invitation to circle and harvest

invitation to circle and harvest
14:00 19 Nov. 2022 

part of “Connective practices in community-integrated arts, nature- and tradition-based learning and care, across the divisions of Cyprus” developed for the Artistic Connective Practices Symposium, Fontys University Tilburg,
facilitated by Chrystalleni Loizidou and Hülya Dede

In the beginning there is flow. There is the “being in the rhythms of nature”, the “being in social connection”, with uninterrupted experimentation and creativity, the feeling of the elements and the seasons, the observing and the doing, the running and climbing and picking fruit and making shelter, and getting sand between your toes. There is the joy and gratitude of harvest. But then the care-work that reproduces the “being in the rhythms of nature” is imprisoned by top-down notions of education and productivity. These impositions dominate the doing and life, so they separate us from the flow and our rhythms. Being and doing are turned into work and people into things. Thus the world is crazy, and revolts are practices of rediscovering connection and rhythm.

Continue reading “invitation to circle and harvest”

Eimaste Programme for the Nicosia Pop-up Festival (10-31 Dec, 2021)

Programme

**On Demand**
– Survival 112: making a rope from natural fibers. Workshop with Lital and Vinas: Learn how to make a useful thread from vegetation you find anywhere. Lital and Vinas are experienced travelers and skilled survivors, and they share love for nature and simplicity. Reservations 99778425.
– Dreamcatcher-making workshop with Lital.
Learn how to weave a magical dream catcher!
Lital is a traveling artist specializing in traditional crafts using natural materials (instagram.com/thebasketlady). Participation and materials fee 5€. Reservations 99778425.

18 Dec, Saturday
10:00: Mushroom Tea Circle with Harrys
We invite Harrys Protopapas, a dear and experienced guardian of the Cyprus intentional community movement, to share with us his research on medicinal mushrooms. There will be available Lion’s Mane to try in the form of tea, and to buy. For details call 99586369.

20 Dec, Monday
8:30pm: It takes a Village Parents Circle [online, every Monday]
We connect and support each other under the guidance of Erika Wieser, our community elder and expert in nature-focused early years education.
Telegram invitation link: https://t.me/+_gtO-bo40fEwNzhk
For details call 99586369.

22 Dec, Wednesday [every Wednesday]
16:00-18:00: Eimaste Family Hang-out @Academia’s park
Parents and children meet and play at Academia’s Park. For details call 99586369.

29 Dec, Wednesday [every Wednesday]
16:00-18:00: Eimaste Family Hang-out @Academia’s park
Parents and children meet and play at Academia’s Park. For details call 99586369.


Previous

[POSTPONED] 20:30: Online Talking Circle – How to raise children at the end of the world
We invite cooperative initiatives to connect and coordinate.
Eimaste feat. Georgios M. (Spain) vol. 2. & the Vovousa Festival
For more information call 99586369.
Join the online meeting: https://meet.jit.si/eimaste

12 Sunday, 12:00 Paper presentation [online conference participation]
Presentation Title: “the First Device:” a utopian re-enchantment towards technological recovery [Chrystalleni Loizidou] Participation in the 21st Conference of the Utopian Studies Society Europe (10 – 12 Dec) http://utopian-studies-europe.org/conference/
Description: Leading medical organisations advise against screen-time during the first years of life, yet children are exposed to parents’ mobile-devices and screen-media consumption-patterns from birth. Growing digital distrust ranges from criticisms of exploitative and profit-driven industrial standards, to warnings about the dominance of cranky social media, and to investigations into the behaviour of machine-learning algorithms that present little eyes with a vast, absurdist, memetic informational singularity with unpredictable and alienating psychological and developmental effects. In the middle of this, tech-professionals are increasingly choosing low-tech or tech-free, outdoor schools for their children. This project catalyses a trope of a utopian “First Device” to imagine a different path for our future. It begins by drawing a connection between Silvia Federici’s feminist politics of technology production, Luiz Guilherme Vergara’s Freirean proposal of a para-laboratory for forest-school thinking, and Richard Stallman’s Four Freedoms for software development. It asks questions like: How can tech-free education practices inform the field of information ethics and child-computer interaction research? How do our primary encounters with high technology shape and direct the mind? What should be the character and purpose of the first information device we give to our young? How would it apply our best findings regarding learning, development, and creativity? How would it be meaningfully open-ended? How would it empower free, self-directed learning? How might such a tool redefine humanity’s approach to technology and to our world, away from exploitation, towards what Charles Eisenstein calls a new story of interdependence and connection? This project picks up from the results of the international “Free/Libre Technologies, Arts and the Commons” Unconference (Cyprus, 2019).

13 Dec, Monday
17:30 Rope-making workshop from natural fibers with Lital and Vinas.
Survival 112: making a rope from natural fibers. Workshop with Lital and Vinas. Learn how to make a useful thread from vegetation you find anywhere. Lital and Vinas are experienced travelers and skilled survivors, and they share love for nature and simplicity. Reservations 99778425.
20:30: It takes a Village Parents Circle [online]:
We connect and support each other under the guidance of Erika Wieser, our community elder and expert in nature-focused early years education. Suggested starting place: “My heart needs sun and friends”
Telegram invitation link: https://t.me/+_gtO-bo40fEwNzhk
For details call 99586369.

From Justyna: on cooperative inquiry (notes for the Summer Camp)

Re: Free-Play Summer Camp for the Unschooling/Alternative Education Community 

I have been reading about co-operative inquiry recently and just thought that it could be an interesting tool for us to use thought the week to form questions, build safety in the suspension of our preconceptions, apply critical and creative awareness to our activities. I see it more as a general framework that can be loosely adopted than a research methodology. What do you think about it? It is just a possibility, an inspiration – a floating leaf that I picked from the river of ideas:) I think that it is a great idea to gather everyone’s intentions, questions, curiosities, issues which they would like to collectively dwell on but which can also inform practice in a tangible way. Knowing that information it may be easier for everyone to consider what they would like to offer in terms of activities. It would also be quite nice to be able to experiment and try things which may not work- but which can inspire us in a safe and engaging environment…


Justyna Ataman  ( j dot ataman at outlook dot com)

I am an artist, facilitator and video maker undertaking creative and educational projects. My motivation steams from the trust in an educational, intercultural and community-building value of creativity, working across disciplines of video, performance and non-formal education. I have graduated with first class Ba(hons) Sculpture and Environmental Art in 2013 at Glasgow School of Art, UK. Following on I have been a founding member of Art Shed Collective, Edinburgh; managing committee member of Market Gallery, Glasgow and a community artist at Glasgow East Arts Company. Working in Cyprus since 20017,  I have supported coordination of projects and produced videos with Dance Gate Lefkosia and co-founded of We Circle Collective hosted in Agora Project where I have been coordinating intercultural events, facilitating workshops and performances. Currently I am studying International Masters in Adult Education for Social Change.

Open Call: Free-Play Summer Camp for Educators and the Unschooling/Alternative Education Community

#collaborative_inquiry
#radical_accompaniment
#unlearning
#worldschooling
#outdoor_learning
#parents_cooperative
#forest_school
#children_of_all_ages

This is an open invitation to spend time together, find flow, and connect with like-minded/mindful children of all ages, recovering educators and alternative education researchers, unschooling or world-schooling adventurers, and practice-oriented dreamers of beautiful change, along with our families and friends. We wish to make time and open up possibilities for freedom and togetherness, for free-play, roaming, exploring, making green food, and taking care of ourselves, of each other, and of our environment.
Through this, we aim to create new relationships and strengthen our foundations in learning through art, share our experiences and approaches to cooperative, informal, outdoors, and mixed-age learning practices; and to learn from each other about being together in nature and beautiful rhythm.

Where: Our get-together will take place at the Chirokitia Intentional Community Eco-village, a place that can holistically accommodate our varying interests and needs. We wish to explore and celebrate the potential of the Chirokitia Eco-village as a site for cooperative learning and unschooling initiatives, and as an inspiring place for setting our intentions.

For more information on the Chirokitia initiative take a look at its website & facebook group.
For more information on the eimaste parents cooperative see eimaste.net, and facebook group.

When: Between Monday 21st – Sunday 27th of June

Preliminary Plan
Monday the 21st – Friday the 25th: Join us anytime for a loose daily rhythm, camping, on- and off-site visits, experiencing the place, and exploratory circles and spontaneous co-learning activities. We will be share spontaneously or on-demand:
parents circles
nearby excursions and hiking trails for all ages,
touch and massage for all ages (Justina),
woodworking,

Bring along:
Camping equipment if you wish to stay for one or more nights
Food and water (cooking facilities are provided)
Call Melissa at 99418073 for more information.

Donations will go towards building the eco-village’s water-system.

26th Saturday and Sunday 27th: During the weekend, our time together will culminate into a celebration during the weekend, and our rhythm will expand to include more people and families.

To participate or make enquiries
Contact Chrystalleni Loizidou on 99586369, or Justyna Ataman on 96229369, and consider contributing a few words about your intentions in writing.
Email: nai@eimaste.net