Moving from the individual to the collective: How can somatics facilitate social change?
Camille Barton
Friday
14:30 - 16:00
Aquarium
Workshop
We are living through times of great change. The pandemic has illuminated the deep suffering, oppression and harm that is present in the world, as well as the growing desire to move towards ways of existing based on care and life sustaining practices. This moment is filled with grief as well as opportunities to reimagine the system(s) in which we live. Embodiment can play a key role in this work of growing regenerative futures. However we must question: how transformative is embodiment work if it continues to focus on the individual as the primary site of healing? What would it look like to orient towards collective healing? How can groups of individuals facilitate broader connection and build capacity to shift the mechanisms that create harm and suffering in the collective? This session will explore these questions beginning with a contextual framing, followed by a series of embodied exercises and discussions.
Camille Barton is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and embodiment researcher, who uses afropresentism to imagine creative interventions towards systems change. Their work combines somatics, dance and trauma informed approaches to explore oppression and how we can re-pattern it, moving towards life sustaining practices.
Camille is the head of Ecologies of Transformation (2021 - 2023), a temporary masters programme at Sandberg Institute, exploring how art making and embodiment can facilitate social change. They are currently researching grief on behalf of the Global Environments Network, creating a toolkit of embodied grief practices to support efforts for intersectional, ecological justice. Camille also works as an advisor for MAPS, ensuring that psychedelic therapies will be accessible to global majority communities (POC) most harmed by the war on drugs.