Update: Fully Booked! but please email me to be placed on waiting list or list for future courses.

Haumea Ecoliteracy Services for the Arts:

New One-day Workshop in County Carlow, Ireland

with ecological artist, educator and former scientist, Cathy Fitzgerald, PhD

* Ecological literacy – “ecoliteracy” is about gaining the environmental and ethical knowledge of what makes life on earth possible, just and sustainable. Ecoliteracy will deepen and empower your creative practice for these urgent times.

‘In knowing what we have to do, we have to do the science, but we have been making a mistake in thinking that’s enough. We equally have to decide on what we most deeply value, we have to talk about the ideals the move us, we have to figure out what we hope for our children, we have to decide what we believe in… AND THIS IS THE WORK OF ART, POETRY, LITERATURE AND RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY – ITS THE WORK OF CIVIL COMMUNITY – IT IS STORY-TELLING IN ALL ITS FORMS’

Writer and philosopher, Kathleen Dean Moore, 2013

‘Everything Must Change’:
Essential Ecoliteracy*
for your Creative Practice or Teaching:

One-day Workshop

Saturday 2 November 2019

10.30am – 4pm

Rathanna Community Hall
Rathanna Village, County Carlow
Eircode R95 ND00

Fee: €20 for County Carlow residents,
€30 for those living outside the county.

Vegetarian lunch and refreshments will be provided. Free car parking opposite the Hall. Hostel accommodation at Osbourne’s Storehouse Hostel and local Air B & B’s.

Who is this Workshop for?

This workshop is for working creative practitioners of ALL art and craft disciplines. As an ecological view fosters collaborative activities, the course is particularly relevant to community art and social art practitioners & educators. SEE FULL COURSE INFORMATION BELOW.

BOOK EARLY! MAXIMUM of 15 PARTICIPANTS

Email cathy@haumea.site to confirm your place

Places are limited. Note: This is a pilot group workshop where we will learn and share together. An online pilot course will also be available in the near future.

Please note, this is NOT a workshop to make an environmental artwork. Rather, it is a course to start thinking about how you might transform your practice or your teaching for the environmental-social emergency.
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Grateful thanks to the Carlow Arts Office. Workshop development and places
are subsidised by a generous 2019 Carlow Arts Office Award.

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Full Course Information

‘Everything Must Change’ :

A Paradigm Shift for Society and the Arts

Stark environmental reports have made headlines in the last year. An estimated 8 million people worldwide have recently joined marches to demand new Earth-aligned actions. Scientists began alerting humanity decades ago of the impending catastrophe. Yet there is only dawning appreciation that we are in the midst of an unprecedented cultural crisis. The catastrophe rapidly unfolding is because Western culture has long promoted a way of living that is incompatible with life on Earth.

A necessary ecological worldview fundamentally challenges modern cultural beliefs and creative practices to expand awareness of the necessity of all species thriving within healthy ecosystems. However, few art institutions are offering teaching for this enormous societal shift. As environmental writer-activist Naomi Klein argues, ‘This Changes Everything!’ and everything must rapidly change. Bringing art and ecology together makes creative practices more complex. But creative workers have enormous skills to engage society, to help us all imagine and experience new ways of living well with the Earth and all of its inhabitants.

Learn about ecological knowledge for your creative practice or teaching

Feeling overwhelmed, isolated and concerned about the planetary environmental emergency? Do you sense cultural responses are needed for these urgent times? That future arts funding will be increasingly directed to this topic? Do you wish to respond through your creative practice or teach others but don’t know where to start?

Gain confidence and competence for this urgent new topic

In this supportive, information-sharing one-day workshop you can connect with others, and learn with Cathy Fitzgerald, PhD, a Carlow-based local ecological artist,researcher and educator. Cathy, a former science researcher, is a nominated member of the International EcoArt Network and a Research Fellow at the Burren College of Art. Cathy’s in-depth knowledge and practice insights on why creative practitioners have a key role, alongside scientists for the planetary emergency, are based on many years first-hand creative practice experience, and in-depth research of others’ ecological art practices.

In 5 modules, I will share my ‘Ecoliteracy Guide’ to introduce you to:

the historical roots of the environmental-social emergency,
a means to navigate environmental science with ease,
self-care supports for this often confronting topic,
understandings of why the incoming ecological worldview challenges
conventions of modern art practice,
understandings to situate your work within an expanded Earth ethic

Overall, you will become aware of the exciting, inclusive social power of bringing ecological concepts and art together for yourself and your audiences. The information in this course will be valuable for writing about your creative practice and empower you for future opportunities in the art and ecology area.

All attendees will be provided with resource material, handouts and be shown examples of diverse practices.

Testimonials:

Remember – Book early! Maximum 15 participants

Email cathy@haumea.site to confirm your place or to ask further questions.

Note: This is a pilot group workshop in Rathanna village, south County Carlow. An online course pilot will also be available in the near future.

Please follow this site to be kept informed of future courses.

Cathy Fitzgerald is the first Irish signatory to the international CultureDeclares Emergency movement. This course is a contribution to this movement.

From the Culture Declares Website

“Co-creating a regenerative culture – one that is inclusive, healthy, life-supporting, resilient and adaptable – requires rebuilding just and ethical relationships between ourselves, and with other species and the landscape. This takes time.

Regenerative culture includes:

Teaching and implementing the changes we want to see in society
Challenging power and privilege
Supporting each other in tending to grief as we face the truth about this emergency
Building a culture of care into our daily lives – care for ourselves, each other and the Earth
Changing the paradigms by which we design, grow, make and trade so that the living planet can be regenerated.”