The Ego to Eco project was created by Joanna Rucklidge (Visual Communicator) and Elizabeth Freeman (Eco-psychologist) who share a mutual interest in work about nature connection, environmental issues and wellbeing. They wanted to engage in cross-disciplinary and transformative educational research to create a new way of engaging students with nature, the environment and wellbeing, whilst also enhancing the student experience.
The project was designed to provoke a psychological transformation among a group of visual communication students. Nature was used as a subject, an experience and a concept to allow students to explore the significance it had to them and to society over a series of creative tasks. These involved writing, image making, time in nature, discussion, research and finally creating an outcome for an audience.
