Its been a while since I posted here as I've been using my Eco-community-journey blog. You can find out about this project and journey of mine by following this link: http://letscreate.sineadcullen.com/ I started out in October 2016 and at the moment I'm in the south of Spain in a beautiful community called Los Portales, which is my seventh eco-community so far. My plan is to continue exploring these amazing communities and sharing my experience of them in the hope of inspiring small (or large) changes in peoples lives that create better ways of living. My next steps include travelling to Angsbacka in Sweden: a community which runs many inspiring workshops and courses and for the summer runs back to back inspiring festivals. I will be volunteering there at a number of festivals including GEN Europe's (the Global Eco-village Network of Europe's) annual gathering which is what drew me to this community in the first place,  and I will be working on the design of some new buildings (which I'm very excited about!). After my time in Sweden I have the opportunity to travel to Colombia for 4-6 months to visit communities there and to work with a wonderful architect there learning to build with bamboo and working on the re-construction of some communities in Ecuador that were badly damaged in recent earthquakes. This whole project is such a heart calling for me and the work in Colombia is so aligned with the work I know I am here in this life to offer. For this project of exploring eco-communities I had the idea to fund it in a few creative ways: by selling pieces of my art and by gathering support from the internet community via crowd funding. I am still raising funds for these next steps and am making a call out for contributions for my crowd-funding which is almost two thirds of the way to completion or to those who would like to purchase some of my work. You can donate to my crowd-funding campaign here: https://www.gofundme.com/LetsCreate and you can look at the work I have for sale here: http://www.sineadcullen.com/index.php/for-sale/ I hope you can join me through making a donation, by purchasing some lovely prints or paintings and  by following me on my blog. Thank you for reading.

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The image below is of a painting made during my journey while I was in Eco-Dharma: a gorgeous Buddhist community in the Catalan Pyrenees recently sold piece that will soon be winging its way to Germany!

Movement Medicine Classes

Friday Dec 9^th and 16^th drop-in Movement Medicine classes exploring the theme of connection, to self, other, community and environment.

7:30pm-9:30pm Newbold house, 111 St Leonards Road Forres,  IV36 2RE, Scotland.

Human communities have always come together with their own beats and rhythms to dance, sing and tell stories, celebrating life and calling in dreams for their future generations. Movement Medicine is another way to do this; it is a form of conscious dance that allows us to re-connect with ourselves, and our unique creativity, and to explore life around us as a co-creator. These classes are open to anyone with a curiosity to dance and explore in a safe and fun environment. Sinéad is a Movement Medicine Teacher, an artist and an environmental architect. Her work focuses on what it is that connects us with our creative potential, with one another and with our planet. Her classes and workshops she explores aspects of the creative process; allowing movement to be a catalyst for greater awareness of, and greater access to, your unique creative expression. “Dance connects us – with our bodies, with our souls, with each other, with the space within and around us and with the spirit of life. It gives us breathing space away from the noise of our busyness. In that space we come into deeper alignment with ourselves and our own intuitive knowledge….Once we enter the flow of our movement we learn to trust the natural creativity of the life force inside us.” Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan The School of Movement Medicine This work counts as prerequisites for the Apprenticeship Programme and Professional Training with The School of Movement Medicine. For information you can contact Sinéad by email on sinead.a.cullen@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/connectcreateinspirestransform/    

From the beginning of October 2016 I have started a year long journey of visiting and learning form eco-communities. This journey was inspired by recent time spent over the summer in Irelands first Eco-village in Cloughjordan and in the UK's oldest Eco-village in the Findhorn Foundation, Scotland. In both communities I recognised them as places where I could offer my skills as an artist, architect and teacher in ways that I felt were more like co-creation; ways that felt deeply rewarding and were closer to the sense of truly giving and receiving of gifts and learning that were mutually beneficial. I am curious about the positive impacts we can have in our lives and in the world around us when we create and work together. So I am dedicating this year to offering and learning form eco-communities and sharing my experiences along the way in the hope that they will inspire positive eco-living opportunities in your life too. You can find out more about my journey and support me from my GoFundMe site: https://www.gofundme.com/LetsCreate and you can read about my experiences as I travel from my new blog: http://letscreate.sineadcullen.com/

It was great to see my work up on the walls in The Niland Gallery in Galway amongst the work of Ben Gabriel, Colin Grehan, Dunleavy Bespoke, Joe Hogan, Patricia Murphy, Raymond Kingham, Shane Holland, Shona Slemon, Stephen O'Briain, and Stephen Quinn.  

Some images of explorations inspired by time in the Burren: how the Irish relate to our land. Some of this work will feature in an upcoming publication by Benetton on contemporary Irish art.

In early 2014, on a journey with the Pachamama Alliance, I spent a few weeks with the Achuar and Sapára tribes in the rainforests of Ecuador. My time there was a humbling opportunity to get an insight into a way of life that is deeply respectful of the individual within community, and within a world view that honours the interconnection of all life. Through stories, meals and ceremony we shared very different perspectives of the same world. I learned that their sense identity is intrinsically linked to the forest that they live with: there is no place where the forest ends and they begin; they are the very roots, branches and leaves of its over all alive-ness. Raíces Del Mundo means roots of the world and came from a sketch I made there, feeling a sense of the lightness, simplicity and freedom in connection, acknowledging that our actions have a ripple effect on one another and the living system within which we exist. The sense of connection felt dynamic and alive in a way that felt mutual, and liberated me temporarily from the isolation that I clothe myself in, in order to ‘survive’ in our modern world. The painting is part of my project with Jo Cummins​ and Mathias Baumann​. This is a link to the first part of our mini documentary series: Documentary Part 1

In 2013 I met two artists (Jo Cummins: a visual artist and Mathias Baumann​: a musician). At the time we were wondering what visual images sound like and what people see when they hear music.So we got together and decided to try a creative experiment. I created a painting; Raíces del Mundo (the attached image), which was passed on to Mathias, who composed a piece of music based on his interpretation of the painting. The composition, entitled Nucleus was then forwarded to Jo, who has an unusual and beautiful gift known as synesthesia; which means she can see music as she hears it. Not having seen my original painting, Jo painted the colours and patterns that she saw when she listened to Nucleus. The title for her painting 4.09 comes from the moment in the composition when Jo saw the image she painted. We have already completed our creative experiment and recorded it in a short three-part documentary. The first part will be published on Friday, 30th October 2015 here. So watch this space 🙂 #MathiasBaumannMusic #JoCumminsArt