Roisin Markham

This week started in the garden, drinking fresh mint tea.

It ended sitting on a train heading home after the National March for Palestine,

I sang for most of the march. Walking with Singing for Change Ireland a new group forming, We walked towards the back near Pals for Palestine. I’ll include links in the resources.

These are my studio notes from the last week, I write them, I don’t use AI. The point is to think about the week, do some processing and share a bit of all of that.

How was your week?

If you are a regular reader, welcome back, if you are new here welcome! Feel free to ask questions, read across my other week notes. Share them if you like them or find them interesting.

If you take anything from the notes please reference me and include a link to the notes, there is a politics of referencing and good etiquette I’d value.

Reflection

This week I found myself asking – what is it my future self will thank me for, a direct impact from the co-design work.

I was thinking about doing a MA, I mentioned it briefly a couple of weeks ago but not in much detail. I was serious thinking about applying, had meet with the university and had a 1:1 conversation. It was embracing archipelago thinking, I’ve stopped thinking about it.

I got stuck in the can I give myself the indulgence of spending a year in conversation with an island of the coast of an island off the continent of Europe.

After a good conversation with my long suffering husband and serval other people who challenged why I wanted to do an MA including someone who knew the course & me and was like ‘really?’

What I think I need is time on an island to give form to these questions and learnings I’ve been holding. Or not, I live on an island. I’m here already. I speak and work to lots of regenerative systems design.

I spent some of the earlier week synthesising, processing, composting. I was trying to jump into that for the co-design learning week but it needed more time. I fleshed out a whiteboard space that everyone could use and then discovered they could not access it, I changed my membership paying more to include them as guests. The team could still not access it, super frustrating.

Later in the week I facilitated session with the 4 different teams that participated in the co-design learning workshops in Dublin – we began with a one word check in and some reflections.

This is some of what was said

MOTIVATED

INSPIRED

Mind BENDiNG

Making the INVISIBLE VISIBLE

FEELS LIKE REAL INNOVATION

POTENTIALLY TRANSFORMATIVE & TRANSLATABLE

A different way

Amazing eh!

I’ve had so much freedom to create a learning exploration journey in co-design using active learning through doing, through embodiment. Doing differently by actually being in action rather than talking about it. It just works and the impact for this project and this community could be significant. We are talking about health, wellbeing, agency and capacity building.

During the catchup meeting I shared some synthesis, sense checked two big stories and invitations we are working towards.

I am in my element. Design leadership, education, co-design, relationship building and networking, exploration, challenging, broadening thinking, quick testing of ideas. I went to meet some of the community Friday, building relationships further, testing the invitation and inviting people to join as co-designers. Can’t wait for the last week in May where we have a 4 day session. This time beginning with establishing a co-design team, kicking off on the Monday with roles, setting our agenda and working contract.

I now have a Co-design Fundamentals which I can offer to other organisations.

It was great to get good feedback on the report and policy considerations I wrote for DTNI post the facilitation and conference in February, see Studio Notes Week 9. More information on that to follow if it is submitted to the new Economic Vision group in Northern Ireland.

Insight

In the present moment being here is enough. Sometimes that’s all we have.

Because of my combined professional experiences in design, facilitation, design thinking, technology, L&D, social research, community education, community development, experiential learning and community arts I offer a very distinctive perspective combined uniquely. I sometimes forget all that.

I’d intended to compost the Co-Design D8 work, but what was still lingering was the active hope retreat in Kerry. So I had attend to working with composting that before I could move to other work. It had needed time. In the same way the Co-Design work needs time.

For my personal processing and composting I combined ideas from Hospicing Modernity and Active Hope:

• What lingered – noticing a tension, a conversation, a joy, a pattern? name 3 threads – observing.
• Choosing one of the threads that feels loud, heavy, sticky… What is this thread asking of me? sensing into an embodied response.
• Where else do you notice or meet this – in me, others, in the world? What does this thread belong to?
• Holding complexity with care – how can I honor the aliveness of this experience without fixing it? Responding creatively beyond the typical.
• Opening to surprise, breathing into the space created asking what wants to come through me now, that wasn’t available before?

I will offer this as a workshop and 1:1 session.

So I continue to learn, refine and build forward the work on co-design for clients and communities.

Maguire’s exhibition in the Hugh Lane recommended to me by my good friend Clare Tait, a former chocolatier of Chocolate Claire had recommended I go. It was a significant exhibition to go to just before I took to the streets marching for human rights of Palestinians in occupied territories.

I stood reading the UN human rights, it was so moving. Floor to celling in Irish and English. As I read each one I thought Isreal is in breach of this one, and this one, and this one. It’s in breach of every single one. Palestine was so present, the children, the devastation. Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip the increasing encroaching on occupied West Bank. The sheer horror that been the rolling genocide of Palestinians.

Why are there no sanctions? Why is the UN so ineffective in stopping this brutal targeting of a people and the destruction of their lives, buildings, cities, trees, farms, water… lives? So I started searching for articles or reasons. Why has the Irish government not issued the Occupied Territories Bill?

Follow the money, RTE reported on Ireland’s increased dual purpose exports to Isreal in February this year.

Ireland exported €97m worth of dual-use products to Israel

I sat with why I am so upset about the open genocide and it boils down to this:

the erasure of safety for a person to be protected by the UN charter of human rights.

In this new era of impunity for open genocide we’re living through the breakdown of measures put in place post World War II so massacre on a grand scale would never happen again.

The latest death toll stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1,139 people killed in Israel since October 7, 2023.

Aljazeera.com

That is the equivalent death of everyone living in County Carlow (61,968 pop. Census 2022).

Those instruments are broken, not working, but what does that mean for global human rights? Where is the global leadership and political will to stop Isreal and the brutality against a population devastated by war, conflict and terror.

It’s a lot.

Write to your local political representative and ask them why are your government not taking action to protect human rights, demand answers.

Back on a bike, thought I’d explore if I’ll use a push bike before I’d invest in an e-bike. Cycled down for a swim twice in the last week. This is a significant milestone for me, longer story. But just know this was a champagne milestone, the result of much physio and gym training.

A question for you

Do you have a reflection process for your work?

Resources

Singing for Change Ireland, an across the island initiative being led by Rachel Dempsey.

European Society for Ecological Economics, ESEE interactive map aims to increase the visibility of the growing number of ecological economics research hubs and degree programmes in Europe. It currently includes 110+ diverse initiatives spanning 26 countries, sourced collaboratively by ESEE’s Board and Country Contact Network, with valuable contributions from individual ESEE members.

A view to next week

Business development continues, some 1:1 coaching and client project work moves along. I’ll be prepping for 4 days of Dublin Co-Design work and then a trip to the UK for a weekend training with Rob Hopkins on How to fall in love with the Future.

Have a good week, remember none of us are free until we are all free.