PAST EVENT: This was part of the EAF25 programme.

How can those that have been scattered (diaspora) nourish themselves? How does the natural environment affect what bodies carry?

Led by creative and community project Decolonising the Outdoors, this workshop brought together those previously separated (sunago) to explore ways to heal through food, community and the outdoors. To offer a level of collective care and safer space that is not widely available, the workshop was led for BPOC* only (Black people and People of Colour) with creative exercises, reflections and discussion

Decolonising The Outdoors works to dismantle narratives of dominating land and extracting nature. Their events focus on rebuilding relationships with our natural environment, and imagining anti-imperial and anti-capitalist futures. Decolonising The Outdoors is run by Aileen Angsutorn Lees, a queer Thai-British multidisciplinary artist and facilitator based in Perthshire.

The workshop formed part of EAF25’s programme inspired by the themes of Más Arte Más Acción’s Around a Tree installation. The permanent roundtable commission at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh encourages communal conversation around the climate crisis and reconnection to the natural world.

Related Programme

See more related events and exhibitions:
→ Más Arte Más Acción: Around a Tree at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, New Town + North
→ UÝRA: Espiral da Morte at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, New Town + North

*BPOC stands for ‘Black people and People of Colour’ and is a self-identifying term. While the term BPOC is used here, there are limitations with this terminology. These sessions aim to address and overcome systemic barriers that people face directly or indirectly based on their ethnic or national identities, race or perceived racial identities, or the colour of their skin as per the Equality Act 2010. This includes people who identify as Black, brown, people of colour, Global Majority, mixed-race, multiple heritage and/or are from the Global South, and/or are East and Southeast Asian, West Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Arab, African, African-Caribbean, Caribbean, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, or First Nations, and diasporas.