Oika is about the realignment of culture and nature through human thought and action. We are a community of scientists, artists, storytellers and cultural creatives dedicated to manifesting ecological intelligence through our work.
A call for art to change the climate of our minds
Any sober analysis of our collective situation reveals systemic dysfunction across personal, social and ecological scales. Oika believes these patterns of self-injury originate from an acquired flaw in thinking that separate humans from nature. This same thinking disconnects us from each other and our natural selves. The accumulating impact of deeply-embedded, cognitive fictions have brought us to our current, shared moment of crisis and uncertainty. The only certainty now is that we are all in this together.
To restore a state of human and planetary flourishing, we need to rediscover what it means to be human and remember what it feels like to be Earthlings. This job can only be accomplished by integrating the two great hallmarks of human endeavor; science and art.
A case for a new paradigm of art and science.
We need science to discover and decipher nature and art to help us heal and feel the nature within us. Oika has pioneered a unique model for integrating science and the arts. Our approach goes beyond the superficial model wherein scientists employ artists to represent their data and more deeply than just communicating the value of science in society.
Oika breaks these transactional models and calls equally on science and art to fulfill a much larger role in shaping society by reshaping human self-perception. The essential element of this approach is a call for art to reveal the epic and intimate wonders of a scientific reality that connects humanity to nature. We tell the natural history of art through science, artistic storytelling and the lived-experience of being an Earthling.
Humans have grown homesick. Oika is a set of ecological principles and practices that can help heal the world by reminding us of how good it feels to simply be earthlings.
Social and economic crisis are two sides of the same ecological coin. Humans are injuring the planet and each other needlessly. Culture created this mess and must help clean it up. Oika is an invitation to create art that heals with greater capacity than the injury we cause.
We believe cultural leadership must be ecological leadership. Our science-based, arts-driven programs help early-career optimists and the mid-career disillusioned open co-creative relationships with nature to generate new ecological prosperity.
The Way of Oika is Storytelling
The stories of contemporary culture tend to isolate us from the experience of nature and the feeling of being natural. It’s no wonder we've lost wonder.
The story Oika tells is mythical, magical, and rigorously scientific. It is a personal story of coalescence, arising through intellect and imagination.
The Story of OIka
The story of Oika begins as a fish story when a bluefin tuna somehow communicates a different path in life for a fisherman. The experience triggers an epiphany and a lifelong global quest to understand how such communication happens. The story of Oika today is what the fisherman discovered.