2025

Residency in Greece for Turning the Tide

Jo and Robbie were selected for a residency on the Island of Evia, Greece responding to the challenges communities face as a result of climate crisis. See the resulting work; “Six Bowls: Ecologies of Resistance” HERE

Key note speakers at The Space Between Conference, Findhorn Bay Arts

https://findhornbayarts.com/projects/creative-learning-participation/the-space-between-a-creative-learning-exchange/

We were delighted to be invited to speak at this event. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and cultural theory, we examined liminality as a space for transformation. Our talk explored the “theta state” between sleep and wakefulness, cultural borderlands, and radical spaces like Temporary Autonomous Zones and queer spaces as fertile grounds for creativity, resistance and alternative futures.

Producing for the Tweed River Festival

Jo was engaged as Creative Producer for Connecting Threads, Tweed River Festival.
Here’s an article about the Festival: https://www.tweedriverculture.org/journal/tweed-river-festival-2025

Facilitating training on creative engagement with Communities

For What We Do Now, A creative placemaking network: https://whatwedonow.scot/

Contributing to the Land Notes festival, Glenkens.

Facilitating fireside conversations on River Rights and running a Museum of the Future Now session on land, place and community: https://gcat.scot/land-notes-glenkens-festival-of-land/

Mentoring:

Jo is mentoring an emerging artist on the Emerge programme for Upland

Nithraid

Robbie is Co-Curating Nithraid River Festival

International Collaboration

A group of students from Arcadia University in Glenside, PA (US) made a visit to the Museums of The FutureNow at the end of a semester-long exploration in a course titled Imagination Rebellion: Art as a Pathway to Climate Justice. Jo and Robbie worked with the group to create scenarios for the Civic Imagination section of the Museum of the FutureNow. The group also visited projects run by Creative Climate Futures in Gorbals and Easterhouse as well as the Glasgow Future Fair. They were inspired by the power and potential of these neighbourhoods to forge a future of possibility. In their imagined futures the students brought together their understanding of past and present challenges with ideas of a future in which hope and justice prevail.  

Ecological work as trustees

Jo and Robbie continue to work with EcoArt SCIO as trustees, looking at ways to creatively respond to ecological challenges.

2024

Workshop facilitation: CUlture Cafe

20 September. Forres Town Hall, Forres. https://findhornbayfestival.com/

“Co-creation is a radical commitment to sharing leadership and direction. It uses collaborative processes where people with different experiences, skills and knowledge come together to work in non- hierarchical ways to make something. This Culture Cafe, hosted by Katharine Wheeler of The Stove Network and artists Jo Hodges and Robbie Coleman, invites you to explore the role of creative practice; what it requires for communities and artists to come together co-creation.”

Jo facilitating workshop

(Un)Trodden Paths Residency

Jo and Robbie were selected for the ‘Trodden Paths’ research residency with Connecting Threads. Using the path network which extends out from the town of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders as a geographic focus, Jo and Robbie explored, researched, interacted and creatively respond to the habitats, communities (human and more than human), ecology and stories that have evolved around these well trodden routes. This time-based exploration opened a space to develop insights that might escape conventional appraisal.
For work produced see:

Glimpses of Utopia
Laden
Micro Utopias
Lost Letters

2022/2023

Kulturfactory Residency

July 2023. Robbie and Jo attended a residency in Italy at Kulturfactory researching forms of ecologically focussed creative practice. During the residency, they made a work called Dispersal.

Combine 2 Create

During 2021-23, Robbie and Jo worked with Findhorn Bay Arts on developing Combine to Create, a series of residencies embedding artists into communities. They collaborated with Findhorn Bay Arts on the initiation phase developing a co-creation process that constructed the framing, ethos and timeline of the project.They facilitated three participatory days for the project artists, exploring together how the project might develop, how different practices might engage communities and building confidence and trust in the project process.

They then undertook a 2 month residency focused on Buckie, Moray (where they also delivered an EcoArt environmental flag making project during the 4th Findhorn Bay Festival for the arrival of the Tall Ship, The Lady of Avenel) The residency resulted in The Secret Garden participatory project.

Combine to Create is part of a Scotland wide programme : The Culture Collective

The Far Orchard and Becoming Earthly

Robbie and Jo were delighted to be selected for the Becoming Earthly programme run by The Barn Arts, Banchory. This was an experimental learning space which aimed to create the conditions to open up new innovative forms of practice that responded imaginatively to the challenges we now face. They then developed a collaborative works with The Barn that included The Far Orchard, a distributed apple orchard in Banchory, ‘Plenty? A Festival of More and Less’ and are in development of a set of ‘Becoming Earthly’ cards to be used to open up explore creative practice in relation to ecology.

The Far Orchard has been added to Creative Carbon Scotland’s Library of Sustainability https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/library/the-far-orchard/

The Far Orchard Planting Day 2022

Museums of the FutureNow

Robbie and Jo, together with Prof. Mike Bonaventura ran an online version of the Museums of the FutureNow on Environmental Justice for the Just Festival, Edinburgh’s social justice and human rights festival. This session was run in collaboration with Creative Carbon Scotland in August 2020 https://just-festival.org/eventbrite-event/the-museum-of-the-future/. Reflections on the event here: https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/green-tease-reflections-museums-of-the-futurenow-environmental-justice/

They also ran a series of sessions in 2021/22 for Museums Galleries Scotland on what Museums might look like in a future defined by climate challenges and for Scotlands cultural sector looking at how cultural organisations might respond to climate challenges.

In 2023, The Museums of the FutureNow collaborated with The Solway Firth Partnership to develop an exhibition focussing on marine plastic pollution. This work is now touring https://museumsofthefuturenow.org/the-solway-hoard/

Further ecological work

Jo, together with artist Kerry Morrison in collaboration with the AALERT network ran a session for Creative Carbon Scotland in February ’21 called ‘Beautiful Disruption; Radically reimagining approaches to contested landscapes’ . Robbie and Jo’s work A New EIA for Natural Scotland was aded to Creative Carbon Scotlands Library of Creative Sustainability.

The Lost Property Office

Robbie and Jo are part of The Lost Property Office, an artist collective who developed a pilot live art event in 2021 funded by Creative Scotland. For images see HERE. The pilot is being followed up by a touring version of the work. Dates TBC.

The Lost Property Office is an interactive arts installation that takes place in an abandoned building in a town centre and explores the idea of ‘lost and found’ as a metaphor for this pivotal time in our global history. The office itself is ‘set’ in a liminal time, its shelves full of items that have been lost on countless mysterious journeys.  Visiting members of the public were each given an item of lost luggage to be opened and explored at their leisure. All the items were micro art installations which explored ideas of ‘lost and found’ in the context of social and environmental challenges. Some were suitcases that had been lost, revealing journeys that were never made, some were items that explored lost freedoms, dreams or livelihoods or more widely the loss of species and habitat. As a contrast, explorations of ‘found’ explored hope, joy, beauty and potential. A lot has been lost but what have we found?  What do we choose to let go of and what do we choose to keep?