Getting on board with vision boarding
Reflections
“It’s easy to get caught up in the tides of whatever is happening around us and lose touch with what we really want to be doing. As a visual person, I made my first vision board so that my goals and values would be captured in one place, and so I would be regularly reminded to act on them,” says Rachel Walker from St Andrew’s, South Brisbane
Recently my friend Helen got up and asked our St Andrew’s, South Brisbane congregation member to plant more trees. She shared about how damage to the climate is impacting plants and animals, and of the disproportionate effects on Indigenous peoples around the world. Gently, she called us to action. I decided that it was time that I embarked on some local creation care.
In theory, I was “totally on board” because her invitation aligned with how I value God’s good creation. Realistically, had we not minutes later locked in a date to volunteer with the local creek catchment group, her invitation would have fallen to the bottom of my long to-do list, never to be seen again.
Does this sound familiar? Life is busy, and many things compete for our attention. It’s easy to get caught up in the tides of whatever is happening around us and lose touch with what we really want to be doing. As a visual person, I made my first vision board so that my goals and values would be captured in one place, and so I would be regularly reminded to act on them.
A vision board is a collage of symbolically chosen paper images, selected from books and magazines, that are cut out, arranged and glued down. In my creative visioning workshops, space is made for people to intentionally step back and consider their individual or collective circumstances before they start crafting. With the help of images and words, they then turn their thoughts into rich visual expressions that tell stories and spark meaningful discussions.
At the end of our first COVID-19 year, the Museum of Brisbane (MoB) approached me to run some workshops for early 2021. Following the challenges of 2020, people were in the mood to revise and review, and so workshops sold out four times in a row. For these workshops it was important to me to create a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere, so people would feel free to put whatever they liked on their vision boards, and so that everyone would feel proud of their vision, however grandiose or humble.
My favourite thing about those MoB sessions was seeing perfect strangers tell each other their stories and engage in genuine dialogue. Even the shyest storyteller can organically and authentically talk about their life experience with prompts from their vision board, since it’s built on images that personally resonate.
Outside the workshops I’m using vision boards to document the dreams and perspectives of local luminaries. After Helen and I went weeding at the local creek together, she shared her goals and hopes for the climate and creation and now I’m making a vision board to illustrate them for her. In a small way I hope to influence our collective social vision by sharing stories of people working for positive and sustainable change.
You are invited to join me at On Earth Festival on Saturday 16 October at St Francis College in Milton for a vision board workshop. You will be guided to create your very own vision board, while also meeting other people and engaging in some inspiring dialogue.
Editor’s note: Book online now to join Rachel Walker at the On Earth Festival on Saturday 16 October at St Francis College in Milton.
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