31st March 2025 – 23rd May 2025
FOR THE ACTIVIST, THE ADVOCATE, THE CHANGE SHAPER, AND THE GOOD TROUBLEMAKER
Edgework: Care & Creativity at the Margins
Redefine and reclaim what creativity means for you without the noise of societal expectations and self-doubt.
Rooted in care, lived experiences and more-than-artistic expressions, this 8-week journey will help you to rediscover and call upon the creativity that is already within you. You will reimagine creativity beyond traditional definitions, explore creativity as an act of care, and see creativity as a tool for eco-social change. No art skills are necessary. Just come with your curiosity and an open heart.
Inclusive, trust-based pricing options available, details below.
A personal invitation to break free and reclaim your innate creative power, honor the ways you’ve always been creating and share space with people who understand creativity as a living, breathing practice of survival, healing, resistance, and reimagining
This experience is for you if:
- You’re curious are about the deeper roots of creativity and its connection to life itself.
- You’re looking for a space to explore the connections between care and creativity, and understand how they shape relationships, communities and the world at large.
- You’ve ever asked yourself if you are truly creative, or thought that creativity is for “other people”.
- You would like to creatively tend to the wounds you carry and/or witness; whether these wounds take the shape of personal struggles, deep rooted trauma or the multilayer ecological and existential crisis of our time.
- You’ve been shuttled to, are working at or curious about the margins. Whether that’s in marginalized communities, grassroots organizations, or other spaces of survival and resistance.
- You are interested in connecting with the wisdom of those who came before you, understanding how care and creativity have been passed down from generation to generation, and how these lineages continue to shape our present and future.
- You want to take a breather – a generative pause – to reflect on and plan for what comes next in your life.
Why Edgework?
Until recently, I struggled with the deep-seated belief that creativity and the label of “creative” could be claimed by only a select few. For me, creativity was a gift reserved for artists and other traditionally creative professionals. Because I was none of those things, I simply wasn’t creative.
Somewhere along the line, I’d internalized the notion that creativity was both exclusive and elusive.
But as I matured (a little) and met with adversity, it dawned on me: Persisting as a human is a creative act.
At just the right angles, creativity glimmers in the every day, the mundane, and the seemingly insignificant. Like mica in a metamorphic rock, creativity glints as we show up with care, handle hardship, tend to wounds, and grow again after being cut down.
This story…my story…is not unique. Many of us have been conditioned out of recognizing our creative capacities by our family, schools, or society as a whole. They’ve rendered us insensible to the very creative and collaborative capacities that are needed to mobilize authentic, liberating, and careful responses in times of volatility, uncertainty, loss, and in the face of oppressive or destructive forces – times such as these.
Think about it: When was the last time you explored your unique expression of creativity beyond the confines and constraints of societal expectations? When was the last time you allowed yourself to play, to experiment without the fear of failure? Without judgment or critique? If it’s been a while, you owe yourself that space. If it’s happened more recently, don’t you want some more?
As I’ve consciously reconnected to my creativity as both a birthright and a survival strategy, I’ve begun to appreciate the connections between honoring my creative capacity and reclaiming power that others would rather I not be able to access. I’ve decided to curate a space for creative edgework because I think that reopening this channel has the capacity to make margin-dwellers into good troublemakers.
Course Content
Week by week, we will take time to tend to the root of our innate creativity. Through case studies, engaging with community voices, discussion forums, and weekly live gatherings, we will explore what creativity has meant, what it can mean, and how it can be used as a tool for social and environmental change, grounded in care.
Week 1: Lifeforming
This experience is built on the belief that creativity, of all kinds, but specifically the forms that are not artistic, thrives in spaces where trust, connection and most of all, care, exist. In this first week, we will ground ourselves in histories of creativity, exploring it as a fundamental part of life’s evolution. Together, we’ll lay a foundation of relational trust to support our shared inquiry.
Week 2: Care As Dynamic Precursor
Care is the soil in which creativity grows and is nourished. This week, we will consider the dimensions of care and how its activation creates conditions for creativity to flourish. We will consider care in the layers of self, relations, collectives, and metabolisms.
Week 3: (Re)defining Creativity
What assumptions about creativity and creatives are living rent-free in your psyche? Is it tough to see yourself as creative? What would it take to shift your perceptions? These questions are as much for you as they are for me. Let’s peel off layers of societal narratives that constrain creativity. What will we find beneath?
Week 4: Wound Tending
Creativity seeps from the sites of trauma – whether personal, collective, or ecological. Without bypassing the importance for accountability and restoration, we’ll explore the role of creativity as a core component of healing, tending, and mending the wounds that life inflicts and that are carried in lineages.
Week 5: At the Margins: Survival
What’s springing up from the cracks and spilling over the margins? Creative acts of survival and resistance that get us from one day to the next, carve space for liberation, and sometime ignite awe-inspiring and state-changing conflagrations. Let’s offer our attention to the ways in which marginalized communities (human and beyond) creatively adapt and survive – quite literally – and how these creative acts catalyze and cohere into social and environmental change.
Week 6: At the Margins: Generative Resistance
Some of us shrink or shut down when we encounter opposition or struggle. The same sources of socialization might either make us distance ourselves from or reflexively identify with act of resistance. It is possible to dance differently with righteous refusal and rebellion when we remember that care-full and collaborative creativity can yield generative resistance. This week we take time to study how marginalized and undervalued communities mobilize creativity not only to resist oppressive systems and structures, but to reimagine and build new possibilities.
Week 7: Lineages
Creativity, as a practice, can be animated by ancestral wisdom. Our elders and ancestors carry lessons on care, community, interconnectedness and survival. This week, we will consider how care and creativity have been nurtured and passed down through generations and how these lineages continue to shape our present and future. We may also examine our obligations to our as future ancestors and carriers of creative legacy.
Week 8: Reflecting Forward
Our final week will be a time to steep in and reflect on the journey, within the self and with each other. We will attempt to integrate what we’ve learned about creativity and care without allowing the experience to set and solidify. Together, we’ll figure out how to carry fluid insights forward into our lives, communities, and broader systems and stay loosely connected to creativity-cherishing community.
Course Structure
This is not your typical course. In fact, it was deliberately designed to be far removed from rigid structures and traditional learning. This learning experience and the activities that make up its core were intentional curated and co-created. The things we do activate and answer our desires for exploration, flexibility, a spirit of play, and a burning passion to challenge the status quo. Each activity invites you to stretch your thinking, ask (sometimes uncomfortable) questions that may not have answers, and meet uncertainty with openness and curiosity. These exercises support an energy capable of carrying authentic connection and celebration in the context of both diversity and divergence. You can expect:
Weekly 90 minute live gatherings (Limes)
These might include Community Voices sharing their stories, virtual walking tours to glimpse and begin sensing different environments, movie screenings followed by reflective discussions, skill sharing sessions, or jam sessions all aimed at deepening our collective understanding of and connection to the themes
Reflective Moments & Daily Routines
Opportunities for personal reflection, continued exploration, and integration of what is being learned
Voices from Marginalized Communities
Engage with thought leaders and community creatives who will share their stories of developing creative responses to the social and environmental threats faced in their communities
Community Dialogue
A generative place and space for multiple and diverse perspectives that challenge assumptions and long-held beliefs, while cultivating deep listening, empathy and collective wisdom. Here, we do not aim to win arguments but allow different ways of knowing to meet and interact.
Enrollment
This experience is meant to be intimate, intentional and interactive.
It is meant to allow both participants and the learning guide to engage deeply with the content and with each other. Because of this, enrollment is capped at 20 participants.
This smaller group means that genuine connections can be formed and nurtured, everyone’s voices can be heard, and in as much as possible, we can co-create a space that respects and values each person’s lived experiences, the questions they are carrying and the insights they bring to our shared journey.
As with everything else, the enrollment process is designed to not be cumbersome. Please complete and submit the application form using the APPLY NOW! option below. It should take about 20 minutes (probably less).
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and decisions will be communicated within two weeks of submission. If accepted, you’ll receive additional information on the next steps including payments, if applicable, and preparatory resources for our journey together. I am looking forward to welcoming you into this experience with me. To unravel, reimagine, and dance at the margins.
Pricing
In designing this experience, several things were at the forefront of my mind. The first of them is accessibility – financial, yes, but also accessibility in a way that allows each of us to bring our full selves into the space. I wanted to create an opportunity where our learning and living goes hand in hand, without added financial strain that could inadvertently exclude people.
To honor this and stay true to my values, while at the same time respecting the energy, creativity and thought that has gone into this work, myself and my EcoGather friends have offered to you 6 pricing tiers and a little guidance to help you decide which fee best fits your situation and capacity. This is an imperfect way of attempting to walk in both economies – the dominant, breaking one we’re all subsumed in and the alternative, abundance-trusting ones we know we can create.
If these tiered prices are out of reach for you, please select that option on the application form. You will be asked to respond to four (4) additional questions as part of a Fellowship application.
Here is a breakdown of each tiered price.
Supported Participation (Tier 1) - $20
Paying for this course is not possible for me because I am unable to reliably meet my basic needs for shelter, food, clothing, or life-saving medical care OR because I live and work in a region where our local currency does not give me any significant buying power in US dollars.
Substantially Reduced Cost (Tier 2) - $66
Paying for this course presents a financial hardship. I experience several of the lower tier conditions listed above or have other barriers to paying more that would otherwise cause me to miss out on this opportunity. Tier 2 is 33% of the true-cost contribution.
Discounted Participation (Tier 3) - $150
Paying full price might be tricky for me and add to my stress levels. I don’t really see myself in the lower or higher tier characteristics list. Cost has me on the fence about signing up. I might have to make small sacrifices to pay, but I won’t compromise my needs or experience real hardship. Tier 3 is 75% of true-cost contribution.
True Cost Tuition (Tier 4) - $200
I am able to cover the true costs of my participation. Paying this price may mean I forego something else I want to do or buy, but I can find the resources to cover the true cost without hardship. I recognize that it paying to my ability helps to sustain EcoGather. Tier 4 covers the true costs of participation.
For me & a little bit more (Tier 5) - $266
I am able to cover the true costs of my participation. Paying this price may mean I forego something else I want to do or buy, but I can find the resources to cover the true cost without hardship. I recognize that it paying to my ability helps to sustain EcoGather. Tier 4 covers the true costs of participation.
For me & another (Tier 6) - $332
I did not have to think twice about paying to participate. I have the ability and desire to redistribute resources and increase access for others. Indeed, I’d like to make sure someone without my financial advantages or other privileges can participate now or in the near future (166% of full tuition price).
FAQ
Do I need to be an artist to join this course?
Simply put, absolutely not. In fact, this course is designed especially for people who gravitate more towards non-artistic expressions of creativity. While it might also serve self-identified artists who feel their creativity has become too professionalized or commoditized, it is primarily for people who might hesitate to call themselves a “creative.”
What is the course schedule?
Each week will feature one 90mins live gathering (or lime). These limes might include Community Voices sharing their stories, virtual walking tours to glimpse and begin sensing different environments, movie screenings followed by reflective discussions, skill sharing sessions, or jam sessions all aimed at deepening our collective understanding of and connection to the themes.
The specific timing for each week’s lime will be democratically determined to accommodate the majority of participants. We recognize that our community may span different timezones and would have diverse needs, so we’ll be collaborative in scheduling these sessions. Before the course begins, we will invite participants to share their availability and we’ll select a consistent time that works best for the majority.
What is a Lime?
There is a long and short answer to this question.
Short answer: A lime is a West Indian gathering of family, friends or acquaintances that usually involves casual, (un)structured social interaction. It is a relaxing affair, filled with conversation and enjoyment.
Long answer: A lime is much more than a casual meetup. It is a social ritual. An experience. An artform. In liming and liming well, we share stories, jokes and experiences, we build and maintain community, and we make memories. For the purposes of this course, our limes will have some structure while remaining fluid. It will be charactierized by: authentic connections, intentional flexibility, inclusive engagement, and relaxed learning
Our limes are not just meetings. They are living, breathing spaces of community, conversation, learning and connection. And fun.
What is the time commitment for this course?
To really give this experience the best chance of working on you, expect to spend between 4-6 hours each week on your creativity inclusive of carefully curated course content, participation in weekly live sessions, and engagement in personal expressive and reflective exercises.
Will this feel like I'm in school?
No. Because of this, this course will not satisfy those who want a rigidly structured, traditional learning experience that is linear and predictable. It will probably not work for you if you prefer a more passive approach to learning simply because the course is designed to be exploratory and hands-on.
How is this course designed to fit into my busy life?
Listen, we get it. We completely understand. Learning and unlearning happens in tandem with life. Each of us is coming into this space balancing school, parenthood, other caregiving, work commitments or whatever else life throws our way. This experience has been designed to fit alongside our lives, allowing each of us to engage with creativity and exploration without adding more pressure. There are only 90 minutes of synchronous participation time per week to fit into your schedule (and recordings will be made quickly available if the timing is tough). The course materials will be carefully curated and sometimes distilled and excerpted to their essence. Many of the activities can expand or contract to suit the amount of time you can devote to them. And you will be able to download the activity instructions so that you can revisit the practices after our 8 weeks together.
Meet Your Host - Nakasi
I’m Nakasi.
Today, I am a educator, project manager and the creator of Edgework: Care & Creativity at the Margins. But for a long time, I didn’t see myself as creative.
Finding my creative path wasn’t easy, alluring, or straightforward. I questioned my creativity because I didn’t fit the traditional definition. I didn’t dance, sing, or act. But I came to understand that creativity is not just confined to galleries or stages. It could be found in our everyday lives. In how we show up to navigate challenges, how we care for ourselves and each other, and how we reimagine ways to be in the world.
I had to redefine what creativity meant to me, and through that process, I have and continue to find out that creativity is, at its core, a care-full act. One that was present since the beginning of time, one that heals, restores, resists and reimagines. (Once I internalized this knowledge, it was easier and more enjoyable to both make a little ruckus and actually engage in crafty pursuits.)
I created this course – rather, this experience – as an opportunity for us to explore beyond-artistic forms of creativity, the kind that you and I embody, in its truest, most expansive form.
I am so glad you’ve found your way here. It’s indeed a joy to have you come along for the ride.
With care and love.