This workshop takes us on a walk through our communities to identify spaces of possibility. From here we dive into imagining absolutely impossible scenarios and then bring ourselves back down to possibilities that stretch our imagination and we begin to plant the seeds to build these into reality.

Part imagination exercise, part origami, part guerrilla marine gardening – this 2-hour workshop invited participants to step into their imagination as well as partake in a ritual of giving back to the ecosystem of the river Clyde.
I guided participants in creating dissolvable words and pictures, paper boats of memories and gift frozen fish filled with elder seeds to the Clyde. The seeds will disperse and help replenish the Clyde’s ecosystem. At the same time, you’ll collectively discuss, explore and imagine possibilities about a future of environmental care and regeneration.
This event was part of the Create:Network Inverclyde, funded by Creative Scotland and managed by CVS Inverclyde in partnership with Inverclyde Council.

For the open studio, I created an interactive map where we invited participants to find their sewageshed and connect themselves to the waterways by drawing images, maps, paths, or concepts.
In addition we invited guests to reimagine a park for the future on , in or below the water. The design prompts invited the young designers to imagine,
“Will your design be…on water? on land? on water and land? underwater? moving? still? floating? submerged? tall? small? round? pointy? solid? clear? metallic? wooden? sandy? plant-filled?” As well as,
“1. How does your design interact with the water? How does it interact with the land?
2. What is the primary function of your design?
3. What materials will your design be made out of, why? glass? metal? wood? plants?
4. Who will use your design the most? athletes? dogs? farmers? families?
5. How will your design interact with the existing landscape and structures?
6. How will your design impact the wildlife and ecological health of the Hudson River?
7. How long will your design last?”

Working creatively with water and waterways is inherently interdisciplinary, and requires creativity and collaboration across many different sectors. Issues related to water cross social, cultural, ecological, and political boundaries.
Power of Ten is an opportunity to intersect with people from different fields who are focused on water, and initiate concrete cross-disciplinary collaborative projects. All thinkers and do-ers are welcome—scientists, social/environmental justice activists, designers, artists, performers, planners, architects, and more.
The Power of Ten is a path to problem-solving, reimagining, unearthing inequity, finding new approaches and understanding how to become accomplices. In this workshop we will facilitate a process of creative collaboration with the aim of realizing projects on, in, and around the water.

I was invited by MEAD – Maine Environmental Artists and Designers to come up to visit and share with the group. I was interested in creating an interactive experience and learning model that would result in some tangible outcomes for the group. I proposed a one day workshop that led with storytelling and transformed into collaborative creative invention.
The morning started working in small groups on developing a story – a story that tells of a personal transformation in one’s life that helps to define who you are today. It might be a story of personal experience or a story of professional transformation. We identified triggers or moments that presented challenges or moved us emotionally and then the story of how we overcame the challenge and how that changed our lives.

Participants then had the option to share the stories with the whole group. The idea is that we begin as a disparate group (academics, artists, scientists, journalists, activists, administrators) and then through the personal transformation story we forge a connection and a deeper understanding of each other. These bonds allow us to speak more freely and collaborate in a deeper way – rather than jumping straight into a collaborative process. We begin to find things which we share or which have resonance with one another.
After hearing a little introduction on the topic of food access in the region, we went through a brainstorming process of noting what are challenges and resources that exist. From the list of challenges we chose (through a voting process) three which would be the prompts for creative interventions that we developed in the afternoon session.
The afternoon involved breaking into three groups to collaboratively co-create one or more creative interventions that responded to the challenge and utilized existing resources. The collective favorite was to use the public library as a space to house a community crockpot which would be checked out and used to bring together diverse groups to discuss food, food values and access to food. Thank you all in Belfast for a wonderful experience!