Emilie O’brien is an artist-researcher and professional art conservator, as well as a mother, climate activist and student of Western herbalism. Currently she is completing her MA as an independent scholar in the INDI program at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research emerges from a deep curiosity about what it means to be human in our bodies, and how we connect and heal from this place. Prioritizing this alongside the unfolding climate crisis, she asks: How does the intelligence of our bodies intersect with planetary wellness? Based in somatic studies, her research lives within the praxis of healing justice, with a focus on somatic justice as social justice as planetary justice. She engages research-creation methods to investigate healing modalities and strategies where the body’s intelligence is emphasized, and where the concept of interconnection (within the body and self; with other living beings; with land; ancestors; Creator/Divine) is brought to the fore and actualized.
What The Body Knows: The deep medicine of becoming well – Workshop with Emilie O’Brien (Thursday, October 17, 10.15 – 11.30)
Through the concept of deep medicine and a focus on the body, her workshop draws attention to root causes behind the climate crisis, and asks attendees to consider the following: What is embodiment? And, how does embodiment relate to planetary wellness? She will introduce examples from my creative practices of bilateral drawing, embroidery, ritual and bio-regional plant medicine, and touch on two key themes from her research – that of Stacey Langwick’s Politics of Habitability, on community, plants and healing in a toxic world, and the concept of connecting with grief toward healing and activism in deep-ecologist Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects. Conference attendees are invited to participate in guided bilateral drawing – a somatic-based art therapy technique that uses both hands simultaneously to calm the nervous system and shift from analytical thinking to an intuitive-feeling state. Materials will be provided!