The word Kupega in the Tuvaluan Language can refer to a Body of Knowledge. I don’t write books (yet?) I collect and assemble bodies of knowledge. I share these bodies of knowledge through story, theory, images, weavings, frameworks, reflections and facilitating collective re-membering of oral cultural practices.
Kupega - A Body of Knowledge
Fieldwork: Collective Recovery from Colonial Fragmentation Disorder
Fieldwork was first launched in 2024 and is the culminations of two decades worth of research, life experience, creative practice and close collaboration with mentors, family, children, waterways, skies, soil and birds.
Fieldwork is an 8 week journey introducing people to the basic concepts of narrative technologies and other Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. Fieldwork brings individual wellbeing and collective liberation into one framework, supporting people to recognise the ways that dominant systems function internally, relationally and institutionally.
Fieldwork is for single mums with bubs on their hips. for teachers, therapists and care workers, elders with a tech support grandchild on their lap, academics, researchers, arts workers, organisational leaders, community organisers, artists and of course, Fieldwork is for our precious future of youth.
Weedwork: Land, Love & Leadership
Organisational leadership, parenting, supervision, aunty-ing / uncling, art making, mentoring, neighboring, story telling - diverse forms of leadership are rarely recognised as the one practice.
Leadership, facilitation, relational design , cultural care work - these responsibilities require a deep commitment to self knoweldge, self honestly, criticality, humility, patience, grace - the dignifying processes that are so often unrewarded within individualistic social structures.
In nature there are many examples of plants classified as ‘weeds’, contributing to the restoration of ecosystems, often sacrificially. Weeds can soften the ground, fix nutrients, stabilise soil, provide protection and clear the way for more vulnerable species to establish themselves. Leaders committed to building a safe world are required to make the same kinds of invisible sacrifices.
Weedwork is a groupwork cycle through four weeks, where participants can explore the rigour, devotion and grit of liberatory leadership - from any place one leads and loves - as well as the cost, the sacrifice, the misinterpretation, the cultural and relational risks, the jitters, the burn out and the strategy required to stay steady and strong.