Exhuming Dead Yearnings


Workshop #1

Running Time - 2 - 3 hrs
Date - TBD
Location - RCA, Kensington
12-3 PM

Pre Workshop -

1. Think of a woman who seeded transformative energy in you in the past.
2. Bring this story of change to the park.
3. Please bring umbrellas.

Workshop -

1. Circle of Building Familiarity - Share your name and one thing you are hyper aware of right now, and one thing that is calming. This goes around the circle. (15-20 mins)
2. Poem Recitation - Grandmother by Kamala Das - to set up the environment as an exchange and sharing of stories. (10)
3. Building Partnerships - Each person partners up with the person to their right. (5-10)
4. Sharing Change - They share the stories of change with each other. (15-20)
5. Designing Gratitude - Each pair is invited to design a sonic experience of expressing gratitude to the woman who instilled change in them. Consider what you would like them to hear, how would they navigate this experience, build an experience for those women that helped us change and become who we are today. (25-30) - listening
6. Navigating the Experience - Each pair takes other participants on a journey through their experiences.(15-20)
7. Circle of Conversations - Participants hold an open discussion about how they felt while designing, experiencing, and post the experience.(20). Vessels for tomorrow.
8. End with a recitation of a poem by Emily Dickinson.(5)

Post Workshop -
Participants are invited to share their insights, reflections, feedback, and more stories either through sound recordings or through one-on-one interviews.

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Reviving Today’s Yearnings


Workshop #2

Running Time - 3 - 4 hrs
Location - Undecided.
12-4 PM

Pre Workshop -

1. Think of something you yearn to change, could be something personal, more systemic, educational, spiritual, cultural, anything.
2. Bring a form of technology you use.
3. Bring an element of your art/ design practice to the park.

Workshop -

1. Circle of Familiarity - Share your names and a line about what you do and what excites you about it. (15-20 minutes)
2. Sharing the story of Bliss, by Katherine Mansfield/ Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. (15)
3. Building Pairs.(5-10)
4. Discuss and combine your yearnings with your partners.(15-25)
5. Design a storytelling performance using your choice of technology and your practice to translate this yearning into a listening experience for your fellow participants to imbibe this feeling of yearning in themselves. (30 - 45)
6. (Prompted hints - directed activities.(policy, speech etc.) - a change in personal life and a change in the society - Design a protest poster or a protest chant)
7. Storytelling - Each group builds a storytelling experience and performs their story, to be listened to and watched by the other participants. (15 - 25)
8. Circle of Conversations - Discussions on how it felt, designing, witnessing, performing, and what we feel.(20) (participant responses as vessels for tomorrow)
9. Ending with your yearning sounds like mine. How your yearning has informed mine.(10)

Post Workshop -
Participants are invited to share their insights, reflections, feedback, and more stories either through sound recordings or through one-on-one interviews.