Welcome to the on-line presence of Gestare Art Collective. These pages offer a portal for you to enter into the matrixial borderspace(s)* of our collaborative and creative art processes.

Gestare is Latin for the verb "to carry" in the womb. As women committed to living as process artists in relationship with each other, the earth, cosmos and all its inhabitants, we honour and practice gestation as a form of inquiry and pedagogy. 

Upcoming Conferences

Womb Walks: An Arts-based Spiritual Inquiry.
Barbara Bickel, Nané Jordan & Medwyn McConachy American Education Research Association. Spirituality & Education SIG.  Vancouver, BC. Canada. April 2012

Gestating in the Womb of the Divine M/Other.     Nané Jordan, Cindy-Lou Griffith, Barbara Bickel & Medwyn McConachy. A workshop at The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. Creating the Chalice: Imagination and Integrity in Goddess Studies. San Francisco, California, USA. May 2012

Book Chapter in Process

Wombwalks: Connecting with the M/Other
In Creating together: Participatory, community-based and collaborative arts practices across Canada.
Barbara Bickel, Nané Jordan & Medwyn McConachy
Co-editors Diane Conrad and Anita Sinner. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Waterloo, ON. Canada. (proposal accepted)  

July 2011 Co-residency
Co-Residency in Vancouver during July 2011 at The STAG Project Space, Gallery and Residency. See our co-residency page to find out more about our collaborative gestations and happenings.

Gestare Retreat on January 6th 2012. We began the new year by gathering to share stories and make dolls at Ingrid's home in Vancouver British Columbia. See  

New Members
co-eventing and sharing during our summer 2011 co-residency in Vancouver prepared the way for two women artists to accept our invitation for membership in Gestare, Cindy Lou Griffith and Ingrid Rose. We five are now incubating in the expanded wombspace of our collective. Stay tuned for more details on our current artists page.

     A spontaneous Dakini* emerged from the spirits of the women as we unfurled
     our dreamscroll of 'Nap-in' dreams, evoking the untamed female freedom of
     this traditional Tibetan Buddhist yogini form.

    (Like a trickster or the Fool in a Tarot deck, the dakini releases blockages in
    the energy field and melts frozen patterns, so that the door of the mind is
    suddenly ajar and something new can enter. Dakinis are often connected to
    the phenomena of synchronicity and inexplicable coincidences of fate. 
     http://www.matrifocus.com/BEL09/noble.htm)

    *Dakini is a Tibetan word meaning "sky-goer" or "sky-walking female"..
     The Double Goddess - Vicki Noble 
                                                                                                             photograph by Barbara
       

Contact us

gestareartcollective@gmail.com