Roisin Markham

These notes are written and edited by me. They are primarily about work, paid and unpaid, what I am thinking and researching. Where my attention is.

I broadly structure them as

• reflection
• insights
• a question for you
• resources

I’m not overly attached or loving this framing but going to stay with it for a while longer as a discipline.

I do not use AI to write, polish or edit these studio notes as I believe there is lost value in having an automated speeding up or extraction of where I work, learn, play and live. The value of my process; the slowing down, pausing to reflect, the mulling over, the synthesis, defining refining upending what’s important.

Yes I could hand that over to AI or another person but what would be the point then? I mean if you think there is one please tell me. I’m always open to feedback back and learning.

I’m actively being regenerative, this is part of my ecology of practices.

Reflection

I’m still waiting for that co-design work to begin. It’s kicking my ass financially. While I wait for it to start and look forward to developing and delivering co-design training, research and initiation in a community and with a corporate team.i await, no longer holding my breath I’d be dead already!

Holding it more lightly.

Last week I delivered corporate training on GHG communication, empowerment and dissemination with an award wining programme. I had designed a dynamic group toolkit that worked really well in room with 40 or so people. Really enjoying that work with the client and their education partner who I partner with to lead that programme.

There were also some good business development conversations, new booked work and some failed attempts to bring a small group together.

Insights

Go where the energy is, that is the mantra I follow. Kate Raworth talks about it often. If I’m having to overtly try & there is no energy there. I stop and go to where there is energy.

There is plenty of work to do with no payment. I am focused on paid work currently. I’ve enough voluntary work in hand.

I have capacity for some new project work, contact me if you have a project in mind.

Shifting language – sufficiency

In the last 6 months I notice language shifting in the climate and NetZero space. Transformations live and die on shared understanding of language. We have already seen the dismantling and shadow effects of green washing and for most embed in the industry the word sustainability has been diluted, its meaning no longer clear.

In this time where all our actions count for earth stewardship and future generations we are failing. The gap between our emissions commitments in 2030 and delivering on the UN Sustainability Development Goals is considerable.

“We can’t ask people to live worse lives” Irish Policy Advisor June 2024

I was aghast at the idea that high to middle income earners in Ireland would be so comfortable with their own lot they would n’t see how many people already live with less. We don’t have to look very far from where any of us live in Ireland to find the housing, healthcare, loneliness or biodiversity crisis. On our screens we see the impacts of war and genocide happening across 70 regions, Gaza, Congo, Ukraine. It’s all in plain sight.

I wonder is that what happens as a Republic matures? Society shifts to having more and certain classes/groupings get more comfortable. With their own security they become complacent about social justice. It seems like that.

Our recent elections hold this to be true, middle and upper income Ireland want business as usual and have forgotten how to care deeply about the values of our nation.

When we stop caring we landslide into a complicity of letting go of agency, democracy and a good life for all.

‘The I’m alright Jack’ weakens our society.

This generation in their 20’s that my sons belong to it does not seem like they will have the same opportunities as I did. Are things really better for them? Perhaps the starting point of access to housing and ownership is really the start of an honest conversation about 21st Century values in Ireland, about the rights of everyone who lives in Ireland to a safe & warm home. In a country with a housing crisis and homelessness we have empty homes, unused derelict buildings, seasonal and second homes, hollowed out towns and cities. How honest are we being about the real rules and economy we live, the gaps in our society? The social short fall, the hole in the middle of the doughnut that people fall through. I refer to the social foundation in doughnut economics.

Are we still telling ourselves society will always get better? This time that we are in challenges that.

In our high energy intensive society it cannot get better. The more energy we make the more we consume. It seems we can’t help ourselves.

On Wednesday I read a piece by Michael Harris on Baffler.com, What’s the matter with Abundance? The last thing society needs is more stuff? a review of the book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Simon & Schuster, 304 pages. 2025. His article triggered this reflection across my own work on language and what we mean or the meaning making of words. Words after all shape our culture. The authors use plenty of framing that I am familiar with but it’s not binary between abundance and scarcity.

The new term is sufficiency.

The issue with books is by the time they go to print we have already moved on.

The Ireland that I grew up in having enough was what we were striving for, after joining the EU and with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) it seems we moved into having plenty. Despite shifts in our culture of have and have nots with the journey through boom and bust of the Celtic Tiger era we are still hunting more. Raised on a diet of Americana and every colonisers cannon, all others were better, knew better and their cult of capitalism consumed, internalised. We bought it all.

The deep wound of nothing ever being enough has brought us great successes. But at what cost?

In a country considered to be one of the wealthiest in Europe why have we such social and ecological deficit?

As a nation we are constantly focusing on more and more, growth in our economy. It is not always better.

The narrative of plenty is not wrong, but it does need a remake with a sufficiency framing. Where those that have plenty, share plenty. In our Irish society the imbalance of wealth and poverty grows.

When I talk about new social imaginaries I want to unleash our creativity to bring forward tangible futures of a world we want to live in…

But when we are filled with stories, cult-ure, destruction and horror of genocide and war, fear, news of corruption and dismantling of democracy and human rights, degradation and loss of the earth and all life – how do we imagine a future worth living into?

We need a shape shift, honest spaces, conversations. We need to start simply and build from there, connect through value.

We need new stories, new lighthouses, new definitions and ideas of what a life within planetary boundaries and where globally all beings have a right to life and to live.

Gaza right now. Fully in the hole of the doughnut, they do not seem to have a right to life or to live. How has the global governance not been able to manage a cessation of violence towards Palestine? We are indeed in a breakdown of systems.

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A question for you

This week I was asked Why do I create? And why do I create with nature? So I wondered what you might respond to this question…

Resources

One of the joys this week was this digital deep dive into the ocean

Last week was also Paddy’s day, I celebrated by going out to the garden. I thought this was a good read from Linda Kennedy.

This looks like a great event in Kilkenny 26 March with John Gibbons.

Till next week.