AbstractThis session will take the form of a workshop, convening a space/time for conversation and sharing across people, geographies, and projects utilizing an arts-based and/or process-oriented approach to relationship building and knowledge generation. By arts/process-based approaches, we mean approaches that may not identify outcomes in advance, but that hold processes of relationship building and creative and collective open-ended engagement as central. Our title refers to both geographical hemispheres as well as to brain hemispheres, or any other hemispheres one would like to imagine... The metaphor counts for bridging different zones and finding what comes in between. We will divide the session time into two segments. During the first we will do activities (facilitated by us in coordination with some guests with whom we have connected already), inviting participants to do these activities live, online. On the second slot, we will reflect on what transpired while we were doing the activities and we will also open a discussion based on these questions (some or all of these, as we see fit): How do you define your work (scholarly and/or creative)? Does your work involve establishing long-term relationships? (with whom, how, for what purpose, with/towards what outcomes?). How, if at all, do you deal with change and flux in those relationships? How do you negotiate dynamics of power differentials, if they exist (between participants, between people with different levels of security)? What different roles do different participants play? How do you arrive at your agenda/goals? In the above, according to what principles, using what kinds of protocols? In other words, how does collective decision making happen? Are you an equal partner in those decision-making processes? Why/why not? With what resources do you support and nurture this work?
