EncountersArts is a Permaculture Association business member and specialises in designing participatory arts projects amd
interventions that inspire creativity, dialogue & exchange
between people of all ages and cultures.
Running
for ten years, Encounters has been using the transformational power
of the arts to work creatively with thousands of people in arts,
environmental, community, education, reconciliation, rehabilitation,
and regeneration contexts.Through performances, workshops, public interventions, co-authored exhibitions, publications and tailored events, the invitation is to re-look at who and how we are in the world at this time of crisis and opportunity and together to explore new stories to live by on individual, local, city wide and global levels.
One
of Encounters projects is A Little Patch of Ground, which has been
delivered since 2009 in communities across the UK from the East End
of London to Plymouth in the South West and is devised by Ruth
Ben-Tovim, Encounters creative director and Anne-Marie Culhane,
associate artist with Encounters. It is an
inter-generational
food growing and performance project that culminates in a
permaculture inspired vegetable garden and a multi-media performance
about relationships with the natural world.
A
Little Patch of Ground takes place over a period of 20 weeks. A
diverse inter-generational group of local residents (who have been
age 4 to 80) meet weekly to create and grow their own vegetable
garden, cook for each other and eat together. Through a variety of
media and creative activities the group explores thoughts, feelings
and ideas on food, resources, climate change, interdependence and
sustainability. The project weaves together work in the garden framed
by permaculture principles with creative and personal development
work giving the participants both practical skills and developing
their confidence in exploring their ecological identities in a
community setting.
Participants
explore the world as our shared home, with personal stories about
moments of connection in nature, documentation and writing tasks
about special places outdoors. Through creative writing, making and
drama the group takes a journey together, inspired by eco-philosopher
Joanna
Macy’s
cycle of behaviour change: Gratitude, Despair, Seeing with New Eyes,
Going Forth.
In
the last weeks of the project, these transformative personal
experiences are woven together into a public performance
incorporating verbatim text, image, objects and movement to tell an
intimate and personal tale about the joys and challenges of living
alongside each other in this time of ecological challenge and
opportunity.
Thinking of becoming a business member of the Permaculture Association, too? Check out our website to find out more!
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