Conversations with Lichen – Bioindicators as Guides for a World in Crisis

📍 Pounds Park (Sheffield City Centre). Meeting point near the entrance to Hygge Café.

a gentle outdoor experience that invites you to pause, notice, and learn from the life growing all around us.

Conversations with Lichen is a guided session exploring what lichen — a living partnership between fungi and algae formed over millions of years — can teach us about resilience, cooperation, and thriving in changing conditions.

Lichens grow in some of the harshest environments on Earth — and have even survived in space. They are signs of ecosystem health and powerful examples of how new relationships can help life endure and adapt. Inspired by ongoing research within the River Dôn Project, this session invites us to engage our senses, ask questions, and reflect together on what these often-overlooked beings might show us about care, interdependence, and how we respond to today’s ecological and social challenges.

About your host:
Eloise is an anti-oppressive researcher, designer, eco-futurist, and community organiser working at the intersection of land, racial, and social justice. She specialises in creating participatory spaces for collective imagination and deeper connection with our more-than-human communities. She is currently establishing Riverkin Relations CIC, focused on reimagining community relationships to land and addressing fascism within environmentalism. Workshop developed in collaboration with Regenerative Designer Andrea Gilly Marquez.

More information:https://www.eloisesmithfoster.com/conversations-with-lichen