END OF RESIDENCY WEBZINE

Rachel Marsden

I'm based in Berlin, Germany. I work as an art therapist and coach/counsellor to creative people and am host to an international community of artists who co-work together.

From May 1st, I will be establishing a creativity incubator and art therapy studio in Berlin which I aim to make a base for community art projects that reduce social isolation and increase people's sense of their own creative capacity. As a first step, I am especially interested in doing something to re-enliven the neighbourhood my studio is situated within. I also hope to use the input and exchange from this residency to further activate the artist community I facilitate.

- a moment of realisation, change and/or disruption
Many moments expanded my thinking regarding collective imaginaries, working within groups and imaginary collective possibilities.

The Israel/Palestine conflict escalating while we were in Biella had me thinking about art’s possibilities for mediation.

- a moment of connection

Sharing a meal at a restaurant in Italy with new residency friends after 6 months of lockdown in Berlin. Making eye-contact instead of seeing people through a screen.


- a question you are left with

How can embeddedness, community building, imagination and artistic practices help us shift as rapidly as possible out of the age of the anthropocene and into a symbiocene? How can the insight generation practices I use and want to develop contribute to this?

- something you will carry forward

I will carry many things forward, such as the term ‚care practices‘ and considerations of care practices on the individual level, through local community, to global, to encompassing non-human beings.