Resisting Erasure

Exhibit on view at the GWI Greenhouse (65 St. James Street, Kingston) during weekday business hours and 1:00 – 5:00 pm on second Saturdays (June 11, July 9, August 13, September 10, October 8).

For more information visit Resisting Erasure.

This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson. 

And we want to acknowledge and thank the following sponsors for their support! Upstate Films, Bailey Pottery, Blue-Byrd’s and the Hinds family.

COVID POLICY

  • We are monitoring COVID carefully to make sure our guidelines are keeping everyone safe.
  • We will not be checking vaccination status. 
  • While indoors, we ask that you wear a mask. We want to protect those in the community who might be at-risk or immune-compromised.

Resisting Erasure

Exhibit on view at the GWI Greenhouse (65 St. James Street, Kingston) during weekday business hours and 1:00 – 5:00 pm on second Saturdays (June 11, July 9, August 13, September 10, October 8).

For more information visit Resisting Erasure.

This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson. 

And we want to acknowledge and thank the following sponsors for their support! Upstate Films, Bailey Pottery, Blue-Byrd’s and the Hinds family.

COVID POLICY

  • We are monitoring COVID carefully to make sure our guidelines are keeping everyone safe.
  • We will not be checking vaccination status. 
  • While indoors, we ask that you wear a mask. We want to protect those in the community who might be at-risk or immune-compromised.

Reality / Possibility: Exploring Cognitive Dissonance and Collective Resonance

We invite you to join us IN PERSON to deepen with Just Transition, exploring how dissonance affects us and resonance opens up possibilities.

This workshop is an opportunity for reflective engagement with the ideas of Just Transition.  We are invited to bravely face the discomfort of cognitive dissonance as we recognize misalignment between our actions and our ideals. This honest look increases our awareness of the impacts of living under systems of extraction. We will examine what cognitive dissonance means, how it shows up in our lives, and how it stands in the way of the regenerative world we desire. From a grounded place, the workshop invites us to tap into our own sources of creativity and access more energy to envision shared pathways toward collective action. 

This was an incredibly generative and meaningful workshop. From setting the tone and intentions of our time together, through the embodiment practices, to the opportunities to share in large and small groups, the facilitators held and inspired space for self-connection, community connection and radical imagination. Thank you so much. This workshop felt like a gift. ~Julie S.

During this workshop, you will be invited to explore: 

  • Mindfulness and embodied presence
  • The meaning and symptoms of cognitive dissonance through the Just Transition framework 
  • Noticing and sharing examples of how cognitive dissonance manifests in your life
  • Solo imaginings of possibility, change, alignment, regeneration, resonance
    • Note: Bring any tools that support your creativity! Examples include, but aren’t limited to: pen and paper, musical instruments, pastels, crayons, markers, pipe cleaners, clay, etc.
  • Collective inspiration and ideas for ways forward

The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. ~Audre Lorde 

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. ~Arundhati Roy

Just Transition Primer

Let’s come together IN PERSON to align understanding and action in support of effective, collective responses to the moment we are living in.

Our entrenched political divides are laced with conflict and create a sense of insecurity. No longer in the eye of the pandemic storm, we continue to navigate the uncertainty of a landscape in which soaring housing prices have displaced community members and extreme weather conditions are becoming the norm. How do we make sense of these realities? Where can we glimpse the kind of possibility worth coming together to work for? This workshop provides an opportunity to connect, explore a shared vision of Just Transition, and consider the question: What will it take to build systems centered on care for each other and our shared home? What would it mean for many of us in the Mahicantuck (Hudson) Valley to be focused on social and ecological well-being? 

Join us for our first in-person workshop since 2020!  In community, you will deepen your understanding of the Just Transition framework, principles and practices. Through video, reflection, story sharing, and small group discussion, you will:

  • See people from across the country describing aspects of Just Transition
  • Hear how other participants respond to the framework
  • Connect your own experience to extractive and regenerative economic paradigms
  • Gain a sense of the framework, principles and practices, and where they come from
  • Discuss ways you are drawn toward weaving one or more Just Transition principles and practices into your Good Work

Following this workshop, you are invited to stay from 3-5 pm for a reception to connect with others in the GWI Network, including the opportunity to participate in a “Respond + Create” art-making workshop led by Shirley Parker-Benjamin and Onaje Benjamin, the artists featured in the Resisting Erasure exhibition at the GWI Greenhouse.

GWI Reception & “Respond + Create” Workshop

You are invited to a gathering of folks connected to GWI at the Greenhouse! Whether you are new to GWI, have participated in our online workshops, or have been a part of our community for a long while now, this is an opportunity to meet, greet, and catch up with new and old friends over beverages and noshes.

Many of us feel drawn to focus on the social and ecological well-being of our region, and we believe that informally learning about each other’s Good Work is a big part of moving in that direction! Finding ways of connecting and supporting one another strengthens and grows the impact of our efforts.

We’re delighted to be joined by Shirley Parker-Benjamin and Onaje Benjamin, whose artwork is currently on display at the GWI Greenhouse. At 4 pm, they will guide us through “Respond + Create” – an opportunity to explore our inner artist and express our creativity in a hands-on way! Working with 5 people at a time, Shirley will offer a prompt related to her work, a working surface and tangible materials, and invite us to assemble them into a temporary collage that we can photograph to create an ever expanding gallery of recombinations and interpretations. Onaje will share perspectives that inform his approach to photography and invite us to head outdoors to document one or more scenes from the neighborhood. 

Whether you end up photographing the neighborhood, your collage, or both, you can submit a digital image of what you create for viewing on a display screen if you wish, so we can experience the interplay of our creative expressions. 

Learn more about the Resisting Erasure exhibit that shines a light on Shirley and Onaje’s art.

Radical Mindfulness 1: Dismantling the Oppression Within Us

“We say we want peace in the world, yet we’re not peaceful ourselves.” Shri Shiva Rudra Balayogi.

About this Event

In order to dismantle the systems of oppression that exist in the world we must face the systems of oppression that live within us. This requires heartfulness, mindfulness, and the cultivation of internal peace. Practicing mindfulness supports us in our commitment to drive racial justice and social equity, which is in turn central to Just Transition. 

This workshop starts with your interest in the practice of mindfulness as a path to social change and willingness to take a look at your own capacity for change and peace. Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, without judgement. Woven in with opportunities to practice, we will invite you to explore the meaning of “radical” and “mindfulness” and how they offer a means of recognizing the oppression that lives within, and to see how mindfulness serves as a foundation for those who are working  to change the world. 

Note: Those who attend this workshop will be invited to participate in Radical Mindfulness 2: From Recognition to Repair that is scheduled for later in the year.

Developing a Social Equity Practice

*We have decided to postpone the online version of this retreat in hopes of rescheduling in person later in 2022. If you would like to be notified of the new date, share your contact info by clicking the REGISTER button on the left.*


What does it take to create social equity? This online retreat supports you to become a more fully engaged ally and empowered partner in bringing more justice to this world.

Over the course of this online weekend retreat, you will be invited to grapple with power, privilege and difference, develop a social equity practice you can integrate into your Good Work, and emerge with a clear framework to facilitate individual and organizational awareness of changes needed, ways to work toward them, and next steps to take. The retreat draws on a framework that was offered to two cohorts of GWI Fellows and thousands of others over the past 20 years and honed by a dedicated team of facilitators, including the two who will guide the weekend. The experiences each of us brings to this workshop will be honored as we are invited to share our wisdom and gain from the wisdom of others – wherever we are on our lifelong learning journey towards achieving social equity.

Through readings before the retreat, and presentations, story sharing, discussions, exercises, and videos during it, you will:

  • Develop a deeper understanding of social equity through a personal identity lens
  • Integrate a framework and common language for addressing issues of power, privilege, and difference
  • Examine how institutional and individual practices maintain inequities among people and prevent us from achieving our full potential
  • Build a community of learners committed to identifying and implementing practical strategies for creating collective change

Navigating Conflict: Building Skills for Connection and Resilience (7 of 7)

More than ever, the world needs your aliveness. Spend 7 weeks learning how to relate with skill, compassion and effectiveness.

*Details on fees, sliding scale, and scholarship options can be found below.*

We want to know that our collective efforts to bring about needed changes and work toward Just Transition will be fruitful. When we pour ourselves into the things we care about, we want to know it matters. Especially in times such as these, how exhausting to see our hard work melt away as conflict slows down, stalls out, or, worse yet, dissolves our collaborations.

The legacies of a domination paradigm (capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, to name a few) have left us without the skills we need to lean into interdependence. This makes it incredibly hard to collaborate effectively. It makes it harder still to find generativity in conflict.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Nonviolent or “Compassionate” Communication (NVC) offers us a toolkit to deepen our own embodied self-connection, build our capacity to reach out for support, and relate to ourselves and one another with empathy so that we can show up more fully to our work in the world. And as we begin to unpack the way that domination culture has shaped our very language, we can learn new/old ways of communicating that bring us more deeply into alignment with our values, our purpose, and into connection with one another.

During this 7-week, online course, we will explore practical strategies for undoing domination in ourselves, our communication, our relationships, and our collaborations. Each two-hour session will include interactive content and practices to engage with real-time examples from your life. You will have the opportunity to be paired up with another participant for practice in between sessions. This course will support you to:

  • Identify patterns of domination culture and develop a needs-based orientation that can enable you to undo domination
  • Explore NVC as an embodied mindfulness practice and grow your capacity to tune into body sensations as valuable feedback from your nervous system pointing you towards what matters to you
  • Grow your awareness of and vocabulary for resonant language – including “feelings” and “needs” – and your understanding of the brain science behind why this kind of language works
  • Develop an empathetic listening practice with a buddy between sessions as a foundational tool for resourcing yourself to show up better in conflict and collaboration

Navigating Conflict: Building Skills for Connection and Resilience (6 of 7)

More than ever, the world needs your aliveness. Spend 7 weeks learning how to relate with skill, compassion and effectiveness.

*Details on fees, sliding scale, and scholarship options can be found below.*

We want to know that our collective efforts to bring about needed changes and work toward Just Transition will be fruitful. When we pour ourselves into the things we care about, we want to know it matters. Especially in times such as these, how exhausting to see our hard work melt away as conflict slows down, stalls out, or, worse yet, dissolves our collaborations.

The legacies of a domination paradigm (capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, to name a few) have left us without the skills we need to lean into interdependence. This makes it incredibly hard to collaborate effectively. It makes it harder still to find generativity in conflict.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Nonviolent or “Compassionate” Communication (NVC) offers us a toolkit to deepen our own embodied self-connection, build our capacity to reach out for support, and relate to ourselves and one another with empathy so that we can show up more fully to our work in the world. And as we begin to unpack the way that domination culture has shaped our very language, we can learn new/old ways of communicating that bring us more deeply into alignment with our values, our purpose, and into connection with one another.

During this 7-week, online course, we will explore practical strategies for undoing domination in ourselves, our communication, our relationships, and our collaborations. Each two-hour session will include interactive content and practices to engage with real-time examples from your life. You will have the opportunity to be paired up with another participant for practice in between sessions. This course will support you to:

  • Identify patterns of domination culture and develop a needs-based orientation that can enable you to undo domination
  • Explore NVC as an embodied mindfulness practice and grow your capacity to tune into body sensations as valuable feedback from your nervous system pointing you towards what matters to you
  • Grow your awareness of and vocabulary for resonant language – including “feelings” and “needs” – and your understanding of the brain science behind why this kind of language works
  • Develop an empathetic listening practice with a buddy between sessions as a foundational tool for resourcing yourself to show up better in conflict and collaboration