Fire remains wild, increasingly so today, but its domestication changed the course of human evolution. If fire speaks, what is it saying to us, especially in an era of climate breakdown and mass extinction? How can photography help us keep and tend to our elemental relations with this element with care? In what ways do the many manifestations of fire bring us in closer relationship with our earthly kin? And how might our photography practices inspire us to sustain our own internal fires as darkness descends? The Kinship community spent a season pondering these questions and our relationship with Fire through the practice of photography. At the end of the season, we came together in celebration and sharing of what we have learned through this element.

Between January and November 2024, seven Kinship community members gathered thirteen times to ‘reimagine’ loss and grief. Whether intentional or in our subconscious, we influenced one another in an unspoken call and response: One person’s vulnerability inviting others to let go; another person’s way of seeing inspiring new perspectives. Honestly and bravely we kept messing around in our collective ‘sandbox,’ letting the grit and grime that is loss and grief transform within, between and among us.

From April to May 2024, Kinship community members responded to three prompts adapted from Joanna Macy and Molly Brown’s book Coming Back to Life and recently featured on We Are The Great Turning podcast. These are our responses.

Where do our bodies end and other bodies begin? How does our understanding of the edges of our being influence us? For six weeks, practice group participants of A Complex Definition of a Body met and worked in a diverse range of photographic techniques to play with the complexity of defining what a body is.