Roisin Markham

Week 44 of 52, seems to have shot by in the blink of an eye. A short week due to bank holiday Monday and the fact I choose to work through last weekend. It was worth it to attend the Feeding Ourselves Symposium in Trinity on Thursday afternoon.

Research, writing, dialogue, interviews, decisions, discourse and dilemmas mixed with brilliant people doing amazing things some farmers some doctors and some just ordinary people Yeah that sums up last week.

Through this weekly practice further exploring my work through a weekly structure of reflection, insights, a question for you, resources and a view to the week ahead. When I write my weekly studio notes I also go back over my photos, notes, saved links morphing into an articulation of my week beyond work.

I don’t use AI to write my studio notes, it would defeat the purpose of practice.

Let’s jump in!

Reflection

The winds arriving have shook most of the leaves from the local trees, the earth in our pocket forest is covered in golden browns and tiny crab apples.

Oak, birch, hazel, ash, crab apple leaves rearrange the grasses blanketing the places where they land. It feels abundant and enriching to be there in silence. A space I am grateful for. As our land turns towards winter, the celtic calendar begins anew.

This week of Samhain, Halloween, where superstitions, myth and traditions become entangled with commercialisation and sugar. A time where the veil between two worlds thin.

I had this oppressive sense of sadness that prevailed this week. It was like a heavy shelf on my shoulders. Its weight on the last day of October felt like being pulled towards the grave. My ancestors arriving in my dreams to stir memories. Compelling me to speak their names, stories and memories of them, wear their jewellery, being present to all of who they were.

As I awoke the 1st day of November the deep grief I was in had lifted. In Ireland it is known as All Saints’ day.

During the week writing and continuing to work on the Social Farming Ireland, Farmers health and wellbeing piece of work – I’m trying not to overwrite it. Also making space for others on the team to complete their input. I found myself needing to give it space.

An interview which felt more like a chat was unnervingly relaxed. I had to remind myself that it was an interview for a contract heavy piece of lifting.

I’ve some work up until the end of November and am aware that hiring, contracts and consultancy work all slows down for December. It does not begin quickly in the new year begins this means I have a closing window to secure work. This has been my experience for the last 10 years on and off. I’m curious to see what will come to fruition and I’m open to opportunities. I just want to diligently apply my skills and do good work.

A meeting about the fifth province was intriguing. A meeting of minds, we came together to talk about the fifth province from different perspectives.

Thursday afternoon and evening I was in TCD at the Feeding Ourselves Symposium, a really excellent event by Talamh Beo, Feasta, Cultivate and a host of other partners.

Interesting to see the 3 horizons framework being used across an event. Davie Philips from Cultivate is positioning this in a lot his work at the moment. As are some of my other associates too.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the event , Mistica. Farmers and local food producers came from the seated participants stood together. Then shared who they were, the land they were on and the produce they had brought that represented their farm. It was a fantastic way to centralise farmers voices.

I also really enjoyed the film, Food is Medicine and the conversation after with Rupa and Ollie.

My notes got several comments.

Curiously one of those comments led to a deeper conversation that connected to my current project work with TCD and previous work when I delivered Step into the Doughnut to TCD leadership team in 2023. That they had participated in.

Insights

I love research. The nerdiness of deep diving on data. The story through what’s said, listening deeply, asking the right questions and questioning the conclusions. Especially when they seem obvious and unearthing what’s behind the words, likert scale and binary responses. How that informs what happens next is distilling clarity and narrative. Mixing my visual communication skills with data to instantly share understanding in a glance.

I also realise how much learning, designing learning and the application of knowledge has been such a theme of my work over my career. Both in informal and formal learning environments. My first step, next step, taking knowledge learned and applied at your desk the following day are very much suited to the current attention deficit environments and fast moving changes.

I want to shape a festival of imagination situated in the 5th Province, Ireland’s mythical realm. I’ve been positioning some of my own creative worth there and playfully exploring what it might look like. I’ve begun to explore it with a few people. But there is not a working team nor a two page outline yet.

The film Farming is Medicine is deeply hopeful and moving. Rupa and her team speak truth to power. It is beautifully shot and if you have a place to share and show it in your community you should. Rupa is such a strong and effective communicator she brings a clear focused lens to the challenges of our own place, of our land. She does not hold back positioning our Gorta Mór and Ireland as the testbed for the British Empires campaign. Challenging our acquiescing of how things are within the shadow of seven generations.

Ollie, Dr. Oliver Moore Researcher at Centre for Co-operative Studies, University College Cork, CODECS and Cultivate holds so much knowledge and insight. Linking Palestine and Ireland today and through the past, through farming and produce. He speaks of Palestine and his recent visits there of the olive harvest and hard cheeses like Ireland once had.

We do indeed still need to heal the land and ourselves.

I’ve been remembering how much I love felt-making. Reminding myself through making that I once made and again make beautiful work. This small piece of felt I finished recently, framing it this week as a gift for a friend.

The piece of handcrafted felt is embellished with different fibres of silk, found fishing plastic, materials and all sorts of other fibres added before I felted this piece. Bringing a rich texture and tonal range to this piece.

This weekend was the months mind of Manchan Mangán and he was being remembered and celebrated at Uisneách. A fitting tribute to Manchan and his life. He instilled a remembering in us as he spoke our language and dreamed it back to us.

A question for you

As the evening close in and we head into winter are there particular hobbies of routines that you change ?

Resources

Colin Sheridan: Ireland is moving so fast, it’s forgotten its people.

“We are a rich country masquerading as a poor one, run by people terrified of annoying people even richer.”

 30×30 Regional Geospatial Analysis, Mapping Results and Dashboard tool launched a conservation dashboard, a strategic initiative designed as a decision-support tool to help Caribbean nations achieve their global goal of protecting 30% of their lands and oceans by 2030.  

A view to the week ahead

Next week, week 45 I’ll be completing the writing and delivering the first draft of the Social Farmers work. It also brings me closer to several facilitation events in the middle of November.

I’ll be reaching out, again, to clients to ensure payments of outstanding invoices. one piece of work I did a year ago and still have not been paid for.

I continue looking to secure work with availability from the 1st of December.

My volunteer commitments need some attention.