Carbon, Creativity and Collapse is a workshop exploring ecological thinking, complex climate change science, and contemporary art processes. Bringing together the creative practices of Al Stark and Aviva Reed, who make up Esk Studio, this workshop offers participants an interdisciplinary space to engage with the intellectual and emotional dimensions of living in a time of environmental uncertainty. Through combining philosophy, climate change science, locally grounded regenerative practices, and visual arts-based approaches, participants explore meaningful ways to engage and process complex environmental issues in the face of impending changing climates and ecological collapses.
Tickets: $15, bookings essential. Book now.
This workshop will be held at regional galleries across the Northern Rivers and will be followed up with an online gathering, whereby participants across the lands can develop a community of practice furthering themes and philosophies generated through these workshops. The online gathering will take place on Thursday, 17 September.
Esk Studio is a multidisciplinary, artist-run collective based on Yaegl Country in northern New South Wales. Directed by artists Aviva Reed and Al Stark, Esk Studio operates at the intersection of art, ecology, and community, creating works that explore the interconnectedness of life through ritual, performance, visual storytelling, and environmental practice. Esk Studio functions as both a creative hub and a site for creative experimentation. Its projects blur boundaries between gallery and community encounter, using art as a means to reimagine ecological relationships and foster collective responsibility for the living world. Guided by the belief that art can be ritual, research, and a way of living, Esk Studio’s practice is rooted in listening to land, to story, and to each other.
Al Stark is an Australian multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, installation, sculpture, tattoo, and large-scale mural work. Emerging from Melbourne’s street-art scene in the late 1990s, Stark has evolved a distinctive visual language marked by vivid colour, rhythmic patterning, and a symbolic fusion of the sacred and profane. Now based in northern New South Wales. Stark has undertaken residencies at the Watermill Centre (New York) and exhibited in Lyon (France), New York City, and at the National Gallery of Australia. Al Stark’s practice extends across public and private commissions, including large-scale murals, interior designs, and sculptural installations for cultural and commercial spaces.
Aviva Reed is a transdisciplinary visual ecologist whose practice bridges art, science, and storytelling to explore the deep interconnections of life. Aviva develops collaborative works that blend visual art, performance, sound, and ritual. Aviva is also an illustrator and co-creator of the Small Friends Books series, which merges scientific research with vivid visual narratives to reveal symbiotic relationships between species, bringing microbiology and ecology to life for readers of all ages, inspiring curiosity and empathy for the unseen world. With a Bachelor of Science (University of Tasmania, 2006) and a Master of Environment (University of Melbourne, 2015), Aviva recently completed a doctorate at La Trobe University in Creative Arts and Literature, where her research investigated “thinking with carbon” and creative methods for reframing ecology and she now presents performance lectures that reframe carbon narratives.
These workshops were made possible through funding from the Ingrained Foundation - Climate Change Grant program.
This project is supported by Ingrained Foundation, Vickie Brook and Arts Northern Rivers.
