Creative projects

Our creative projects explore collaborative connective practice with our creative team, local artists and local community.

magnify: An immersive insect world (2024)

Dan Eleni Carey and Amelie Vandestock collaborated to produce an immersive insect world to launch Amelie’s debut studio album and celebrate 10 years of Wild Ground Creative Adventures. The show and art installation took place at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre with special guests from Stuart Christie’s Bah-hah Circus School and was supported by the Blue Mountains City of the Arts Grant (Amelie was a 2023 recipient).

BENEATH THE SURFACE (2023)

Dan Eleni Carey and Julie-Ann Henninger collaborated to produce a floating art installation and immersive performance adventure by canoe. We were invited by Festival Director Dylan Jones to create this new work for the Festival of the Canoe and Kayak Festival (The FOCK) in Kangaroo Valley, NSW. Supported by a Festival Australia Grant, Valley Outdoors and Take 3 for the Sea, our work combined outdoor adventure, immersive theatre production and sculpture to explore themes of ecological crisis, sustainability and connection. 

Wild Ground Artist (2018-2023)

Wild Ground Artist is an Artist-In-Residency Project, which provides opportunity for local artists to further their artistic practise alongside, and in collaboration with, Wild Ground programs. The residency promotes a symbiotic relationship between artists, Wild Ground children/families, and learning/respecting/being on Darug and Gundungarrah Country.

Weaving Wild Wonder (2021)

#weavingwildwonder was a collaboration between Artist-in-resident Julie Henninger and Dan Eleni Carey.

As a community art project, it used the medium of photography, digital technologies and social media to explore concepts of connection, community, resilience and well-being. Participants shared photos of circles found during 2021 COVID lockdown, weaving together connection and care.

WeavingWildWonder has now extended into a curated series of workshops, including therapeutic art, photography, poetry, and zine making.

Bushfire Recovery Storytelling Project (2020)

Our storytelling project was a collaboration between Andrea Ketterling and Dan Eleni Carey. It aimed to build emotional resilience through therapeutic stories, creativity and play with Wild Ground families after the devastating 2019-2020 Bushfire Season.

Story Nest Adventures (2021)

A Nature writing project with a difference!

Story nest is a creative initiative for children and adults to explore, create and express themselves through writing while developing a closer connection to community and nature.

Sit Spot Writing Project (2018)

During 2018, Dan Eleni facilitated a 30-day Sit Spot writing project with people in communities across Australia. The project used the medium of writing, photography and social media to explore Jon Young’s nature connection technique of sit spotting in locations across Australia. The project also included a series of nature writings published by Dan Eleni Carey exploring her observations of the Wild Ground bush property in Blackheath, NSW.

Coming to Ground: Horseshoe Falls (2018)

During her time as Wild Ground Artist, Niki and her four year old son visited Horseshoe Falls weekly alongside Wild Ground families during an 8-week Bush Playgroup program. Her collaboration resulted in the artwork Coming to ground: Horseshoe Falls which was Niki’s artistic response to Horseshoe Falls, Hazelbrook – one of our nature play locations for the 2018 Bush Playgroup program.

Into the Bower, Australian Climbing Festival (2014)

Into the Bower was a community art project presented by Wild Ground Creative Adventures for the Australian Climbing Festival in 2014. The project explored themes of nature connection, play, creative expression and curiosity. Using natural materials, paint, found objects and craft items, participants worked alongside Wild Ground artists to build a giant-sized bower over the Festival weekend. Children and their families were invited to play, explore and enjoy the blue-themed photo booth and tea party set up inside the Bower, while also participating in craft workshops to create blue “critters” to add to the Bower’s treasure.

Both immersive sessions will feature Amelie Ecology performing songs from their debut and our special student guests from BAH-HAH circus. Plus, Wild Ground will offer the same creative and science-based activities at each session: a collaborative art installation, an “insect city” loose parts play space, sensory art-making, science investigations, and face painting.

There will be a birthday cake and a costume parade and prizes for best dressed insects (adults and children)!

Download “WHAT TO EXPECT AT MAGNIFY” PDF RESOURCE

Extra info: A family-friendly event for primary school age kids and their family (younger sibilngs and friends are also welcome). This event will take place outside on the internal courtyard at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. In the case of wet weather, the event will be moved inside into the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre foyer.

Cost: FREE event! However, we welcome donations upon RSVP to go towards the artists and materials. Please RSVP so we can plan for numbers

2021 Julie Henninger

Julie is a community land-based artist, organising and facilitating interdisciplinary learning and creating spaces in various settings. Her work centres around participatory and collaborative experiences in many mediums. She co-creates locally and internationally with a focus on individual, community and ecological health. Julie’s current art project is a collaboration with Danielle Carey. #WeavingWildWonder is a community art project using the medium of photography, digital technologies and social media to explore concepts of connection, community, resilience and well-being. Participants shared photos of circles found in their days during lockdown, weaving together connection and care. WeavingWildWonder has since extended into a curated series of workshops, including therapeutic art, photography, poetry, and zine making.

2018 NIKI READ

Local Blue Mountains artist Niki Read was our inaugural Wild Ground Artist. Niki is an interdisciplinary artist who creates art for connection, beauty and legacy. Her current work contributes to a personal aesthetic in response to nature, society and major life experiences. She works with paint, inks, paper, canvas, pencil, found objects, collage, assemblage – both in the two and three dimensional, art books and the written word. Her strong sense of social justice has been the driving force behind her earlier art-making within community-based contexts; theatre, youth, cancer and palliative care.

During her time as Wild Ground Artist, Niki and her four year old son visited Horseshoe Falls weekly alongside Wild Ground families during an 8-week Bush Playgroup program. Her collaboration resulted in the artwork Coming to ground: Horseshoe Falls which was Niki’s artistic response to Horseshoe Falls, Hazelbrook – one of our nature play locations for the 2018 Bush Playgroup program.

The painting is both a sensorial impression and meditative bush map of this stunning, wild playground. It reflects specific moments throughout the Wild Ground program: the transformation of particular plants throughout the changing seasons, spontaneous play of both children and adults, and the exciting animal encounters during this time - including the alluring crayfish, a favourite amongst the group. It also captures the nourishing effect of spending time in the bush with other families, the journey towards slowing down, being present and allowing spontaneous free play to lead the way.

We’re currently selling prints of two artworks by Niki, Coming to ground: Horseshoe Falls (2018) and Cicada (2017) . A very small percentage of profits from these sales will go towards the operational costs of Wild Ground. We’re excited about the idea of finding creative, sustainable and collaborative ways to support local artists and grow our Wild Ground initiative to keep inspiring and connecting local families to nature and their wild selves.

The #WeavingWildWonder project invites you to journey with the Wild Ground Community by tuning into the wild wonder that exists in amongst lockdown, grief, stress and overwhelm.

#WeavingWildWonder is a collaborative art project that explores the symbol of a circle to ground us in our current daily rhythms. Right now, our circles of movement are smaller, but...we have circles of family, circles of friends. Community. They can connect us and hold us, teach us. Comfort us. They mark cycles of time: days, weeks, months and years.  

And they are so much more than this too...

Circles are:

Life cycles

Regeneration

Oranges (with brownie mixture inside, of course! ;-) )

Blowing bubbles

Woven baskets

Drawing with chalk on the pavement

Cups of tea

Homemade cake

Compasses

Firepits

Sunshine wattle blooms

Magnifying glasses

Splashing in Puddles!

The earth, the sun and the moon

What are circles to you? What circles and what wild wonders do you find in your world? ooooooo!

From the heart of winter, this is a gratitude practice to warm us as we weather these times. We invite you to join the Wild Ground crew in collaborative storytelling and art-making as we reconnect with a sense of play, enchantment and creativity to support our collective mental health. 

We invite you to participate by:

1. Posting photos of found ‘circles’ as you go about your days, with the hashtag #weavingwildwonder.  Add an Acknowledgement of Country by including the name of the Country you are on.

2. Tuning into the Wild Ground Team’s creative ‘circle-themed’ offerings of storytelling, songs, literacy activities and playful games that you can enjoy with your family or exercise friend

3. Sharing your responses to our activities and games with the Wild Ground community

Wild Ground has always been a creative response to a world in drastic change. We are driven to build connection and community through creativity, child-led play and nature connection. 

During the last lockdown cycle, we paused our outdoor programs to offer Story Nest packages, which engaged, inspired and delighted children with nature crafts and therapeutic stories delivered to your inbox and doorstep.

This lockdown cycle finds us leaning deeper into weaving connection and community to inspire creativity, child-led play and nature connection online and in our family homes. We invite you to remember that you are ALWAYS standing on wild ground wherever you are… all land is sacred, and wherever we are we can acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country and pay our respects to the Elders.  Everything on Earth is born from and held by life-giving land. We are animals woven into ecosystems. We are ecosystems woven into animals.  We engage with our ecosystem with every breath we take.  We are nature.  We find ourselves here in the wild ground of co-creativity and connection.

As we are held gently by the gravity of the earth we can see there is nothing that is separate from nature.  And we can weave stories of belonging, care, responsibility, relationship and responsiveness.  We can weave wild wonder.

As you move through your day today what wild wonder might you find in your world?  We can’t wait to find out!

xox

The Wild Ground Team (Dan, Julie and Caradene)

ISSUE #1 ‘From the animals’ Zine October 2021