home WORKSHOPS

During the Spring of 2019, Andrea and Alexandra worked together to create a plan for what came to be known as the Home Workshops. Inspired by the land-based experiential pedagogy Andrea had been developing for her university classes, they created a structure for each Persephone Project team member to plan and direct a day-long learning experience for the rest of the group. These workshops would emerge from their own scholarly and creative interests and respond to core questions about “home” that had emerged from our group discussions, readings and permaculture planning process.

Research Questions

Imagining:  How can we imagine a home in the natural world that considers nature wherever we are? What might it mean to consider a “homeplace” without resorting to political and national boundaries?  A home in nature that is urban?  A home in nature that is an idea as well as a geographical place?  What might it mean to imagine a home as a habitat?

Knowing: How do we listen to the land, our bodies and all aspects of more-than-human nature that communicate in non-verbal ways?  What methods, practices, rituals, techniques can we discover for engaging our senses in order to foster intimacy with the land on which we live?  How do we make what Barry Lopez calls, “our proposals”?  And once we’ve made proposals, how do we interpret what we hear?  How do we know how to know?

Acting: What does it mean to behave like we are at home on Earth?  To behave as if we are part of an ecosystem? How does being a settler, or an immigrant, or a woman complicate this question?  What metaphors and language are useful in helping us to figure out how to be at home?  What modes of behaviour are suggested by words such as stranger, guest, immigrant, native, indigenous, naturalized? 

Elements of a Home Workshop

Andrea worked with each group member to develop a topic which excited them personally and engaged with the core research questions. They brainstormed locations that would help to bring that topic to life, and a set of activities that would allow us to explore the topic in an embodied way.  

Each element of the workshop was designed to build on the others, creating a holistic and organic learning experience. Workshop leaders circulated readings and guiding questions in advance to familiarize us with the key issues, invited guests to present new knowledge or skills, and designed rituals, ceremonies and activities so we could embody or practice that new knowledge. Each workshop day also included food that was integrated into the learning and added an additional layer of sensory experience.

Ashley, our documentarian, filmed the workshops, and work-study students Jane, Juliette, and Hillary took detailed written notes and photos. Following the workshop, the leader wrote a reflection piece describing the activities, what she discovered, how it was useful to her research, and any new questions that arose. In addition, for each workshop, one group member served as a respondent, writing a summary and analysis of that particular workshop and the home workshop experience as a whole: 

"The workshops made it possible for us to think new thoughts, enter intellectual and creative territory that— as individual scholars and writers—we could not have entered alone." – Roz

"There is something so powerful about learning together, in community and on the land." – Sasha

"These workshops don't just help to redefine and explore home as a concept–there is something magical about them that feels like a kind of homecoming as well." –Hillary

"The combined pleasures of intense observation, close listening, eating together, and physical movement have had a lasting and deep effect on me." –Rochelle

"Each workshop has been a deep collective dive that takes me into an intimate, challenging, perspective-altering experience." –Sharon