Exploring Connections to Nature and the Cost of Living

During this in-person, drop-in workshop, attendees will be invited to create zines exploring how money shapes our relationship with nature. 

Zines are small, handmade publications popular amongst grassroots movements due to their accessibility and ease of distribution. They combine writing, text, collage, and storytelling allowing participants to share ideas that are difficult to express verbally or in a formal interview environment. A range of materials and prompts will be provided to guide playful exploration.

This will be a space to share individual experiences and reflect together on how these issues operate on a community-level. The workshop will encourage critical and imaginative thinking about the connection between money, nature, wellbeing, and an envisioned future that you’d like to see.

This workshop will explore how the cost of living impacts connections to the natural environment. For example, how financial difficulties may create barriers to nature? Does money increase access? How has government spending impacted relationships to nature? How do these factors impact physical and mental health? And in what ways is access to nature resilient to rising costs? Through this workshop, we hope to increase understandings of how economic and environmental systems shape everyday experiences, visions of the future, and how individuals make sense of these issues in their own lives.

Morenike Oyenubi is a PhD student at the University of Leicester researching how young people in Nigeria’s Niger Delta experience environmental degradation.

This event is open to all.

This event will be of interest to emerging adults and/or those Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET). Youth and NEEThood bring a heightened sense of financial stress and uncertainty. This, paired with rising costs, have a unique effect on one’s relationship to the environment. Whether this means feeling disconnected from nature, experiencing a lack of access to the environment, or using nature as a coping mechanism. As costs and threats to the environment rise, young people’s visions of the future need to be explored. Do young people have a positive outlook on the future? What do they want to see happen to address the convergence of these issues? Do their voices feel heard?

This is a drop in event with no pre-booking required