Tarkind: Painting a Living World Back Into View

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.

Photography by Ness Vandeburgh Photography

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.

Beyond the Hashtag: Why Progressive Platforms Must Build Futures, Not Just Protest

In today’s hyperconnected world, moral outrage travels fast. From War and injustice to salmon farms and destruction to ancient forests. Activists and leaders with platforms flood social media with sharp critique and heartfelt calls for justice. Yet, for all the powerful voices and viral hashtags, the conversation often stops short of what comes next. Moral clarity is necessary but not sufficient.

“When progressive leaders wield their megaphones only to condemn without creating pathways forward, they cede the future to corporate boards, militaries, and political hardliners”

The real challenge is not just to name what’s wrong but to build convivial governance, systems where communities are invited into genuine conversation, co-creating the institutions they will live within. Convivial governance treats imagination as an organ essential to democracy. It insists that governance must be of the people, not imposed from above; it thrives on dialogue, shared responsibility, and an openness to diverse futures. This methodology is urgently needed in places like Tasmania, where industrial salmon farming disrupts ecosystems and silences community voices; in forests under threat of over-extraction; and in global hotspots like Gaza, where decisions are made far from the lived experience of those most affected.

“These struggles, though geographically distant, share a common thread: the failure of top-down governance and the absence of meaningful participatory design”.

Tools for convivial governance already exist.

• Barcelona’s Decidim platform empowers tens of thousands to propose and vote on policies.

• EcoPeace Middle East models cross-border cooperation between Jordan, Israel and Palestine around water resources.

• Local councils in Rojava show how self-rule can resist authoritarianism and fragmentation.

  These case studies are working examples of how conversation can turn outrage into architecture.

Yet, too often, influential thinkers like Naomi Klein illuminate the systemic roots of injustice without stepping into the generative space of scenario-building and solution design. She speaks powerfully about global crises but rarely opens her platform to the messy, grounded work of co-creating alternatives with affected communities.

Progressive leaders with reach bear an ethical responsibility: to shift from reactive outrage to proactive convivial conversation, inviting followers into structured, inclusive spaces where futures are imagined, tested, and refined together. This is how movements mature and how change becomes sustainable. Without this shift, the “day after” will always belong to someone else.

It is time to move beyond the hashtag, toward using our imagination as the most important organ of our time.

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About the Author
Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne (also known as Dr. Demeter) is an eco-philosopher, farmer, and author of the forthcoming series The Spiral Shelves: Living Library of Magical Farm Tasmania. Her work bridges policy design, ecological healing, and the spiritual-cultural renewal of place. She works at the intersection of community resilience, regenerative governance, and embodied stewardship, inviting new myths and models for living well together in times of great change.