Imagining Vessels & Reciprocity
Imagine a vessel. What kind of vessel is that?
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What is it that you give to the world?
What is it that you receive from the world?
This project and workshop aims to create an experience that allows people to imaginatively create personal metaphors, grounded in their own physical, cultural and creative experience.
Through a creative workshop, using the Clean Language* method to facilitate an imaginative process, Imagining Vessels & Reciprocity invites people to connect to their own meaning and experience of what it means to be in a reciprocal relationship with other humans and the more-than-human world - to give and receive from their vessel.
Whilst reciprocity as a way of being and relating to the world is prevalent in Indigenous communities, it is less common in Western, extractivist and individualist culture; culture that is enforced by dominant narratives and metaphors.
The generative potential of new metaphors, creativity and imagination can enable people to create new meaning, connect to others, and inspire collective action towards a more equitable, just and reciprocal future.
*Clean Language is a method of questioning that removes all assumptions and biases from the questioner. Through a set of 12 simple questions, it draws on the power of metaphor to allow people to develop meaning and clarity that can support them to bring about personal or group change.
The idea is grounded in the work of Lakoff and Johnson, which demonstrates the powerful impact that language and metaphor have on our understanding, meaning and reality. In their book Metaphors we Live By, they proposed:
“New metaphors have the power to create a new reality.”
“Much of culture change arises from the introduction of new metaphorical concepts and the loss of old ones.”
“A metaphor may thus be a guide for future action.”
Potential shifts lie in the fertile ground of individual and collective exploration and co-creation that can create small but impactful shifts or ripples in thinking and behaviours, ultimately building a greater sense of shared meaning and understanding, and communities grounded in reciprocal relationship with all life.
“If we want to grow good citizens, then let us teach reciprocity. If what we aspire to is justice for all, then let it be justice for all Creation.”
The Imagining Vessels & Reciprocity workshop was developed in collaboration with Rijul Narwal. Sharing a passion for eco-social justice, we are motivated in our work and practices to challenge the status quo, and shift perception and thinking via facilitation, creativity, communication tools, and design thinking. You can read more about how our journeys intersected here: Finding talent on UAL Showcase: the creative collaborators.
This workshop can be delivered in person and online, and adapted for individual process and reflection, or expanded to include a group focus that centres on co-creating a community of vessels. This allows for further reflection on the gifts and needs available within each person, and how to build resilience and mutual support within groups.
This workshop has been delivered at UAL for the University’s Climate Ambassadors network, and as part of Central Saint Martins 2025 Earth Day event offerings.
Online it has been delivered for the International Consciousness Research Laboratories, as part of their 2026 Experiencing Consciousness webinar series.