ethics. Heritage is made by categorisations and value systems. Heritage studies concentrates upon the political dynamics of this contemporary and historical heritage-making, and who gets to shape decisions about what we express care for, and how values get attributed to spaces, things, people and processes.

Co-production and values-led practices are espoused by the more recent "turn" described as critical heritage studies. Critical heritage studies emerges officially as a disciplinary approach in the 2000s, inspired by earlier anti-colonial, black and indigenous, and feminist thinking. The Manifesto of the ACHS claims the discipline should challenge 'nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, cultural elitism, Western triumphalism, social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, and the fetishising of expert knowledge' (ACHS). Specifically, as stated by the Manifesto, 'we argue that a truly critical heritage studies will ask many uncomfortable questions of traditional ways of thinking about and doing heritage, and that the interests of the marginalised and excluded will be brought to the forefront when posing these questions.' The ACHS approach therefore demands a programme of research and practice engaging with diverse content and authorship and methodologies. It also encourages learning programmes driven by social and environmental justice concerns.

Heritage as a social practice, then, is to try and understand the social situatedness and complexity of perspectives, meanings and values attributed within our environments. Heritage as a social practice is generated, renewed and reproduced by people through space and time. The material world and its creative acts are both the remnants and the drivers of a continuous and fairly contentious cycle of narrative and storytelling which is continuously shifting, informed by desires and demands, visibility and invisibility, eradication or permanence, aesthetics and taste, oppression and subjugation. Although some people would like "heritage" to be a fixed selection and prescribed set of standards confirming certain ideals of national identity, in practice, it is always in flux, being shaped externally and internally.

For me, this is what makes heritage studies an exciting developing field.

So ... animals. This is the missing part of Heritage Studies theory and practice for the aforementioned goals and approaches of the discipline. Animal geographies will necessarily complicate the narrative around value-systems. Not only for how animals are advocated for within environmental management, tourism, cultural expressions and practices, and so on, but also how animals themselves shape generate, renew, reproduced heritage practice and theory. Animal Geographies may help to evolve these methodologies for an expanded Heritage Studies that take seriously heritage as more-than-human.
Arts-practice research with the Canada Goose
Arts practice as research can focus on the gaps into which fall the stories of people and species that inhabit and love places differently with less glory, but with pride, creativity, quiet knowledge, and more goose poo. As an arts-practice researcher I want to take time to think through my methodology for working with the geese, the nearby residents, users of the canal, and the Canal and River Trust who are the primary organisation caring for geese environs in Manchester. Building on my previous work, I know that arts-practice research can enable the geographies and lives of the geese to be better understood and, perhaps, loved a little better than they are now.

What form(s) the practice takes, I am not sure yet. I keep returning to Mieke Bal's work around image-thinking and artmaking as cultural analysis, which of course is in relation to the exploration of human cultures. What artmaking is relevant for analysis of goose cultures, especially beyond the stereotyping promulgated by the written word? If artmaking involves goose participants, what ethical issues need to be addressed? Importantly, will this artmaking as analysis (although useful for theoretical reconceptualization) actually help the welfare conditions of the Canada Goose populations in Manchester? Similar to the mantra of human-focused action research, do no harm, there is also a responsibility of do some good.

All photographs are copyright of the author.

Dr Jenna C. Ashton (Jenna.Ashton@manchester.ac.uk // @heritagemcr

Jenna Ashton is an artist, curator, producer, and Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the Institute for Cultural Practices, University of Manchester. She is also the Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures and an Associate Member of the Sustainable Consumption Institute, UoM. Jenna's arts-led interdisciplinary research explores community cultural practices, knowledge, creativity, and economies; multispecies living; storytelling "place"; feminism and inequalities. She is the editor of 2-volume collection "Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change" (2017/18). Upcoming book publications include "Feminist Co-production: As a Crochet Textile Playground" (2024), "Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Gender" (2025), and "Urban Communities and Climate Justice: Insights from Arts-Practice Research" (2025).

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The Canada Goose - RGS Animal Geographies

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Described as invasive, a nuisance, and squatters by not only most mainstream media outlets but also by a number of wildlife charities, the much-maligned Canada Goose populations of the UK are important members of our more-than-human urban communities.

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The Story of Permaculture | Documentary (2024)

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documentary documentaries film films "campfire stories" "mattias olsson" regenerative

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Inspiring change towards a future of human sanity and ecological balance. Most of our films are available here on Youtube. For the complete library, visit: campfire-stories.org. To support our work, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/mattiasolsson

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Man Spends 30 Years Turning Degraded Land into Massive Forest – Fools & Dreamers (Full Documentary)

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Best Collaboration Practices for Organizations and Visual Artists

This guide was created by Kemi Alabi, Micah Bazant, Kate DeCiccio, Amir Khadar, Diana Lugo-Martinez, Monica Trinidad and Kah Yangni in partnership with Forward Together.

Ready to Make Magic? Download Our Guide & Resources

We're making Building Irresistible Movements available for free to artists and organizers who want to work together to harness the power of culture and transform our world. Sign up for your free guide & resources:

Full Guide (PDF) Condensed Guide (PDF)

Sample Contracts & Worksheets (ZIP)

Full Guide & All Attachments (ZIP)

Short on time? Download our condensed guide or read it below.

Introduction

Art and culture have always been central to our freedom struggles. We use art to keep each other alive, organize, live with joy and imagine freedom. How can organizers and artists best work together to harness the power of culture and create a more just world?

Identify your project goals and strategies

What are the specific goals?

Who needs to tell the story?

Who is the audience?

Where and when are the most strategic points of dissemination?

How can we move our audiences to action and increase impact?

How can we build relationships of repair, trust and reciprocity through every step of the process-from creative conception to collaboration and dissemination?

Find collaborators through ethical artist selection

No contests or spec work. Use open calls. Avoid exploitative recruitment practices that require unpaid labor. Open calls let artists apply for paid projects by submitting existing work for review as a demonstration of their skill. Ask for 3 to 5 work samples and keep any written questions brief and low-pressure.

Do not use AI-generated art. It exploits the work of human artists and destroys our livelihoods.

Who the artist is changes what the work does. Their story, relationships and struggles all shape what their work means to us. Prioritize working with artists from the marginalized communities you aim to reach.

Focus on quality of work, not resumes or follower counts. With the right art direction and support, emerging movement artists can build their skills and produce powerful work.

Use fair fee structures that value art labor

Never offer exposure as compensation or expect artists to volunteer.

Pay artists based on the scope of work, not their fame, reach or follower counts.

Rush all payments to artists. Pay a 25- to 50-percent deposit at the start of a project.

Create a payment and contract process that honors artists' names.

Compensate artists for commissioned social media labor.

Always allow artists to retain copyright of their work. Use fair contracts that grant the organization rights to license or co-own the work.

Use our fair contract template and fee chart (below) for minimum rates.

Fee Structure for Illustration based on Organizational Budget

Organization's Annual Budget

One Original Collaborative Graphic Artwork
By a professional graphic artist or illustrator (approximately 30 to 40 hours of work)

Usage: Artist retains copyright. Image licensed to organization for unlimited use.

Includes: One collaborative visioning meeting; up to two rounds of major revisions to artistic direction; up to three rounds of minor revisions.

Does not include: Rush work, unlimited usage, media promotion, additional revisions or more extensive collaborative process.

Under $250k
$1,000 minimum ($25/hr for 40 hours¹)

$250k-$500k
$1,250 minimum ($31.25/hr for 40 hours)

$500k-$1 million
$1,500 minimum ($37.50/hr for 40 hours)

> $1 million
$2,000 minimum ($50/hr for 40 hours)

> $5 million
$2,500 minimum ($62.50/hr for 40 hours)

Hourly wage minimums informed by the Living Wage Calculator by Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology @2024

Facilitate a process that taps into the magic of all involved

Train your entire staff on the values of cultural strategy. When everyone is oriented to cultural power, they can recognize opportunities for impactful artist collaboration.

Include artists from the beginning. When you work with artists who are part of your target audience, they will often know how art could be most powerfully received and have networks that can help launch the work. This is an opportunity to anticipate crucial details from community buy-in to messaging to printing sources.

Set process expectations. How often will the organization and artist communicate? Balancing the expertise of all involved, how will final decisions about imagery and messaging be made? Set a maximum number of rounds for feedback and revision.

Decide on text at the start. It can take 8 to 16 hours to reconfigure an image to include text. Generally messages that are ten words or less are strongest.

Support new artists to develop technical skills. Include specifications about dimensions, bleed, resolution, color mode and logos in the contract and review them with the artists at the start.

Avoid rush work and allow artists ample time to create. A month is a minimum amount of time for an experienced artist to complete a poster commission that is not a rush job; two months is spacious for newer artists and deeper collaboration. If rush work is unavoidable, organizations should pay an additional fee.

Confront power dynamics. Is the artist part of a marginalized community that is not in leadership in the organization or project? Is the artist representing people other than themselves? Make sure they are working with people who are part of the represented community, either within or outside your organization.

If you are working with a group of artists, create space for them to connect. At minimum, this could be a group email or initial meeting to meet each other. Artists can build on this connection throughout your project and beyond.

Consider a process for community input. Collaboration increases the likelihood the artwork will be meaningful to and used by grassroots groups and community members. Compensate and credit external partners for their expertise and work.

Art Direction and Feedback

Great art direction sees what's strong in artists' work-what we are capable of-and lovingly redirects us toward these strengths if we get lost.

Provide concrete art direction. Let artists know what specific elements you love in their past work that you'd like to see. You can also share examples of other inspiration or the context of the story you're trying to tell with the art.

Share concrete affirmations throughout the process. It can be daunting to receive a list of "no's" and have to guess what is working. Prioritize written affirmation that is as pointed as critiques. Let artists know specifically what is working; refer to the initial art direction.

Micromanagement isn't a creative love language. Artists produce stronger work when we have more autonomy to pursue our own style and vision.

Let the art live outside your box. Art is powerful because it is not an exact, literal representation. Allow the art to be unexpected, strange, magical and new. Communicate your needs without squishing the spirit of the art or artist.

Let unfinished work breathe. Avoid rushing artists toward a finish line. Time can be the secret ingredient.

If you are working with a group of artists, consider asking the artists to give each other feedback, and include this in the paid scope of work.

Strategic and Ethical Distribution

Create a distribution plan based in your key goals and strategy. Where are the most strategic points of impact and dissemination? What current events, history, or observances can we connect with to help fuel dissemination and create meaning.

Release the art with your call to action. Don't share the art until all the action tools are ready, and then make sure that wherever people see the art, they see the call to action.

Engage artists as outreach partners. Bringing artists into your outreach strategy can both teach new skills to emerging artists and create more channels of amplification for your project, especially if the artists are part of your target audiences.

Share ownership of the work. If you are collaborating with directly impacted organizations or people, and the artwork exists in part because of their struggle and lived experience, share ownership of the work (e.g., sharing credit, original files, profits).

Create channels for feedback between communities, organizations and artists. Imagine creative ways to invite reactions and stories of impact when you share the art.

Support artists to set up the building blocks of their career. A brief artist bio, artist statement, headshot, professional website and/or online store, and public/professional social media accounts will help you share their work in meaningful ways.

Offer prints to artists. If you can print extra, give some to the artist to sell. The cost of printing each piece goes down when we print in greater quantities, so this arrangement may benefit all parties.

Never alter artwork without permission. If your organization would like to potentially make changes to the artwork in the future, include these parameters in the contract.

Always credit and uplift artists and creative partners. Tag and credit the relevant contributors when sharing their work on social media. Share websites, stores and accounts whenever you can.

Make digital images more accessible. Always add alt text and image descriptions. Refer to guidelines from Social Media Access 101 by @higher_priestess.

Make printed images more accessible. For exhibits and events, aim to make the space as accessible as possible. See Sins Invalid's Access Suggestions for a Public Event.

Keep Building

Ask for artists' feedback at the end of the project. How could the process have gone better? What worked? Factor the artists' time giving feedback into the scope of work.

Let artists know how their work is used in the world. Knowing the impact fuels the work; it gives artists purpose and meaning to know we're reaching communities we care about.

Keep amplifying the work. Take every opportunity to reuse, adapt, and share. Think creatively-consider annual and current events, make sketches into coloring pages, etc.

Build ongoing, non-tokenizing relationships with artists. Artists' work is often in highest demand during annual events or crises related to our identities. Build long-term, reciprocal relationships with artists beyond these flashpoints.

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We're making Building Irresistible Movements available for free to artists and organizers who want to work together to harness the power of culture and transform our world.

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Arts + Civic Power: Special Event Recap - The Center for Artistic Activism

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How Artists and Advocacy Groups Can Work Together to Supercharge Civic Engagement in 2024 We all know how important this year is for engaging voters. But with so many potential voters feeling apathetic and burned out on politics, how can we overcome all the harsh vibes? With arts and culture! Time and time again we’ve … Continue reading “Arts + Civic Power: Special Event Recap”

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The roots of your health: Elaine Ingham on the science of soil | Sustainable Food Trust

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Prepare to have conventional thinking about soil turned on its head and find out why soil biology should matter to you.

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Requests for work, volunteering or internships

We are currently not recruiting for any roles but please read our newsletters for any announcements. We currently do not offer any volunteer or internship placements directly with the LWA, but keep an eye out in the newsletter or on the forum for any members looking for volunteers or workers.

Contacting Individual Staff

Please take the time to explore our staff page here to see who the most relevant contact for your enquiry is.

Our addresses format is firstname.lastname@landworkersalliance.org.uk

Please bear in mind we all work part time and have limited capacity to respond to enquiries outside our core areas of work.

You can also find information under the About Us header about branch and regional organising, and identity groups within the LWA membership.

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Experts in Your Field - Landworkers Alliance

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We are currently not recruiting for any roles but please read our newsletters for any announcements. We currently do not offer any volunteer or internship placements directly with the LWA, but keep an eye out in the newsletter or on the forum for any members looking for volunteers or workers.

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The Agroecology Research Collaboration (ARC)

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The Agroecology Research Collaboration (ARC)

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Feedback for us

If you have any comments, critiques, considerations, compliments, complaints, about anything the Landworkers Alliance is or isn't up to, do let us know your thought. We love feedback, it keeps a system healthy. Please fill in this quick form.

Membership / Supporter / Donation Queries

Please contact Lauren.Simpson@landworkersalliance.org.uk

Requests for work, volunteering or internships

We are currently not recruiting for any roles but please read our newsletters for any announcements. We currently do not offer any volunteer or internship placements directly with the LWA, but keep an eye out in the newsletter or on the forum for any members looking for volunteers or workers.

Academic/Research Enquiries

Please look at the Agroecology Research Collaboration to see if it fits your area of research/work.

Membership Support / Advice

Currently the LWA does not have capacity or resources to help individual members or potential members on their specific projects, farms or programmes. We get a lot of requests for individual support and would love to have the time to respond to each request in full. We are fundraising for a new role for somebody to focus on membership support and services as we have identified it is a gap in our offering so please watch this space.

Having said that, if your query is critical and urgent please email info@landworkersalliance.org.uk including the word URGENT in the subject header and it will get picked up and we can try our best to help.

Contacting Individual Staff

Please take the time to explore our staff page here to see who the most relevant contact for your enquiry is.

Our addresses format is firstname.lastname@landworkersalliance.org.uk

Please bear in mind we all work part time and have limited capacity to respond to enquiries outside our core areas of work.

You can also find information under the About Us header about branch and regional organising, and identity groups within the LWA membership.

Press/Media Enquiries:

For any queries relating to press please email press@landworkersalliance.org.uk

Merchandise/calendar Enquiries

For any enquiries to do with shop sales including the calendar please email merchandise@landworkersalliance.org.uk

To Include an Item in Our Newsletter:

You can fill in this quick form to submit it to be included in the next bulletin/newsletter. The deadline to submit is the end of Friday each week for the following week's member bulletin. With the same form you can also submit to the monthly non-member newsletter which goes out in the first week of the month.

All Other Enquiries:

For any other enquiries that are URGENT please email info@landworkersalliance.org.uk with the word 'urgent' in the subject header and we will do our best to help.

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Agroecology Research Collaboration - Landworkers Alliance

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If you have any comments, critiques, considerations, compliments, complaints, about anything the Landworkers Alliance is or isn't up to, do let us know your thought. We love feedback, it keeps a system healthy. Please fill in this quick form. Please contact Lauren.Simpson@landworkersalliance.org.uk We are currently not recruiting for any roles but please read our newsletters for any announcements.

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What is the Soil Food Web? | Dr. Elaine Ingham | Soil Biology

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The Roots of Your Profits - Dr Elaine Ingham, Soil Microbiologist, Founder of Soil Foodweb Inc

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How to Build Great Soil - A Soil Science Masterclass with Dr. Elaine Ingham (Part 1 of 4)

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370 Ideas for Creative Activism in 2021 | activism, climates, creative

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Aug 5, 2021 - Examples of creative activism mainly for climate and environmental causes. See more ideas about activism, climates, creative.

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What Is Permaculture, Anyway? | Permaculture | Extension

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Permaculture is a set of principles and techniques that focuses on caring for both humanity and the Earth. In Utah’s dry climate, points such as wise water use, soil care, and reversing the effects of deforestation are often emphasized.

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Series - Environmental Psychology course

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Series - Environmental Psychology course

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Lecture 01 -  Introduction to Environmental Psychology and Overview of the Course

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Series of vids. on"Ecoloical Civilisation"

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Series of vids. on"Ecoloical Civilisation"

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Free Course – Ecological Civilisation: Beyond Consumerism and the Growth Economy (Introduction)

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By Eugene Ellis

An Essential Guide to Life Changing Dialogue

" This book has been written to help us take an honest look at who we really are. It is here to help us dig deep. It is here to heal the nation." Benjamin Zephaniah

Is it possible not to be confused about race? Is it possible to respond authentically to the hurt and discomfort of racism?

The construct of race is an integral part of Western society's DNA and if we are to address the social injustice of racism, we need to have the race conversation. Yet all too often, attempts at such a dialogue are met with silence, denial, anger or hate.

The Race Conversation explores how the damage and distress caused by racism lives not just in our minds, but principally in the body. As well as helping us to develop a cognitive understanding by exploring the history and development of the race construct, the book focuses specifically on the non-verbal communication of race, both as a means of social control and as an essential part of navigating oppressive patterns. This guide supports everyone to emerge from the tight grip of race discomfort to a trauma-informed, neurophysiological approach that emphasises resourcing, body awareness, mindfulness and healing.

Eugene Ellis is an activist, writer and public speaker on issues of race, difference and intersectionality. He trained as an Integrative Arts Psychotherapist and has a particular interest in body-orientated therapies and mindfulness. He is also the founder and director of The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN), a network of therapists committed, passionate and actively engaged in addressing the psychological needs of Black, African and South Asian people in the UK.

Eugene's book 'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue' explores the intersection of race and trauma, the non-verbal communication of race and how to navigate oppressive patterns. Eugene's chapter in 'Intercultural Therapy: Challenges, Insights and Developments' entitled 'Finding our voice across the Black/white divide: race issues in therapy', reflects on the therapists' process when issues of race become foreground for the therapist, the client or the trainee therapist and what processes encourage and maintain the ability to stay with race dialogue.

The Race Conversation Book Launch

Is it possible not to be confused about race? Is it possible to respond authentically to the hurt and discomfort of racism?

This is a must-have book for all therapists working with people of African and Asian diaspora heritage who want to understand the impact of historical and modern-day racism on the Black British psyche. This timely publication, in the context of Black Lives Matter and racial trauma, will help practitioners to create the space and dialogue for inclusive conversation and change with their clients and the wider community. Eugene has powerfully captured the nuances and fractures of trauma, where our minds and bodies have been dehumanised for far too long and takes us towards reclaiming our sanity and positive growth.

Patrick Vernon

Eugene's conversational and accessible style is music to my ears, conveying the feelings that are evoked by race and what is at stake for Black, people of colour and white people. He offers us a language to describe our experiences of the race conversation and also what we can do about them. This book is an inspiration and an awakening for everyone, the young, the old, teachers, social workers, carers, politicians and decision-makers. Read and feel free.

Jazzie B

In this insightful and accessible book, Eugene Ellis tackles a challenging topic with candor, honesty and courage. He manages to clarify the complexity of the race construct and its debilitating impact on our bodies, mental health, and relationships, while at the same time to instil hope for healing this legacy. Readers will find themselves inspired by knowledge and empowered by awareness so that enriching conversations about race become possible.

Pat Ogden

An essential read that facilitates the language of listening and hearing in the context of intersectionality and the racial construct. Launched from his personal and professional experience as a therapist, the author presents an insightful and empirical text. He addresses rage, vulnerability and trauma across racial lines and creates a pathway to the understanding of racial dialogue. He makes clear the unconscious processes of internalised racism and a sense of 'community responsibility. The book emphasises the multi-faceted positions of racism, mindfulness and body connections that trigger 'racial arousal'. Examples of dialogue prompt further understanding and unravel 'race construction'. An undercurrent of external and internal prompts such as white fragility and white privilege is used to contextualise interrelationships between African and Asian people and white people. This book is an important contribution to keeping the race conversation alive

Isha Mckenzie-Mavinga

In this comprehensive text, Eugene Ellis describes a pathway to racial understanding, speaking to both the history of racism and the psychology of race relations, interwoven with a mindfulness-based, somatically-informed model for addressing the effects of this history on all of us. He leaves us with much to converse about!

Janina Fisher

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By Eugene Ellis An Essential Guide to Life Changing Dialogue " This book has been written to help us take an honest look at who we really are. It is here to help us dig deep. It is here to heal the nation." Benjamin Zephaniah Is it possible not to be confused about race?

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Shaking Off Stress, Tension & Trauma On Your Own Whenever You Need To

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Cultural Somatics - understanding racialized trauma (free course)

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Cultural Somatics - understanding racialized trauma (free course)

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Take one of our many self-paced online courses.

All our bodies-bodies of all pigment-are infected by the virus of white-body supremacy. Our online courses are a collection of embodied knowledge courses that empower you to develop embodied racial literacy so you can develop a life and community centered on abolishing white body supremacy.

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All our bodies-bodies of all pigment-are infected by the virus of white-body supremacy. Our online courses are a collection of embodied knowledge courses that empower you to develop embodied racial literacy so you can develop a life and community centered on abolishing white body supremacy.