Bones and the aging female body

 The body clock is ticking and I'm very grateful to ongoing research with Dr. Rachel Sweeney that incorporates my changing multitemporal body (see www.thefloatingvillage.net)

In September 2024, for an immersive weekend at the Centre for Moving Ecologies, Schumacher College, Devon, UK, 

I contributed to an invited group sharing our embodied knowledge around bones and the ageing female body. 

Joined Rachel with Anna Harvey, dance artist (UK) and Gail Mahon (NI) ceramic artist specialising in bone in her arts and science PhD research. The synergy produced some golden threads and deep deep inquiry.

I shared my interest in minerals through Margaret Roberts book,  Tissue Salts or Healthy Living and my personal research on herbs, all shared through a sense-based, eco-somatic movement-based process.

Rachel and I expanded on the olfactory research that we did on residency in the Auvergne region this April, as part of our Articulating Thresholds process; embodying site-specific research on Douglas Furs and St . Hilliares essential oils and speaking our findings.

Polytunnel Art- a community wellbeing project for Asylem seekers in Bellharbour, Co.Clare.

 Plant, Paint and Place; Polytunnel Art in the Burren

I was invited by the Burrin Community Group and Donnacha Fahy, polytunnel owner and horticulturalist, to offer an art class that could lift the spirits of the new neighbours in the village of Bellharbour where I grew up. Part-funded by Healthy Clare micro fund. ( I had helped set up Failte Isteach chat club that I co-ordinate in Bellharbour since May so I got to know some new neighbours and their interests.)

 I designed a creative workshop around 6 herbs common to Ukraine and Ireland that grow over the winter in both locations. Working with Donnacha and a group of Ukrainians each week we engage with a specific herb. Coriander & parsley to date. We draw, tell stories, sing, paint, taste, smell, eat and plant new seeds in the Polytunnel that Donnacha will water over the winter. It's a privilege to share such lore and insights across cultures and I'm so impressed how the Ukrainians who are partaking just love to draw and make no bones about it! No complementing but no pressure- no competitiveness, just enjoying the delight of drawing together on a huge sheet of brown paper. I recognise I come from a creative culture of shame, we are never good enough ... so its very healing for all of us there to embrace drawing for drawings sake!

Project Affectionate participate in Common Ground climate community action.

Project Affectionate, eco-somatic movement collective 

In October 2023 Sofia Ananda, Herminia Ayala and I started an eco-somatic movement group, meeting at Teach Ceoil on Tuesday mornings since then. With more than 13 people joining us over the past year and such interest in moving together, through the interconnection of nature and the felt senses with spatial awareness, we set up Project Affectionat as a collective. 

We shared different practices including Contact imrov for the winter and now I offer a Re-Wilding Bodies workshop each week for free -moving through the senses, incorporating Antoinette Spillanes Seasonal Score, Mary Nunans Release technique, Body Mind Centering, Joan Davies Origins, and many more techniques that I've picked up along the way and through an MA in Contemporary Dance UL '06. This mindful meditative process prioritizes restorative movement practice for all abilities, but is particularly suited for burnt-out embodied activists! 

Project Affectionate as a group is presently focusing on our embodied connection to water and our concerns for our drinking water quality and the river water decline in our area and indeed everywhere with climate change, neglect, bad habits and dangerous practices against nature.

We took part in p(Art)y section of HERE and Now, Live Art Festival 10th August, 2024

https://rachelmacmanus.art/portfolio-items/here-and-now-events-upcoming/

We also took part in Culture Night p(ART)y Live Art event in the Peace Park, Ennis.

https://culturenight.ie/event/party-here-and-now-culture-night/

We got selected as one of the community volunteer groups to participate in Common Ground:

Common Ground is a project from Common Knowledge, funded by Rethink Ireland. The project is aimed at bringing rural communities in North Clare together to learn the skills needed to start biodiversity and climate action projects/meitheals in their local towns and villages.

Over the course of the programme, representatives of each participating group have had the opportunity to learn new skills, meet other local communities and enjoy shared meals at The Common Knowledge Centre near Kilfenora, connecting both with Munster’s natural heritage and with each other in a meaningful way.  The impact of this project is that they will take everything they've learnt and share it with their communities through working together in their climate-action meitheals. This project focuses on both positive environmental action, and on social inclusion and building community!' 

 Welcome to this update of my blog outlining my interdisciplinary movement arts practice with special emphasis on community projects here in North Clare 

and well-being facilitation that I share through eco-somatic processes 

as an artist/curator/choreographer

Maria Kerin 

(legally Maria Kerin-Walsh since 2022)

For my professional movement practice please see www.thefloatingvillage.net where I collaborate with Dr. Rachel Sweeney, Head of Movement, Mind & Ecology MA course in Schumacher College, Dartington, Devon U.K.

Updating this blog as the past few years Ive been focused on www.thefloatingvillage.net

 Please call back in early October as I'm scheduled this week to add a lot of local information to this blog 

showing my creative community sharing and facilitation as an artist and wellbeing facilitator based in North Clare, near Ennistymon. Miamrua is my instagram and am Maria Kerin on Facebook.

For the past few years ecology and movement research practice with Dr Rachel Sweeney, Movement, Mind & Ecology MA course lead, Schumacher College, Dartington Hall, Devon, UK

 see www.thefloatingvillage.net

Thank you.