Exploring ecology through creative workshops and performance lectures

upcoming workshops

I use arts- based and experiential methodologies to encourage exploration of ecological ideas. These workshops can be developed for primary, secondary, tertiary and corporate settings.


“Aviva's brilliantly innovative workshops brought together art, science, performance, storytelling, intellectual rigour and so much more. They were truly transformative. The Soil Biome Immersion was a highly affective experience which put imaginations to work, making the invisible life of soil visible. The Creating Ecological Portraits workshop further engaged imaginations and honed participants' arts of noticing. Both workshops awakened participants' attunement to their own soil relations -- that we come from soil, are nourished by soil and will return to soil. I recommend these workshops to everyone - young, old, academic, non academic, and even — perhaps especially— those who have never previously been interested in soil”.

Dr Jane Merewether, Edith Cowan University

KEY THEMES

Here are some examples of past workshops.

  • Ecology 101: Adaptions, successions, niches.

  • Feedback loops as a tool to investigate change over time such as succession, patterns and adaptions found in ecological systems.

  • Biogeography looking at the movement of species, elements and ideas.

  • Multispecies Assemblages as a way of breaking down human/ nature binaries.

  • Ecology for planners: How does the valuing of nature affect planning decisions? Sustainability & community capacity building.

  • Embedding Ecological Principles in Design.

  • Socio- ecological dimensions of environmental thought.

  • Ecology for teachers: How do we teach the system thinking needed for a future of sustainability? 

  • Ecology in the wild: Looking at landscapes, it’s past, present and future.

  • Soil: What soil is and why is it so amazing; life, death and decay.

  • The Ecological Imagination: Bridging the invisible with the visible.

  • Compost magic: Becoming a matter magician

  • Butterfly garden creations: Gardens for pollinators

    Please be in touch with a specific idea for a workshop for your work place or school.

“Aviva’s thoughtful workshops brought soil’s infinite connections alive in immersive ways, stimulating a creative response and inviting all participating teachers to envisage new possibilities for child-soil relations in their daily practice. In the very moving Soil Biome Immersion experience we were reminded of being soil ourselves, and in the carefully guided Ecological Portraits experience we became attuned to noticing soil’s multiple relations. Our research project has been greatly enriched and expanded by the encounter with Aviva”.

Dr Stefania Giamminuti, Edith Cowan University

Select past clients include: