Artful advocacy: creating poems for impact – a workshop exploring narratives of ageing, aged care, nature, and climate change
On Friday 20th of October 2023, Professor Evonne Miller and Dr Sarah Johnstone coordinated a vibrant and inspiring workshop titled ‘Artful advocacy: creating poems for impact – a workshop exploring narratives of ageing, aged care, nature, and climate change‘ as part of the inaugural Bribie Island Nature Festival. In only 90 minutes, participants learned the hands-on methods of translating text into emotive and captivating ‘found’ poems. Participants could choose to focus on a key social issue (ageing and/or nature/climate change), and then create a poem reflecting their hopes, dreams, and fears.
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Process
The aim of the workshop is to demonstrate the potential of arts and design for social change and advocacy, focussing on aged care, nature, and climate change. Before we started creating poetry we asked people to sit on tables based on their topics of choice. In the first part of the workshop, participants focused on writing the ‘found’ poems using a selection of articles, depending on which theme they chose. In the second part, participants considered the visual component of their poem, and used resources such as magazines and concrete poetry templates to create an artwork for their poem, which could be a concrete poem, collage, or even a drawing.
Lastly, in addition to completing a survey, participants were invited to write some reflections for an interactive feedback tree.
Articles:
- An article about being homesick for ourselves and the hidden grief of ageing [READ]
- An article about the experiences of a bushfire victim [READ]
- An excerpt from a study on promoting and protecting the rights of older people from the effects of climate change [READ]
- An article about resident’s experience of flooding in Enid Street in Ipswich [READ]
- The United Nations Secretary-General’s press conference on climate [READ]
Submissions:
AWF.001.04094 , AWF.001.04107 , AWF.001.04214 , AWF.001.04894 , AWF.001.04918 , AWF.001.05125 , AWF.001.05144 , AWF.250.03474 , AWF.500.00218.0001_0004_E , AWF.950.00551_0001_E
Outcomes
Below are a selection of poems, and videos of the authors reading their poems live at the workshop, and beneath the videos are a selection of artworks created to accompany the poetry.
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