About

Greetings! Thank you for visiting.

I'm an artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher living and working in Dunedin, New Zealand; my special passion is the Arts as instruments of teaching, healing, environmental advocacy and peace-building.

I've been blessed over the years to meet and work with remarkable men and women in a range of unusual places and situations. This has led to valued collaborative partnerships with fellow artists and writers around the globe and, too, a diverse range of adventures and interdisciplinary projects with scientists, musicians, composers and filmmakers. Two summer research seasons in Antarctica [2005 & 2008] significantly altered my way of seeing and being in the world.

Drawn increasingly to collaborative processes and group work (both on- and off-line), I remain equally committed to the steadying rhythms of a contemplative life with its accompanying disciplines of quiet, simplicity and 'repetitive practice'.

In addition to my writing and studio work, I curate MANY as ONE, a collaborative arts initiative whose purpose is to address issues of separatism, violence and environmental breakdown, using simple creative activities as a means of bringing more light, wonder and beauty into the world.

Processes of 'making' offer a much-needed counterbalance in a time and world all too often hell-bent on breaking and taking and can engender a sense of hope and inclusivity, of empathy and connection.

MANY as ONE’s purpose is to create 'meeting places for connection' - secular altars, if you will - where differences are set aside and people of all nations, ages, genders and spiritual traditions come together in the spirit of co-creativity, transparency and goodwill. MANY as ONE expresses the principles of non-ownership and 'gift economy', a paradigm that supports the non-hierarchical appreciation of all who participate.

Welcome.

* Photographs in the text body: Heather Libson (London, UK)
Header photograph: Stephen Inggs (Cape Town. SA)

C O N S I D E R

if you will
a line.

Whole worlds can be tilted
upturned, undone
or drawn into being
by a single line.

A thin scratch
will scour the air
bend the wind to blow in
from a different direction.

And then again
a line dropped plumb
from an unseen height
will part waters, skirt a question

shore mist into cloud bunches
that rub shoulders
with mountains. A sideways slip
of the pencil

and crossed lives may find
that by some invisible grace
they come to settle
on holy ground.

One careless stroke
will dismantle ranges, crumble
rocks, drown travelers
beneath an avalanche of thunder.

Consider a line
or more than one
a smudge of black
on your hands

the smatter of dust
at your feet.
A distant chill.
A warm round stone.

Claire Beynon ©