Transformation Playground is a new social meetup to explore the connection between performance, live arts, gaming, and experience design. We gather together to play games and learn from a variety of game experiences, role plays, and participatory exercises— engaging immersive and personal games as tools for political education and social change.

Creative world-building can be a powerful way to challenge injustice, not only imagine new worlds but also to rethink our place in this one. Transformation Playground is a space where people can come together to experience, discuss, create, and play. And maybe every once in a while, this play will help us imagine more equitable and inclusive futures. It’s also important to make space for play without expectation of transformation—play is valuable even when it is frivolous.

🔗 Here’s a link to sign up for all the gatherings I’m hosting. 🔗

Mark your calendars for the launch of School and Oil and Water, a mail-order kit to examine your relations with petroleum through a collection of artist-made objects and activities.

🔗 Registration opens Monday October 16th at 12 noon, Eastern time.

This contemplative correspondence school takes the form of an artist book packaged in a box. Our curriculum explores these guiding questions:
-
Who is oil and what does oil desire from us?
– Is oil merely a fuel source and material for humans, or could it have other reasons to exist?
– How can we practice relating to petroleum with reciprocity?

School of Oil and Water is designed to be experienced by an individual at home, over the course of a week.

The project is a limited edition of 50, produced in 2023. Once we’re sold out, there will be no more.

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting more information about the contributing artists and their process, so please stay tuned!

Creative Director: Fereshteh Toosi
Artists: Lindsey french, Ginger Brooks Takahashi & Nica Ross, Kate Joranson, Alex Young, Liz Ensz & Skye Fort, and Fereshteh Toosi

School of Oil and Water @oil_ancestors is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight New Work Award @knightfdn

A hazy full moon hovers in the grey sky of early morning. There is a paved road that curves into the horizon, The trees are dark and the street is tinted with a glow of dark orange-brown light. The text “announcing the launch of TFW” is superimposed on top of the photograph in yellow typeface. Under the photograph is a rectangle of a plain black background with more text that reads “a study group about climate change, wellness, and technology from a feminist, queer, anticolonial and racial justice perspectives / DM oilancestors-at-gmeail to join us!”

One of the questions that the participants chose to ask each other during the Pelican Island workshop I hosted earlier this year was: “Have you noticed algorithmic bias in climate news and other media?” I did not expect this subject to come up, and it has inspired the way I’d like to continue the different facets of this project.

For the final post of my weeklong IG takeover for @radicalarchives about my Artist as Archivist project, I announced the launch of a study group based on feedback from participants during Solar Salutations, my Artist as Archivist project. Here is an anonymous quote from one of the participants after the Pelican Island workshop:

“My favorite moments were having open back and forth dialogue about our environmental anxieties as a group. I often talk about climate change but have never put a name to the worries that constantly linger in the back of my mind about that topic.”

The study group is called TFW… (that feeling when) and it will be designed as a supportive space for conversation about climate change, wellness, and technology from feminist, queer, anticolonial and racial justice perspectives. As an in-person community aimed at creative people, discussion will focus on the intersection between digital media like AI and NFTs, and environmental issues.

My role as the facilitator will be informed by my experiences as a professor of digital art, as well as my studies of forest bathing / forest therapy, horticultural therapy, and Buddhist philosophy. An example of the works we will engage with together include texts by Ruha Benjamin, Sarah Jaquette Ray, everest pipkin, Mimi Onuaha, Nabil Hassein, and Octavia Butler, among others.

Would you like to join us? Do you know a place that would like to host our meetings? Please be in touch if you’d like to be involved and/or can suggest or offer a space that can host a monthly group gathering on Sunday afternoons.

#solarsalutations #solarpower #climatechange #climatecrisis #climatebreakdown #globalwarming #climateanxiety #climatedread #climatefeelings #climatesentiment #climatedisplacement #miami #miamidade #communitystories #oralhistories #archives #archivalprocesses #artistasarchivist #studygroup #tfw #thatfeelingwhen #ai #nfts #cryptoart

This one is for the early birds!

For the Artist as Archivist Residency, artist and educator Fereshteh Toosi presents an overnight soundcamp to celebrate celebrate the 10th anniversary of Reveil, the full flower moon, and International Dawn Chorus Day from 5-6 May.

Spots are limited. To RSVP, please make a donation in any amount (recommended: $5-$40). Your donation goes to Artist as Archivist. No one turned away for lack of funds.
_ Venmo: @Fereshteh
_ Paypal/Zelle:  ftoosi-at-gmail
Also email with your contact information and any accessibility needs and food restrictions.

What is it?

Every 24 hours at dawn, birds and other beings create a wave of sound at a time when humans are relatively quiet. Together we’ll listen and broadcast the sounds of Miami to the world.

We’ll have a vegetarian dinner and gather around a campfire before sleeping in dorm-style cabins on Friday night.

We’ll set our alarms to wake up early on Saturday morning in order to greet the birds and broadcast the sounds of our location. Then we’ll have breakfast while listening to live streams from a network of other soundcamps all around the earth.

We will be at the northwest corner of a 65-acre urban park that is one of the few remaining patches of pine rockland forest ecology in Miami-Dade county. It is a popular spot for migrating birds.

This is an all ages event on the ancestral homelands of Tequesta, Miccosukee, and Seminole people.

No drinks, no drugs, no jerks.

Schedule

Friday 5 May


4:00 PM: Meet at A.D. Barnes Park
It is possible to arrive earlier or later, please let us know your needs. Bring a board game to share while we have some appetizers and drinks before dinner.

6:00 PM: vegetarian dinner

7:00 PM: forest bathing walk guided by Fereshteh

8:00 PM: camp fire with s’mores and story circle

10:00 PM: lights out
You will share a large open-plan room with several other people, mixed genders. Our dorm-style cabins have twin-size murphy beds and are fully accessible to people with disabilities. They have hot showers, a kitchen, and picnic shelters.

Saturday 6 May


6:00 AM wake up to
broadcast the Miami dawn chorus
 to the world

7:00 AM: morning stretch / movement

8:00 AM: vegetarian breakfast

9:00 AM: check out

Feel free to hang out and explore the park by the light of day!

Important Information

What’s provided in exchange for your donation?

dinner, cabin rental and fire circle fee, snacks, fire wood, breakfast, coffee & tea, drinking water, microphone and broadcasting equipment

What to bring?
twin-size bed sheets, pillow, plate/bowl and cutlery, water bottle, toiletries, pajamas, change of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, sketchbook/notebook, personal snacks

Cancellations and Refunds

This event will take place rain or shine. Donations will not be refunded for any reason.

Learn more about Soundcamp here: http://soundtent.org/

Learn more about International Dawn Chorus Day: https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/idcd

The Artist as Archivist residency is funded by the Knight Foundation’s Arts Challenge grant and The Ellies, Miami’s visual arts awards, presented by Oolite Arts.

#SolarSalutations
#Soundcamp2023
#Reveil2023
#Reveil10
#acousticommons

Contact: Fereshteh Toosi, 
natureconnectionarts-at-gmail.com