What might collective liberatory practice look like in small community?
(virtual and in-person)
ONGOING…
How might we cultivate liberatory connections where we are?
Seeding Relationship Series
How it Started
On their TikTok, Kristianna often says, “Relationship is the most abundant resource on the planet.” This statement has inspired awe, rage, joy, and, most of all, disappointment. It became clear that stepping into relationship with others is not a learned skill for most. So, this series on Kristianna’s Patreon was born.
THE INTention
To provide people with stepping stones of practice to step into more deep and liberatory relationship with themselves, their neighbors, their community, and their purpose at large.
A two weeks of guidance and practice for visionaries and space holders.
The guiding question is, "How might I connect to my own ease and to our shared abundance?"
Holding the Holders
How it Started
Holding the Holders was born out of the lack of spaces to support space holders. Much of Kristianna’s work is Holding Space for folks who rarely have time or intention to hold space for themselves.
THE INTention
Part self directed tasks and part community circle, Holding the Holders is a reoccurring program for space holders to step into deeper alignment with themselves and the spaces they hold.
THE Spin off
Holding the Holders has also given birth to Be Held Coffee. A reoccurring coffee hour for previous cohort of Holding the Holders, as well as a wider range of space holders who need a Coffee Break with other folks of similar work and values.
Our Garden
HOW IT STARTED
Kristianna purchased a home with their family. Their husband and they decided to turn their entire front yard into a garden and be in praxis with their values of abundance and community.
THE INTENTION
Our Garden is a place to reimagine what it is to connect, learn, and grow together. The garden is specifically placed in full view of passerbys as to share the visual beauty with the neighborhood as a whole. It is the hope of Kristianna’s family that they can encourage those around them to participate in the abundance of their garden, and what is possible when we co-create spaces of community care.
TRANSMUTED WORK
Our Garden is born out of the learning from Policy Through Play. That in order to embrace a more liberatory collective practice, we need to be in deep relationship with those around us- not surface level political alignment.
EMERGENT…
Policy Through Play
How it started:
Kristianna was one of 24 creatives chosen as a 2017-2018 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow, where she began development of an arts integrated approach for community members that utilizes theatre techniques at every stage of policy planning. This fellowship was the birth of Policy Through Play.
Kristianna stepped away from the project to focus on the birth of her first child and the beautiful chaos parenthood brings.
A toddler and three years of learning later she revived the experiment!
The Intention
That this experiment can work in tandem with other efforts to shift local political practice towards liberation. This is not for a political party or specific organizing effort- this is to revise how we as a community understand our problems and actualize new ways of being with one another.
Policy Through Play
seeks to:
Decode existing political structures and process
Explore root causes of complex local issues
Breakdown systemic oppression in local political practice
Collect diverse perspectives
Imagine & Implement different ways to turn community vision into political practice
Image Description “Policy Through PLay”
The Pause
Due to the rise of an amazing organizing power within the community, Kristianna has shifted her focus to Our Garden. Policy Through Play will stay online to serve as a reminder of concepts and in case this specific brand of policy explanation becomes needed again!
RETIRED…
Social Distancing Socials
How it started:
2020 Lockdown. Almost immediately all social media channels became organizing spaces, mostly of panic. As a work-mostly-from-home parent of a very young child, Kristianna had been practicing building and seeking community online as a way to connect with other adults. For myself (as much as for others) Kristianna jumped into creating virtual room for joy. Social Distancing Socials started as a group on facebook where the basic rule was “Rest and Play only”. No organizing, no panic.
This group soon began to organize programming for one another while Kristianna ran logistics.
The Intention
As we had to move into physical distance we could create hangout spaces to still be in community with one another. As well as to provide one resting spot on the internet that solely served as a space with no danger.
The Ending:
Kristianna often talks about scaffolding. The temporary structures that exist while more solid things are established.
For March of 2020, 3 months of community organized virtual programming was new and needed! Social Distancing Socials began almost immediately after lockdown was announced. Movement organizers from around the country and many dropins gathered 1-4 times a week to participate in a variety of fun including: Karaoke nights, Community Tarot Reading, Costume Game Shows, Astrology Tea Talks, and more.
When summer came and Kristianna, began to take more rest, more organizations and collectives began to define what their online approaches would be and Social Distancing Socials transitioned from an event-based group to a bulletin board and finally, with nervous systems calmed, archived.