Tarkind 2025 with beautiful artworks and inspiring citizen science expressions. Photography By Danielle Gilbert

Families connect heart, art, and science at Magical Farm Tasmania for Tarkind’s Great Southern BioBlitz

Allens Rivulet, Tasmania October 27, 2025

Daisy at her second Tarkind Art and Citizen Science Event. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Twenty-two participants, mums and their children gathered at Magical Farm Tasmania in Allens Rivulet this weekend for a Tarkind event celebrating the connection between heart, art, and science. Supported by Landcare Tasmania, the gathering was part of the internationally renowned Great Southern BioBlitz, a citizen science initiative uniting communities across the Southern Hemisphere in biodiversity discovery.

Abe participating in his fourth Tarkind Art and Citizen Science Event. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

The day began with a circle of sharing, where participants told stories about connecting to Country and the living systems around them. After an inspiring walk through the bushland, families collected and recorded over 25 unique species in just one hour, contributing valuable data to global biodiversity mapping efforts.

The event flowed naturally into a creative painting session, with children and adults expressing their encounters through art inspired by mosses, fungi, and forest textures. The artworks reflected the beauty and complexity of the Tasmanian landscape, bringing science and creativity together in a living dialogue.

Everyone painting together. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

“It was deeply inspiring to see families connecting heart, art, and science,” said Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne, creative director of Magical Farm Tasmania and the Tarkind Project. “There’s such beautiful aesthetics in these moments, when we connect to nature and express that connection through art, we begin to see and feel life as one integrated system.”

Beautiful art by the children. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

As the afternoon closed, participants reflected on how simple acts: walking, noticing, painting, and sharing foster a deeper relationship with the natural world and with one another.

Circle to begin the day. Photography by Seb Samuels

Tarkind’s community-based approach to environmental education continues to grow, blending ecological science, art, and storytelling. Plans are already underway for the 5th Tarkind event next year.

Violet participating for her fourth Tarkind event. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Sacral and heart charka healing by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Citizen Science explorations as Part of the Great Southern Bio-Blitz, Prior to our Community Art Event

Exploring nature in Allens Rivulet. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Uploading our findings onto iNatralist Citizen Science App for the Great Southern BioBlitz. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Citizen Science Explorations by Tarkind Collective, as Part of the Great Southern BioBlitz. Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Learn more at:www.tarkind.org

We began Tarkind in 2022 as a small collective, myself and my son Zach, invertebrate biologist Dr Keith Martin-Smith, and palawa woman Gemma O’Rourke, to weave science, story, and art into everyday care for place. We are excited to announce our 2025 Tarkind community art and citizen science day! Firstly I want to share why we want to educate about living systems.

Why a living-systems lens?

In Tarkind we work from a simple conviction: life works in relationships. Fritjof Capra calls this the systems view of life: living beings, communities, and ecologies are networks of relationships whose health depends on patterns, flows, feedback, diversity, and rhythm, rather than on single parts. For Capra, this isn’t only biology or ecology; it’s also ethics and meaning. When you see the web, a quiet spiritual intuition follows: we belong to something larger. That belonging is not a doctrine; it’s a practice of attention, of noticing consequences, caring for cycles, and letting our actions be accountable to the whole.

Daniel Christian Wahl extends this into culture. His question is: what kinds of cultures help places to heal? He invites us to design for regeneration, work that leaves people and places more capable than before. That means place-sourced learning, bioregional thinking, circular use of materials, and stories that grow responsibility rather than extraction. In his frame, art, education, and landcare are not extras; they are cultural technologies that renew our capacity to live well together.

How this shapes Tarkind

Walk, notice, name. We use iNaturalist and field journaling to see the web, Capra’s patterns are therefore made tangible.
Paint what we felt and found. The art is how the insight lands in the body and the community; it keeps the story alive.
Plant and repair. Regeneration is Wahl’s litmus test: did our time together leave the place more resilient?

This is also the heart of my Con Viv work, head, heart, and hand in one movement, supported by David Orr’s reminder that all education is environmental education, and Satish Kumar’s call to hold soil, soul, and society in balance.

Photography by Ness Vandeburgh Photography

Why it matters: a living-systems worldview builds tolerance (difference is an asset), love (care becomes structure: roles, rhythms, and repair), and a gentle spiritual stance (reverence for the whole we share). If more of our schools, councils, and neighbourhoods worked this way, conflict wouldn’t vanish, but it would have somewhere useful to go, into listening, making, planting, and the slow renewal of culture.

What is citizen science?

Citizen science is everyday people helping do real science. We notice, record, and share observations, photos, sounds, simple measurements, and those data feed into research, conservation planning, and education. It’s hands-on learning that turns curiosity into evidence: you don’t need a lab coat, just attention, respect for place, and a phone or notebook. For kids and adults alike, it builds ecological literacy, confidence, and a sense of belonging to the living world.

Who are the Great Southern BioBlitz?

The Great Southern BioBlitz (GSB) is a southern-hemisphere biodiversity event held each spring that invites communities to document as many species as possible over one long weekend using platforms like iNaturalist. Local groups host walks, workshops, and mini-surveys; participants upload what they find; volunteer identifiers help name species; and the pooled results give scientists and land managers a richer picture of local ecosystems. We collaborate with GSB to connect our Tarkind walks and art sessions to this wider effort, so every observation we make together becomes part of a bigger, shared map of life in our region.

Next event: Magical Farm × Great Southern BioBlitz × Magical Farm Landcare Group, Sunday 26 Oct 2025, 10:00–2:30. We’ll gather at Magical Farm, convoy to Allens Rivulet Track for the Bioblitz, then return for a shared lunch, Tarkind community art, and a short planting. Bring iNaturalist, warm layers, water, a plate to share, and an art canvas (large or small) + paints. Families welcome. Message me for details.

Tarkind is a reminder: when we live with life, the future stops being an abstraction and becomes something we can touch, tend, and paint together.

Musings

Families connect heart, art, and science at Magical Farm Tasmania for Tarkind’s Great Southern BioBlitz

Why a living-systems lens?

How this shapes Tarkind

What is citizen science?

Who are the Great Southern BioBlitz?