A Waltham SERC
We are in a climate emergency. How will we respond?
Collaboration and creative community engagement can help lead to a groundswell of action that mobilizes the public to demand policy change locally and nationally.
Co-led by artists, activists and community members in collaboration with Blueprint Projects and conceived by the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) we organized a temporary, emergent, and creative popup space called a SERC (Social Emergency Response Center).
Our Waltham SERC looked at climate change and how it is effecting our relationship to our planet, our community and to each other. This all day event provided an opportunity to share some of the climate focused work being done in Waltham and helped amplify the need for greater climate awareness locally and beyond.
The Waltham SERC offered pathways to actions that contribute to meaningful change within our community and opportunities to nourish our whole selves through free food, healing, creative exploration, collective making, informational resources and workshops. Check out our schedule of events below!
Schedule of events
Throughout the day (11 AM - 4 PM)
Zine-making with Maria Photinakis
Mental health + wellness resources
Broadsides by Broadsided Press
Walk-in Immigration Clinic
Postcards from the Planet on view
Collective weaving and art making
Information on local initiatives from Mothers Out Front, WECAN + more
Aromatherapy + healing with Well Within
Free food + music!
Opportunities to connect
11 - 11:15 AM Kick off! What will we commit to as a community?
11 AM - 1 PM Make Your Own Recycled Puppet with Sarah Nolen
Give your recyclables a new life -- by bringing them to life! In this ongoing workshop, Puppeteer & Waltham Resident Sarah Nolen will show you how to take some of your plastic and transform it into a rod puppet character. Plastic bottles will be provided, but feel free to BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle).
11 AM - 1 PM Wish You Would Hear: Postcards for the Planet with Michele Vitti
Create a collage on a recycled postcard with a climate or earth centered theme. Write your message and address it. We will send it for you.
11:30 AM - 12 PM Does Climate Change Really Matter in Waltham? a presentation by Drumlin Farm
12 - 12:30 PM Waltham Field Station Update
Hear more about the fate of the Waltham Field Station with Stacey Daley, Executive Director of Waltham Fields Community Farm + Sonja Wadman, Executive Director of the Waltham Land Trust
12:45 - 1 PM Climate Change + Global Migration, a short presentation by The Right to Immigration Institute
With increasing environmental havoc due to climate change, people are being displaced globally and over the next several decades, migration patterns will continue to radically shift. Learn more about how this effects our own community. TRII will also provide a free walk-in clinic for those that seek advice on immigration questions.
1 - 2:30 PM Artist Talk with Hannah Perrine Mode
Join artist Hannah Perrine Mode as she shares her recent experience as an an artist in residence with the Juneau Icefield Research Program, an educational initiative that takes place on the longest studied glacier in the Western Hemisphere.
2:30 - 3 PM Get on the Loom and Weave the Rainbow!
Weave with non-traditional materials cut from everything from an old tent, old yoga mats, food bags to worn out clothes and help create a rainbow weaving. All materials will be provided. This collective weaving is part of the on-going art installation "Coddiwomple" by Stacey Piwinski and Wendy Wolf.
2:30 - 3 PM Play the Biodiversity Web of Life Game!
Meadowscaping for Biodiversity will guide us through a fun game to help demonstrate how we are all connected. Then we'll get our hands dirty, play in some soil and explore the insides of seed heads and pods. Reconnect through all your senses!
2:45 - 3 PM Mental Wellness in Waltham, a short presentation with Ivy Watts
Ivy Watts from Beautifully, Simply You will talk about reducing the stigma around mental health and how we can come together as a community to help change the conversation.
3 - 3:30 PM Guided Meditation with Well Within
Join Laura and Celeste of Well Within, a Newton wellness center, for an empowering guided group meditation focused on healing the earth. Together, we will begin to release fear and negativity, so the energy of creation and innovation has space to flourish.
Participating Groups
Special thanks to
More About SERCs
We are in a social emergency. In natural emergencies like hurricanes or floods, emergency response centers provide food, shelter, and healing. Social Emergency Response Centers (SERCs) re-imagine these centers to take on the real and pressing social emergency that we are facing today.
Social Emergency Response Centers were conceived by the Design Studio for Social Intervention (ds4si). More from the ds4si.
Event details
Sunday, April 7 • 11 AM - 4 PM
Lincoln Arts Project
289 Moody Street
Waltham, MA 02453
