Through colonization, hyper capitalism, and unaddressed trauma, many of us have forgotten how to play our part in the orchestra of the natural world. Join a conversation between two remarkable activists and legal practitioners from different continents, working in different communities, but who happen to share a belief in the power of creative expression help us reconnect to the entire web of life. They discuss interdependence, forgotten ways of relating to each other and all species, and how well-harmonized songs can bring delight and balance to the human spirit, to trees and plants and to our fellow fauna.

Resources

Video of this conversation from the 2024 Bioneers Conference

Featuring

Erin Matariki Carr, of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Awa descent, lives in her traditional homelands in Aotearoa/New Zealand and works in law and policy, with a focus on the interface between Indigenous and Western legal systems and methodologies. She previously worked as Manager of Planning & Design to create and implement policies under the world-first legislation conferring legal personhood to the Te Urewera rainforest. Matariki is currently a project lead at RIVER, where she focuses on the constitutional transformation movement in Aotearoa with a number of other teams, including Tūmanako Consultants and Te Kuaka NZA.

Learn more at weareriver.earth

Claudia Peña, Executive Director of For Freedoms, an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation, serves on the faculty at UCLA School of Law and in that school’s Gender Studies Department. She is also the founding Co-Director of the Center for Justice at UCLA, home of the Prison Education Program, which creates innovative courses that enable faculty and students to learn from and alongside currently incarcerated participants. Claudia has devoted her life to justice work through community organizing, transformative and restorative justice, consciousness-raising across silos, coalition-building, teaching, advocacy through law and policy, and the arts.

Learn more at forfreedoms.com

This is an excerpt from a conversation recorded at a Bioneers conference. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.