Apply Now: Nature Cultural Fellowship Program

Throughout the Kinship Fellowship, participants will engage in storytelling, embodiment practices, values-based reflection, and dialogue to address the cultural and systemic drivers of ecological crises, emphasizing healing their separation from nature, spirit, and community.

This co-creative learning journey fosters the development of art-based projects rooted in community, where Fellows explore profound questions of identity, place, grief, transformation, reciprocity with human and more-than-human beings, and multi-generational relationships.

Focus Areas

• Artivism
  • Creativity as activism, exploring how art inspires them to challenge injustice, elevate movements, and envision new futures.
• Biodiversity & the Web of Life
  • Exploring the sacred relationships between people, land, and all living beings, and speaking to the urgency of protecting thriving ecosystems.
• Narrative Shift
  • Transforming cultural stories, challenging extractive mindsets, and imagining regenerative futures through art.
• Education
  • Using art as a tool for learning, inviting intergenerational collaboration, and fostering deeper connections to community, history, and the natural world.
• Strategic Support
  • Professional development in areas such as systems thinking, artivism, storytelling, and community engagement.
• Community Engagement
  • Opportunities to present work at the Kinship Hearth, public dialogues, media distribution, and climate and biodiversity COPs.

Benefits

• Culture & Creativity: This program explores how cultural and creative tools — from music and movement to ritual/ceremony and visual storytelling —  shifts mindsets, sparks collective change, and informs the policy shifts they need to see. (If your primary interest lies in policy advocacy, scientific or technical solutions, this Fellowship may not be the best fit).
• Mystery, Experimentation & Not Knowing: This journey is for those willing to sit with uncertainty, lead with curiosity, unlearn old patterns, and embrace experimentation. Together, they’ll break out of their silos and open ourselves to expansive ways of knowing and being.
• Learning from traditional wisdom and Social Science: This Fellowship centers traditional wisdom, Indigenous knowledge, social science, and creative expression as vital paths to understanding and action. This isn’t a program to teach Western science—though emerging research from the West on more-than-human sentience is exciting.
• Time Commitment: a 3-month learning journey with a 4-month project implementation period. They are opening applications for both the learning journey portion of this project and the fellowship project implementation.

Eligibility Criteria

• They’re looking for individuals who are:
  • Rooted in Community: You have a network or circle you can engage, inspire and influence locally.
  • Self-Motivated & Committed: You take initiative, follow through, and can dedicate time to this 5-month journey, including creating and implementing a community project.
  • Openness, Unlearning & Humility: You’re curious, reflective, and willing to sit with discomfort, mystery, and not knowing.
  • Connectors: You can connect across cultures, generations, and disciplines, and are committed to dismantling systemic barriers.
  • Creative & Courageous: You value culture, art, traditional wisdom, and embodied learning as tools for transformation.
  • Collaborative & Generous: You see yourself as part of a larger web, willing to share, support, and learn with others.
  • Story-Weavers & Sense-Makers: You believe in the power of stories to shift worldviews and inspire collective action.
  • Future-Oriented: You are committed to ongoing community engagement and cultivating partnerships beyond the program.

For more information, visit Kinship.