RESIDENCIES
a participatory, immersive learning experience
Beyond Borders will be convened by the Eroles Project team, some of whom (Ruth Cross and María Llanos) are now living and working with La Bolina (formerly known as Regeneration Project Granada)- a new project which focuses on sustainability, regeneration and integration that is taking root in the south of Spain.
In 2016 Eroles Project hosted a summer of residencies on the theme Borders where we explored what it means to radically think as a species. During one of these residencies participants co-created the initial design for what was to become La Bolina. Almost two years on and this project has taken shape with a core team of refugees, migrants, Eroles participants and local people. The project aims to challenge reductionist and colonialist approaches to development and social action.
In light of our experience working in the Granada Project and our awareness of the systemic challenges around the process of migration, including that of countries receiving refugees and migrants; Eroles Project have become interested in beginning a Community of Practice with people working in integration. People from countries of origin of migration and receiving countries, people campaigning and creating policy change, people collaborating in diverse groups and using creative approaches.
For more info about La Bolina please read A New Approach to Migration published on the Transition Network website.
Here are some of the challenges we are facing…
How to create spaces for understanding and sharing our own and each others highest human potential.
How to construct collective meaning around leading and organisational structures taking into account a diversity of perspectives.
How to create awareness around power and privilege within a multicultural team.
How to stay ethical and coherent while facing funding challenges.
How does perception build in you – and how does this influence your construction of ‘other’.
Regeneration Project Granada aims to repopulate a rural area in the province of Granada, Spain which is severely depopulated. We aim to collaboratively work the land, create viable and sustainable livelihoods, and regenerate both the ecosystem and the economy of the area. A team of 8 have moved into the village of Saleres. This has had exponentially positive effects on the potential impacts of the project as we become more familiar with the context and people. However the transition from developing a shared philosophy during numerous site visits to rooting long term in a village and attempting to put that philosophy into practice has brought up challenges:
The reality of 8 people living and working in a shared house in a small rural village has created dissonance within the team. As planning turns into action we are realising our different expectations and needs around work, pay, time, security, organisation, self management, leadership, accountability etc.
We have started questioning each others perceptions and habits, and tensions have risen around power, responsibility and decision making. This has created a deeply reflexive quality as we try to understand and embrace our differences. We think about social constructivism and the promise of co-creating meaning together through deconstructionism and dialogue. We are learning to make sense of our collective ways of seeing by opening the possibility of perceiving anew through a more plural and collective lens. We explore and debate around cultural relativism and play with the idea of a phenomenological approach to our living together.
We are trying to overcome not only hierarchies and the dichotomization and labeling of people (“refugees”, “locals”, “social workers”), but a linear scientific approach to social action. We focus on listening, observing, planning, trying and learning in iterative ways. We want to be responsive, flexible and agile. Through exploring this way of acting and organising we are facing funding challenges but more profoundly we are struggling to deeply comprehend and embrace this more plural paradigm of thought; a way of working that does not yet have a proper language or patterns in our bodies and minds.
Joining Beyond Borders Community of Practice.
Do you resonate with these questions? Are you facing these kinds of challenges, or others, in your own work, project or personal experience? Are you keen to reflect, make, exchange, share and act in a small and diverse Community of Practice exploring these themes?
APPLY HERE.
The real cost of the gathering is 600€ per person. This covers accommodation, food, resources, organisation and pick up and drop off at Tremp bus station. If you feel able to pay more we invite you to do so, the additional amount goes directly to the bursary pot for people with less financial means. If you are accepted you are required to make a non-refundable deposit of 50% to confirm your participation.
We can provide travel/study visa applications for those applying from a country which need a visa to enter Spain.
When & Where
5 - 19 August 2018: Beyond Borders gathering in the village of Eroles, Catalonia.
2018 and beyond: Community of Practice (ongoing, online, with potential visits to each other’s projects) - designed by the residency participants and Eroles Project.
2018-2019: For those interested there will be the opportunity to come and join for a longer period of time to the Regeneration Project Granada and contribute to a year long programme of integration activities here in El Valle.
Example daily schedule* - (with lots of free time to walk, create, read, write, make, play)
- Morning meditation, yoga/other movement practice
- Breakfast
- Morning session
- Sharing/presenting your practice
- Lunch
- Open afternoon collaboration time
- Gathering and feedback
- Dinner
- Evening activity
*The Eroles Team will lead the first day. We will explore and share some of the ways of working we have used in our project. Some of those will be complexity and social change, nature connection, ritual, spontaneity and improvisation, theatre of the oppressed, Social Presencing Theatre, agile and collaborative practices.
Our residencies are the heart of what we do. They are a time when a diverse group of people come together to think, play, practice, learn, exchange and to develop a collective action to do in the world. Eroles Project believes it’s from the creativity of artists, the heart of activists, the minds of thinkers, the souls of carers, the hands of builders, and gardeners, the spirit of wise people where we can build a future in which we all thrive.
Beyond Borders will be convened by the Eroles Project team, some of whom (Ruth Cross and María Llanos) are now living and working with La Bolina (formerly known as Regeneration Project Granada)- a new project which focuses on sustainability, regeneration and integration that is taking root in the south of Spain.
In 2016 Eroles Project hosted a summer of residencies on the theme Borders where we explored what it means to radically think as a species. During one of these residencies participants co-created the initial design for what was to become La Bolina. Almost two years on and this project has taken shape with a core team of refugees, migrants, Eroles participants and local people. The project aims to challenge reductionist and colonialist approaches to development and social action.
In light of our experience working in the Granada Project and our awareness of the systemic challenges around the process of migration, including that of countries receiving refugees and migrants; Eroles Project have become interested in beginning a Community of Practice with people working in integration. People from countries of origin of migration and receiving countries, people campaigning and creating policy change, people collaborating in diverse groups and using creative approaches.
For more info about La Bolina please read A New Approach to Migration published on the Transition Network website.
Here are some of the challenges we are facing…
How to create spaces for understanding and sharing our own and each others highest human potential.
How to construct collective meaning around leading and organisational structures taking into account a diversity of perspectives.
How to create awareness around power and privilege within a multicultural team.
How to stay ethical and coherent while facing funding challenges.
How does perception build in you – and how does this influence your construction of ‘other’.
Regeneration Project Granada aims to repopulate a rural area in the province of Granada, Spain which is severely depopulated. We aim to collaboratively work the land, create viable and sustainable livelihoods, and regenerate both the ecosystem and the economy of the area. A team of 8 have moved into the village of Saleres. This has had exponentially positive effects on the potential impacts of the project as we become more familiar with the context and people. However the transition from developing a shared philosophy during numerous site visits to rooting long term in a village and attempting to put that philosophy into practice has brought up challenges:
The reality of 8 people living and working in a shared house in a small rural village has created dissonance within the team. As planning turns into action we are realising our different expectations and needs around work, pay, time, security, organisation, self management, leadership, accountability etc.
We have started questioning each others perceptions and habits, and tensions have risen around power, responsibility and decision making. This has created a deeply reflexive quality as we try to understand and embrace our differences. We think about social constructivism and the promise of co-creating meaning together through deconstructionism and dialogue. We are learning to make sense of our collective ways of seeing by opening the possibility of perceiving anew through a more plural and collective lens. We explore and debate around cultural relativism and play with the idea of a phenomenological approach to our living together.
We are trying to overcome not only hierarchies and the dichotomization and labeling of people (“refugees”, “locals”, “social workers”), but a linear scientific approach to social action. We focus on listening, observing, planning, trying and learning in iterative ways. We want to be responsive, flexible and agile. Through exploring this way of acting and organising we are facing funding challenges but more profoundly we are struggling to deeply comprehend and embrace this more plural paradigm of thought; a way of working that does not yet have a proper language or patterns in our bodies and minds.
Joining Beyond Borders Community of Practice.
Do you resonate with these questions? Are you facing these kinds of challenges, or others, in your own work, project or personal experience? Are you keen to reflect, make, exchange, share and act in a small and diverse Community of Practice exploring these themes?
APPLY HERE.
The real cost of the gathering is 600€ per person. This covers accommodation, food, resources, organisation and pick up and drop off at Tremp bus station. If you feel able to pay more we invite you to do so, the additional amount goes directly to the bursary pot for people with less financial means. If you are accepted you are required to make a non-refundable deposit of 50% to confirm your participation.
We can provide travel/study visa applications for those applying from a country which need a visa to enter Spain.
When & Where
5 - 19 August 2018: Beyond Borders gathering in the village of Eroles, Catalonia.
2018 and beyond: Community of Practice (ongoing, online, with potential visits to each other’s projects) - designed by the residency participants and Eroles Project.
2018-2019: For those interested there will be the opportunity to come and join for a longer period of time to the Regeneration Project Granada and contribute to a year long programme of integration activities here in El Valle.
Example daily schedule* - (with lots of free time to walk, create, read, write, make, play)
- Morning meditation, yoga/other movement practice
- Breakfast
- Morning session
- Sharing/presenting your practice
- Lunch
- Open afternoon collaboration time
- Gathering and feedback
- Dinner
- Evening activity
*The Eroles Team will lead the first day. We will explore and share some of the ways of working we have used in our project. Some of those will be complexity and social change, nature connection, ritual, spontaneity and improvisation, theatre of the oppressed, Social Presencing Theatre, agile and collaborative practices.