For our 2024 Ethics Centre residency, the Dirt Witches programmed a week of gatherings, talks and roundtables with our environmental activist members. Some of us had not had the chance to meet face-to-face before. The Centre’s lab was the ideal space to conduct these activities, as it carried its own ethical weight – this created a resonant and respectful atmosphere that was, in the end, uplifting. We were able to think deeply about our projects. We were able to reflect on our past projects and actions, such as the Barlow Street Banksia Forest, to analyse what succeeded and what could have been improved. We also met with future partners, who came to Legion House to brief us on their project concepts and proposals.

Ethics philosophers Simon Longstaff, Tim Dean and Cecily Hardy joined us for discussions on the ethical challenges of a large environmental group. This entailed workshopping the purpose and definitions of the Dirt Witches environmental activist group and of our art projects. We talked through how to move towards shared language, agreed rituals, intellectual humility, purposeful narratives and clear principles. As the Dirt Witches is a large 90+ group, with smaller sub-groups undertaking independent actions, we also workshopped task conflicts, relationship dynamics and the need for clear values and agreed principles. Since the Ethics Centre Residency, we have started to work on definitions of our Dirt Witches identity and purpose