RE-cultivating Compassion
a creative symposium
How can we cultivate
Compassion in a time where empathy abounds
and Compassion seldom found?
On JUNE 14th
- 16th (SUNDAY through TUESDAY) 2020, we
invite you to explore ways in which we might answer this question through art, movement,
music, object making, writing, discussion, activism, and repair.
This multi-day
event will consist of a meet & greet session followed by a series of 1 to 2
hour-long focused workshops. On the final evening, all workshop participants
will gather to share what they have done in the workshops in a mix and mingle,
fluid, happening-style event at which we invite all attending to take part.
(An excerpt of a
previous collaborative happening-style event in Berlin, Germany can be viewed
here: https://youtu.be/t5mSzmxebys )
The events are held at THE
REPAIR ATELIER
located at 16 Church Street,
in Providence, RI.
THE REPAIR
ATELIER is an art/ design workshop that investigates and activates ideas of
repair and reuse. A collaborative space to rethink and reuse discarded and
broken objects, ideas, and relationships, transform them and in the process
'repair' not just objects and ideas, but also the communities that form around
them.
Repair Atelier
website:
Instagram:
Call for collaborative participants:
We are currently
seeking individuals and groups interested in sharing ways they cultivate
Compassion in their lives and the world through the above mentioned, or perhaps
other means, and are interested in exploring this further by facilitating a
short workshop.
Please email:
by MONDAY MARCH
30th 2020.
Send a brief
description (100 words or less) of what you do and how you understand this as a
way of RE-cultivating Compassion.
We will announce
a tentative program by Friday May 1st – at which time we will also
begin taking RSVPs for workshop participants.
Please don’t
hesitate to reach out to us with any questions.
Meet the production team:
Co-organizing
'RE-cultivating Compassion' are:
Markus Berger (Director of The Repair Atelier and Visual
Artist/ Designer)
Markus Berger is
a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design and founder and director of The
Repair Atelier. He co-founded and co-edits Int|AR, the Journal on Interventions
and Adaptive Reuse, that encompasses issues of preservation, conservation,
alteration, and
interventions.
His work, research, writing, and teaching is a critique of the modern, pristine
and new in architecture and design, and focuses on forms of change such as art
and design modifications and interventions in the built environment. Markus is
also co-founder of the Full Circle Collaborative, an interdisciplinary group
that embraces the circular material economy, thinking for its potential to
connect the socio-economical and physical links and appease conflict.
 |
| Markus Berger |
Robyn Thomas
Robyn Thomas is a
Providence-based artist with an interdisciplinary painting practice.
Presently, she is
completing practice-based doctoral research on the impact of personas applied
as tools in her painting practice with the University of Plymouth, UK. She has
studied Art History, Philosophy, and Pedagogy at the University of Karlsruhe
[KIT], was a guest student in the Insitute for
Art and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design [HfG], received
an MFA in Creative Practice from the University of Plymouth, UK and a BFA in
Studio Art/Painting from Kent State University.
 |
| Robyn Thomas |
Personal experiences and recent world events
lead me to consider the difference between empathy and Compassion; how an
abundance of 'feeling with' but a deficiency of 'feeling for' others has led us
to become devoid of Compassion. From this philosophical contemplation, I have
sought ways of cultivating my ability to become more compassionate through my
painting practice.
Cilla Vee
Claire Elizabeth
Barratt (aka Cilla Vee) is an interdisciplinary performing artist. She is the
founding director of Cilla Vee Life Arts, established in the Bronx NY, 2002 –
now based in Asheville, NC. Her professional training was received at the Laban
Centre for Movement and Dance at Goldsmiths College and the London Studio
Centre of Performing Arts in the UK.
She held an
apprenticeship with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, NYC, and obtained an
MFA in Creative Practice from Plymouth University UK, via the Transart
Institute of Creative Research.
Claire is the
creator of the Living Art performance
pedagogy.
She teaches,
performs, and collaborates with artists of all disciplines nationally and
internationally.
 |
| Claire Elizabeth Barratt |
The embodiment of Compassion has been a
gradual process in my work. Originating from an aesthetic search for suitable
project material, it arrived in the form of the Hindu deity Tara – Goddess of
Compassion. Over the years of adopting this role (the Golden Goddess), Compassion
has begun to reveal itself to me. I am finally beginning to find ways to direct
explorations of this state of being.
 |
| Cilla Vee - as the Golden Goddess (Tara - goddess of compassion) |
 |
| cracks in the atelier walls reveal an underlying layer of gold! |
