Playing with Plants: Creatively Rethinking Garden ‘Waste’

Description Ease into simple basketry techniques in this relaxed 2 hr workshop that is more about helping you find your own way than reaching a particular outcome or making a specific form. You will walk away with a basic understanding of how to approach basketry with commonly-found plant prunings, and the confidence to experiment and create in your own time after the workshop! This workshop has been designed with the intention to help us connect with the flora and fauna in our area and create our own meaningful relationships with the land that cares for us. Using our hands to work with natural material helps us feel connected to our bodies, our homes, our planet and each other. Hang back after the workshop to put your newfound skills to use in the free activity, making potato gnomes out of plant materials, guardians of the garden. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN • How to use commonly found prunings and clippings from the green waste bin • Various forming techniques including twining and braiding TOGETHER, WE WILL DISCUSS • How regenerative and circular thinking can inform our creative decisions • Custodianship and care in an urban context YOUR FACILITATOR IS Sarah, the artist/designer behind Snakebird Designs, who lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri land. Drawing on regenerative design principles and using research-supported approaches, she seeks to hold spaces for wellbeing, nature-connectedness and care. IS THIS WORKSHOP FOR ME? • This workshop is for everyone! You don’t have to be “creative” or have done anything like it before. • This time is especially designed for those who works at a desk / works without their hands / spends lots of time indoors/ who feel burnt out/despondent/hopeless/bored • If you feel the pull back toward the natural world and want permission to play and create without rules, formulas or expectations, this one is for you! WHAT’S PROVIDED? • All materials will be provided • Needles, twine, clipboards, pegs etc as necessary. • Snacks and refreshments WHERE • Merri Creek Wetland, a secluded and beautiful wetland area. You can enter via a few different entrances, once you've entered the wetland area keep walking down to the lowest point and you'll see our setup. ACCESSIBILITY • This workshop will take place entirely outdoors, on potentially uneven ground and is not wheelchair accessible. If this is a problem for you please get in touch and we can look at alternative locations. • Please get in touch to discuss any accessibility requirements you may have so that we can make sure you have the most comfortable and enjoyable time possible! QUESTIONS? No worries! Send me an email at [email protected] and lets chat :) I would like to acknowledge that I am a non-Indigenous person facilitating this workshop on unceded Wurundjeri land. I pay my respects to the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, gratefully acknowledging their enduring connection to and care for Country over thousands of years. The fibre craft traditions of First Peoples are culturally significant, and contain deep cultural knowledge. What is shared in this workshop is not cultural knowledge and has been learnt largely through books and experimentation. My hope is to create a respectful space for learning, encouraging reciprocity and care for the land that cares for us.