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To all my relations
When I design a garden creating relations is the way and the goal combined. When I work with people I adhere to the same credo. Especially in the beginning of a group process it demands active facilitation so that we start to grow a collective responsibility for it.
With this in mind I recently started of a co-creation session with a diverse group of people, ranging from schoolkids to public servants. I wanted for everyone to feel connected and to be invited to contribute, regardless of experience or job title. Instead of the usual round of introductions I took a ball of string. I have done this exercise mapping relations in nature, and I thought it might work just as well for human relations. I then invited everyone to pass the rope to someone they knew and introduce each other.
Although it was our first time together, a web of relations started to emerge. As the circle progressed, more and more people mentioned they had gotten to know each other through the garden we are only beginning to create. After that I invited everyone to consider all their relations beyond our group and all the people that could help us in the project and imagine them there.
Not only did this exercise connect us with each other but also to the place we were standing. The garden was no longer something passive, but something that was actively building new relations among people. The…
