Description
Saturday 16 August 2025, 1–2.30pm
CCA is delighted to welcome artist Kelly Ewing to facilitate Creating Companionship. This Summer Family Activity forms part of the Public Programme for the current exhibition Love is blindly reaching out rhizoids and anchoring them to a rock.
During the workshop children will use storytelling, making and seed planting to explore exhibition themes - including friendship, caring and love. The workshop invites you to create your own Xenothorps. These are imaginative, multi-species characters that blur the boundaries between human, plant and other life forms.
Through storytelling, making and planting, each child will develop their own Xenothorpian being. You will create bodies (plant pots) in which you will plant seeds- from which our plant companion (Xenothorp) will grow over time. The act of seeding and nurturing a growing plant is symbolic of the ongoing caregiving relationship between ourselves, plants and our wider world.
The workshop:
In the first section of the workshop you will develop your Xenothorp (the seeded plant) companion’s personality through conversation, imagination, discussing who they are, their personality and what they like/dislike.
In the second section you will build the plant pot (body) for the Xenothorp, by decorating a pot using a mixture of paper collage and painting. Materials include paper, paint, markers, glue, brushes, yarn, pipe cleaners and foam.
In the final section you will plant a seed into the pot, discussing the act of caring and nurturing for plants and the importance of caring for plant life and our wider world.
This free workshop is suitable for children ages 6+. Supervision from a parent or guardian is required. Tickets* are limited and booking is essential. You can book your free place through via this page. It is a paperless ticket, a member of the team will be in contact via email after booking.
*Parents/ Guardians are not required to book a ticket.
