Art with the Land …This is the objective…To create Art with the Land…
Creative Activism – From Art With Land and, after discussion with Fireweed and Broken Forests Brazil advisors, Creative Activism became a “core value” of the group. Through Creative Activism we can produce affects pertinent to our artistic practices and to the sites we are investigating.
NOTES from the SYMPOSIUM (as compiled by D. Wilson and N. Vieira subsequent to discussions held at Island Mountain AIR between August 17-25, 2025)
• Acknowledging privilege and colonial/unsettler histories and refusing to allow societal guilt to fuel inaction •. We will consider privilege to be universal and transparent, i.e. accepted as inherent in all Fireweed creative actions and Artists but not to a reason to not take action or shoulder responsibilities.
• Anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory ethics are central to these Artistic manifestations of Creative Activism.
• There is no need or desire to avoid the perception that these manifestations are inherently resistant to global capitalism. These creative actions will incorporate Artistic responses to the adverse effects of extraction industries upon Indigenous and Settler communities in all countries.
On August 28, Norma and Dermot returned to the school to try and decipher the Actions Supporting Forests mindmaps again. What follows are our notes and gentle re-arrangements of those maps.
•. Art with the Land – This is the objective…to create Art with the Land…this is the central bubble on our Fireweed: a Broken Forests Land Art Action Group’s overarching structure mindmap.
•. We then added some trail markers to help us find our way toward this objective and to help us describe what we ALL mean by Creative Activism.
There seemed to be three main activities or directions for Creative Activists.
- Awareness Building/Perception Enhancement
a. Coherent dialogue and translational rewind sessions. For the collective discourse to be international in scope and clear both to the collective and to audiences, we need to “check” the jargon, colloquialisms and obscurity of our language.
b. Under this rubric, we can also focus on making our personal privilege…useful. We can face our own guilt about being complicit and find ways to move past this limitation.
c. Part of perception is to be continually learning and researching
d. The perception that we are encouraging resistance to Colonial Capitalism and Capitalist processes of extraction and profiteering.
e. Through Creative Activism we can help to value (and reevaluate) forests, earth, water, fire, animal kin and our climate.
- Networking and Growing the Group through Respect and Trust
a. a basic understanding that, through a willingness to share, we can build a more effective collective, a healthier hive.
b. this important function will help us to understand how we can embrace “like minds and spirits” and bring Creative Actions to forests in other parts of the world
- Showing that Creative Actions are also working toward solutions to environmental concerns, imbalances, threats, and atrocities.
a. Concepts and themes that have evolved from nature should not include materials or concepts that are not related to nature (plastics and other manufactured refuse materials are more related to Industrialism and Capitalism than they are to forests, rivers or oceans. If we use these foreign materials we are not perceived as being a part of a solution to an environmental problem or concern).