Join us on Monday 18 May for an AELA Earth Arts ‘creative conversation’ – this month we’re discussing AELA’s 2026 Earth Arts Program “Kinship”. Learn about the program, hear about previous Earth Arts Adventures and get inspired to join us!
Kinship 2026 is an invitation for all creatives to celebrate, create works and events, and learn more about our deep interconnection and entanglement with all of life on earth. You can find out more about the program, and submit your ideas to get involved, on this webpage: https://eartharts.org.au/events/kinship-2026/
ABOUT OUR WEBINAR
AELA’s National Convenor, Dr Michelle Maloney, will be joined artist Aviva Reed, and our fantastic Earth Arts Team Coordinators, Dawn Mills and Liesje Barratt, to discuss ‘kinship, and provide an overview of how people can get involved.
Why Kinship?
Human beings are just one member of the wider Earth community, and we are all connected and interdependent with all other species and ecosystems. ‘Kinship’ invites us to reflect, celebrate and be inspired by the creative, cultural, bioregional, spiritual and practical ways that humans relate to, and are part of, nature. ‘Kinship’ aims to enable us to enrich our understanding of what it means to be part of the Earth community.
Our 2026 Kinship Earth Arts Program will see AELA host arts projects, workshops, creative exhibitions, writing programs and more – to stimulate reflection, conversations and cultural shifts that acknowledge the wonder, beauty and our reliance on, the more-than-human world.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
AVIVA REED
Aviva Reed is a transdisciplinary visual ecologist. Her practice reframes scientific theories, particularly concepts associated with evolution and ecological categorisations. Her work moves between performance, ritual, lecture, publications and visual art. She explores time, scale and relationship using storytelling, visualisations, soundscapes and conversation. Aviva is German Jewish and Irish/ Scottish settler ancestry, currently living and working on the lands of the Yaegl peoples. She received her Bachelor of Science in 2006 from the University of Tasmania and her Masters of Environment from the University of Melbourne in 2015.
DAWN MILLS
Dawn Mills is a Coordinator of AELAs Earth Arts Program. She lives and works on the beautiful lands of the Dharug and Gundungurra people (Blue Mountains) in NSW. Since her retirement from a long career as an occupational therapist, she has completed a Diploma of Visual Arts, and continues to learn and practice a range of creative pursuits, with a focus on printmaking and mixed media art. This allows her to express her philosophical approach to her place in the wider circle of life on this beautiful planet.
Dawn has a lifelong passion for our natural world and has engaged in many environmental causes over her life. She is inspired by indigenous cultures and spiritual philosophies based on non-duality, all for one and one for all. Dawn is excited to be a part of AELA and its Earth Arts initiative, to encourage others to acknowledge their inherent creativity, foster connection with our local places, eachother, and our wider planetary home.
LIESJE BARRATT
Liesje Barratt is a Coordinator of AELA’s Earth Arts Program. Liesje is a Social Ecologist & Ecological Animator. She has lived in the beautiful Blue Mountains, lands of the Dharug and Gundungurra peoples for most of her life and is passionate about her local area and connecting others with a sense of wonder & joy for the natural world. Liesje loves bushwalking, gardening and any opportunity to be in nature.
MICHELLE MALONEY
Dr Michelle Maloney (PhD) is an Earth lawyer and advocate for ecocentric and bioregional governance. She is recognised internationally and in Australia for her work advocating for Earth centred law and governance, including First Laws and the Rights of Nature. Michelle is Co-Founder and Director of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), and Co-Founder and Director of Future Dreaming, an Indigenous led organisation that works to share Indigenous ecological and governance knowledge with non-Indigenous people and organisations in Australia. In her role as Convenor of AELA, Michelle created and works in partnership with many wonderful artists and creatives, to host Earth Arts activities every two years or so. For information about Michelle’s work, publications and affiliations, please visit: www.michellemaloney.au
ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN EARTH LAWS ALLIANCE (AELA)
AELA is a not-for-profit organisation working to increase the understanding and practical implementation of Earth-centred (ecocentric) governance, with a focus on systems change across law, economics, education, ethics and community participation in Australia. AELA’s vision is an Australian society that embraces an ecocentric or ‘life-centred’ culture, with governance systems that enable human communities to thrive within ecological boundaries, while nurturing biodiversity and ecosystem health. AELA’s work includes education programs and project support for people, communities and organisations working to create ecocentric systems change.
For more information, visit our website: www.earthlaws.org.au
or email us anytime: [email protected]