On July 10th, playwright and Woodhaven Writer-in-Residence Chantal Bilodeau hosted an in-person workshop at the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre, called Envisioning a Better World Together.
Bilodeau led participants through an envisioning exercise by facilitating group discussions to think about ways to move beyond the frustrations people may be feeling in the world today and to articulate what they hope to bring into existence for themselves and others. Participants then worked together to create a large art mandala made out of natural items found around the property.
Below are images from the workshop.
Envisioning exercise and group discussions
Participants at the Envisioning a Better World workshop with the final nature mandala
About the 2021 Woodhaven Artist-in-Residence Program
The Woodhaven Artist in Residence Program is run by UBCO’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. Woodhaven provides a paid residency opportunity for a diverse variety of visiting artists each year, including writers, visual artists, digital media artists and performance artists. For the 2021 season, applications were sought from writers of all genres.
Chantal Bilodeau was chosen as the inaugural Woodhaven Artist in Residence. Bilodeau is a Montreal-born, New York-based playwright and translator whose work focuses on the intersection of science, policy, art and climate change. In her capacity as artistic director of The Arctic Cycle, she has been instrumental in getting the theatre and academic communities — as well as audiences in the US and abroad — to engage in climate action through programming that includes live events, talks, publications, workshops, national and international convenings, and a worldwide distributed theatre festival.