Into the Artmosphere 2020

We live in a creative matrix of nature’s communication. Artists have always known this intuitively. The science of ecology now confirms it.        - Dr. Rich Blundell

Ecological intelligence refers to the field of communication generated by nature that also infuses human consciousness. Ecological Intelligence for Artists is Oika’s introductory course for artists, storytellers and media-makers. 

This course is designed to give artists and cultural creatives access to deep ecological insights that they may not have gotten through formal art education and training. You will learn how ecological systems work and see how nature can amplify your creativity and infuse your practice. You will also gain new language, concepts and the confidence to talk about your work in a way that matters in the Anthropocene.

This course is less about aesthetics or artistic skill and more about developing your existing powers of attunement in conversation with nature. .Oika elevates the value of art by aligning it with the power and abundance of nature. Our artists are in deep communion with nature and manifest ecological intelligence in their creations. 

How it works:

For more information reach out to Oika using the form below.

I listen deeply to nature. and this I know, as a scientist, ecological intelligence is an existential requirement for the future flourishing of humanity as we enter the Anthropocene. In other words, if the Anthropocene is the Earth's response to humans, Oika is the humane response to the Anthropocene.

Oika, and the curriculum of Cosmosis, is a conceptual and phenomenological framework that makes what artists do matter. But not merely matter. Oika casts the artistic community into the profoundly important role of modern shamanism with the task to heal by realigning culture and nature. 

You can think of Cosmosis as a container for all of the disciplines that science investigates and art expresses.  Cosmosis connects them all and gives them a higher-order purpose. Using the scientific history of the universe as an overarching narrative, the principles and practices of OIka make a forgotten ecological joy of the world palpable.  Through intimate personal experiences, Oika reconnects people to place, nature and each other.  Oika is about making science more entangling and art more empowering. 

Oika is more than an idea, or a method for doing art. It is an experience and a relinquished human birthright. But it is, at the end of the day, an idea, a big idea that embeds a paradigm shift. So, as I often forget, it is very difficult for people to see and appreciate what it means. Yes, even creative thinkers, conceptual artists and very often scientists find what I teach "unclear". That's a common side-effect of disciplinariity and part of the problem that created the mess of the Anthropocene in the first place. This is what art should be working to ameliorate.

Artists, you still hold the keys to the future. Please do something ecologically beautiful and meaningful!