黑料官网

This year, under the warm glow of the spring sun and a mist of dew and cherry blossom perfume, students gathered for a celebration of art and the environment. Through this year鈥檚 three Green Week art and sustainability workshops, the Schiller Institute invited students to an interdisciplinary exploration of the interplay between the art we create and enjoy and the natural environment which inspires and responds to creativity.听

Poetry Workshop

听

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 - EARTH DAY

On Tuesday, April 22, 2025, the Schiller Institute, in collaboration with the 黑料官网 College Writing Centre, held its inaugural EcoPoetics Workshop, spearheaded by the institute鈥檚 Poet Laureate Jesse Claire Julian and myself. The aim of this workshop was to introduce students to the unique role of the Poet Laureate within the Institute, foster cross-campus collaboration, and inspire dialogue on the importance of the environmental humanities.

In the weeks leading up to the event, the Schiller team and I met with Writing Centre staff to shape our vision. We knew we wanted to encourage students to creatively engage with the Schiller Institute鈥檚 interdisciplinary mission and embrace environmental action鈥攂ut figuring out how to make that engagement meaningful took careful thought. In the end, as students ourselves, we created prompts that helped students look internally for their connections to the environment. We leaned into poetic devices such as imagery and emotion, and how these can be used to reaffirm commitments to sustainability. We also introduced the idea of the 鈥渃limate story鈥濃�攁 practice often used in activism to help people link their lived experiences to the broader climate crisis.

Under blooming trees beside the St. Ignatius statue, students spread out on blankets and scribbled verses. Some stopped for just a moment between classes to offer a haiku or ask about the Poet Laureate. Others stayed longer, letting the sunlight and poetry mingle as they wrote.

As someone closely involved in organizing the initiative, it was deeply rewarding to see students pause in the midst of busy days to reflect, write, and connect. Some shared memories of home, others penned verses about local landscapes or shifting seasons. Conversations sprang up鈥攁bout writing, about the environment, about the emotions these prompts surfaced. It reminded me that creativity is a powerful entry point into difficult conversations.

Ultimately, the EcoPoetics Workshop wasn鈥檛 just about writing poetry鈥攊t was about reclaiming space for care, connection, and curiosity. In a time when environmental discourse can feel abstract or overwhelming, we returned to something simple: our own stories, our own words. By turning inward, we found new ways to engage outwardly鈥攚ith each other, with art, and with the world we鈥檙e trying to protect.

听

Votive Workshop

听

Thursday, April 24, 2025

As part of Green Week and Arts Fest, I joined a workshop that brought together art, philosophy, and environmental mourning. The Votive Workshop and Performed Lecture was a joint event hosted by Studio Art Professor Sheila Gallagher and Philosophy Professor Richard Kearney, with support from the Schiller Institute. We began by learning what votives are鈥攏ot just small objects, but spiritual symbols of healing, promises, and remembrance, often made from natural materials. Votives have existed since the earliest civilizations, serving as offerings in times of grief, gratitude, and transition.

After this introduction, we were invited to create our own votives using clay or porcelain. The room was filled with quiet conversation, careful shaping, and a sense of reverence. No two votives looked the same in design or intention鈥攐ne way in which human diversity was mirrored in natural diversity. The workshop culminated in a performed lecture by Professor Kearney, who drew from Gaelic environmental traditions and philosophies to explore how myth, memory, and sacredness shape our modern understanding of conservation.

What stood out to me most was a deepened appreciation for the sacred in nature. Nature not only sustains us鈥攊t shapes our cultures, inspires our rituals, and forms the backbone of our collective identities. The workshop鈥檚 focus on mourning endangered plant species reminded me how fragile our connection to place and memory can be when those natural markers begin to vanish.

For my votive, I crafted a piece inspired by the branch of a guava tree. Guava is a staple of my childhood, a plant intertwined with family, routine, and home. But like many fruit-bearing plants, it is threatened by climate-related stress, disrupting its growth and harvest. The votive was a chance to honor that memory through art鈥攁 small act of care for something both personal and endangered.

In a time when ecological grief can feel isolating or overwhelming, the act of making and sharing votives offered a sense of collective care and quiet resistance. It helped me see that art and philosophy can open doors to climate engagement in ways that data alone cannot.

Going forward, I hope to be more attentive to the ways I celebrate and protect the natural environments that have shaped me鈥攎ore than I鈥檝e cared to acknowledge in the past.

听

Sketching Workshop

听

Thursday, April 24, 2025 | Pine Tree Reserve

Thursday afternoon, community members gathered around the base of Pine Tree Reserve for the Nature-Inspired Sketching workshop. A quiet day with a gentle breeze, once the cart of art supplies was rolled to the top of the hill, one could admire the sprawling view of lower campus and the reservoir.听

Hartmut Austen, Professor of Art and Art History, led the workshop. First he introduced us to materials that we would be using. Inline with our theme of combining nature, art and sustainability, he explained how charcoal sticks were made to give them their unique characteristics.听

Later, while working with charcoal, I would reflect on my frustrations with charcoal in comparison to sketching pencils or graphite pencils I would have used in the past. Unlike the soft graphite of the previous, the charcoal stick is insistent with its strokes, not prone to coaxing and unpredictable to the first time user, in terms of anticipating how much force or what angle would elicit the desired stroke.

In a way, the charcoal on the page, mirrored our own experiences with nature. Undoubtedly we often approach the natural world as a tool, passive and amenable to our needs and desires and get frustrated when the environment does not behave in the way that we wish or expect.听

Austen also demonstrated for us workshop attendees a few basic artistic sketching techniques such as creating a vanishing point, the use of lines in creating illusions of distance, horizons and landscapes. Finally we were sent out to explore nature and ourselves in meditative conversation.听

My greatest takeaway from this workshop was a reminder to place the natural world at the centre and subject of our canvas rather than its periphery. In the art we make and consume, how often is the subject human or manmade, while nature only serves as the backdrop.听

Our engagement with nature is often focused on what we can derive from the environment. For example if conversations are held around environmental health it is often framed as a precursor to our own health and well being.听

Surrounded by nature and choosing to sketch trees, leaves, bark and flowers, it reminded me that the environment carries its own innate value, as a subject on my canvas, but also as the recipient of care, attention and protection.听