The Forest as Village

Drawing and painting workshop 9th and 10th of November 2024.

This workshop is an exercise in imagining our natural environment as diverse spaces. On the one hand, long-standing, village-like cooperative interactions between flora and fauna, on the other as riverine passages such as steep valley terrain abruptly influenced by the elements encouraging quickly changing life forms.

Participants will have the opportunity to make work in several different, but accessible natural settings. We have observed areas being created by wallabies who nurture certain grasses, rock rooting plants and lichens colonizing cliff faces, and other spaces in which organisms have formed observable alliances by creating protective habitats.

The assumption we bring to this workshop is that to perceive the forest as village we need to change our perception of The Natural from a world external to human social experience to a participatory one.

In general we experience a ‘theatre’ of social space in three significant ways, first we can be instrumental in acting on people and things, second we represent the social to ourselves through language (verbal, pictorial) , and third we have the ability to imagine the world differently.

As humans we lack other animals’ intuitive sense orientation in the world, so we are forced to rely on our capacity to remake, to imagine, to fantasize.

Anne Carson points out that that the full form of Descartes’ well known dictum, ‘I think, therefore I am’, is actually ‘I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am’. Carson’s commentary on the ancient poet Sappho highlights the geometric space of desire which ousts the stability of singular sense of self, explaining that in any passionate relationship between people and/or things in the world there two positions of experience, from the self who enters the scene, and from the self affected by it. These form a triangle with what is being perceived, whether as with Sappho, a lover, or something or someone in a more generalized situation.

The weekend workshop will consist of four three hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning from 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm and with lunch supplied. The cost is $200 all inclusive. The property is located 12kms West of Stanthorpe, Qld.

To participate in the workshop you’ll need a range of drawing /painting materials and accessories (paper, water, rag, stool) that you are familiar with and can carry to the sites, distances from 25 to 200 metres.

If you are interested in attending please email Barbara at barbarapenrose3@gmail.com.