How to Clean the World? [Multiple Dates - Join the Waitlist]

Dear healer and care giver, gleaner and weaver, dreamer and believer,

How can we do the work of repair in a toxic world?

What can fungi teach us about cleaning-up polluted landscapes?

What is the difference between the types of solutions we have and the decolonial cleaning that is needed?

If you have ever found yourself curious about the above, we invite you to join us on a 3-part journey to explore care, repair and the environment whilst living through a Climate and Nature emergency.

Collaborating as an informal and peer-learning group, we will explore the attritional nature of environmental crises, thinking about multispecies and social justice, 'decolonial cleaning'* (taking care of land, humans, plants, species and rivers), and the role of art in the wider work of repair.

Co-run by commissioned interdisciplinary artist and activist Maya Chowdhry and independent artist-curator Dani Admiss (Sunlight Liberation Network) together we will DISCUSS, MAKE and REFLECT on these themes. Participants will be invited to make a spore print, decolonial cleaning soundscape (using everyday items from your home), and a collective poem. The group will be guided through the activities online and via an online zine.

Curiosity welcomed. No prior knowledge is needed to participate.

* The ideas for this learning come from many people before us including Francoise Verges’ fierce endeavours around cleaning, repair and race.

‘Who Cleans the World?’ is a series of workshops that forms part of ‘Decolonial Cleaning’, a commission produced by FutureEverything as part of the Stockport Creative Campus programme.

Event details

Dates:

6-8pm on Thursday 30th October 2025

6-8pm on Thursday 27th November 2025

4-6pm on Sunday 11th January 2026

Cost: Free. By registering for this event, you are committing to attending all three workshops.

Duration: 2 hours

The Programme:

We designed these workshops with you in mind, dreamers who are committed to practising how to take care of the world. Please note that participation in all three sessions is required.

Session 1 - Thursday 30th October 2025: How do we Clean the world?

Through the provocation, ‘Who are the cleaners?’, we will explore how cleaning was colonised, and ways of cleaning and categorising through creating a soundscape to practice decolonially cleaning.

Session 2 - Thursday 27th November 2025: Who are the More-Than-Human Cleaners?

This session will ask participants to consider what animals and other beings can teach us about cleaning the planet. What is their role in human conservation projects and planning? How, how can naming relations between animals and the commons lead us to more reciprocal ways of being? Together, we will create a multispecies spore print, visualising a way to see ourselves alongside the more-than-human.

Session 3 - Sunday 11th January 2026: Decolonial Cleaning Actions in the Everyday

To conclude these online learnings, we will be discussing how we can make an alternative world through decolonial repair, through creating a collective poem, visualizing and articulating what everyday decolonial cleaning looks, smells, feels, and tastes like.

‘Who Cleans the World?’ is a series of workshops that forms part of ‘Decolonial Cleaning’, a commission produced by FutureEverything as part of the Stockport Creative Campus programme. Find out more about Maya’s commission and the Stockport Creative Campus initiative here: https://futureeverything.org/news/maya-chowdhry-commissioned-for-stockport-creative-campus-second-installation/

Commissioned by Stockport Council and Greater Manchester Arts (GM Arts), funded primarily by DCMS via Arts Council England’s Cultural Development Fund (CDF), GMCA Spirit, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).