Author Archives: vela vela

Re-storying our Relations to the Natural World

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Re-imagining is a practice of hope needed to sustain our planet. The first step is to reflect on the ways we have storied our belonging and connections to the natural world. Stories that call the land a resource or privilege human-made hierarchies, need transformation into narratives that inspire responsible ways of relating with the natural world.

In this five-session workshop, participants engaged with the practice of “re-storying” through writing and illustration exercises. In each session, participants re-imagined narratives that encourage reciprocal relationships with the natural world and those who inhabit it.

The publication below was created as part of the workshop, and it gathers the work, or as we called them, offerings that participants created during the five weeks.

via GIPHY

Mother Tongue

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Mother Tongue

For 10 weeks, newcomer youth from four different language communities –  Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Tagalog –collaborated with artists and poet mentors to draw upon personal narratives and experiences, to express themselves through written and spoken poetry, in English and in their mother tongue. Addressing fundamental questions such as “Who Am I?” while acknowledging the cultural significance of their mother tongue, this collaborative project inspired participating youth to share their own stories, while building confidence in their storytelling abilities.

Using their poems as a base, participants developed video portraits that expanded the meaning of their writings.