Celebrating the turning of the 2nd Millennium, Helena collected cuttings about animals from newspapers with our two younger, primary age children and we noticed that they were all in trouble in some way. After 2000 Helena continued to collect, broadening from biodiversity loss into cuttings around climate change, social justice and astronomy, filling the drawers in the sitting room, the floor space in the study and our hearts.
The cuttings became a central part of Helena’s research studies. Through her PhD Helena realised that this was an inquiry in its own right and set out to explore, accepting it was only possible to work with nine cuttings, not the hundreds and now thousands collected. The practice of Gaia’s Graveyards – bearing witness as first person inquiry is explored within the Action Research Journal and is available here: https://journals-sagepub-com.mmu.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1177/1476750318818881
Or the article can be accessed through Research Gate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330296710_Gaia’s_Graveyards_-_Bearing_witness_as_first_person_inquiry
Helena continues to collect these cuttings as her own daily practice of bearing witness.
Six cycles of action and reflection
First – telling the story of the creation of Gaia’s Graveyards
Second – an invitation to explore Gaia’s Graveyards: six cuttings
Third – exploring the Graveyards as bearing witness and mourning the death of species
Fourth – locating the Graveyards within the wider cosmos
Fifth – Gaia’s maternity wards
Sixth – outwards into the world