Warm Data Lab: Community Practice

The world we share is complex, constantly changing and alive. Yet in facing interwoven challenges we can sometimes be left feeling stuck. How do we navigate these situations, cultivating a perception that actually allows for change? How do we meet (not match) the situations we find ourselves in? How can we unstick each other from the roles we play?

While there can be no straightforward solutions, learning to rigorously pay attention to our senses and our relationships with one another, and being curious about the underlying patterns that connect what we can't see, is vital in creating the conditions for a healthier future for all of us.

Hope lies in the fact that as living beings we are made for relationship. It is only possible to express our humanity in relationship to other human beings. We exude warm data in our eyes, our smiles, our verbal and non-verbal conversations, and the importance we attune to relationships with others at the personal, family, and community levels and in local, national, and global contexts. With this awareness, we can shape responses to effectively meet the complexity around us. Without it, we often enact simple responses to complex challenges which in turn create their own problems and stuck-ness.

Warm Data Labs - as conceived by Nora Bateson, filmmaker, educator and President of the International Bateson Institute - are immersive group processes which highlight interdependency and generate felt understanding and perception of living systemic patterns. By tending to what is moving and alive, we can create space for new responses to complex challenges. After all, is it possible to truly respond to the living world without information that is also alive?

Warm data has to do with how multiple stories come together, into a density of experience that manifests in a myriad of tones, textures, scenes etc, that surround our everyday life. To look closely at what’s going on around us as a chance to see the wider arcs of story that we are a part of, offering a means for us to explore how we would like to be a part of how these stories continue, grow, end, or transition. Warm Data Labs are a way to enter into this shared inquiry through story and conversation. They are made for a fragmented world. They have been described as a “kaleidoscope of conversation”. Through mutual learning, Warm Data Labs can reveal alternatives and open entirely different pathways of possibility.

This workshop-style event will be facilitated by Emily Stewart, a systemic practitioner and transpersonal coach who has been hosting Warm Data Labs since training with the International Bateson Institute in 2018.

• Warm Data Labs are open to anyone, of any age or background. Participation is not dependent on specific systemic thinking knowledge or skill. Warm Data Labs are an open forum for learning, discovery and practice being together. You are invited to step out of the familiar labels and into mutual learning and the full complexity of who you are. Everyone is welcome.

• We’ll be providing tea, coffee, water and snacks. Please bring a reusable cup or flask if you have one.
• As the Warm Data Lab follows a carefully designed process, it is helpful if you can stay from beginning to end.
• Please note these are participatory sessions - please only register if you intend on coming. We understand life happens, but if you know you can no longer attend, we'd be grateful if you can message to let us know: [email protected]
• The Old Diorama is a fully wheelchair acccessible venue. It also welcomes guide/support dogs. Please get in touch if you'd like to participate, and need any other support to make that feel possible.
• These labs are offered on a pay what you can basis. Any funds collected will go towards events costs. We're very grateful to the Old Diorama for their support.
• You can find out more about Warm Data theory and practice here: https://www.warmdata.life/

Host or Publisher The International Bateson Institute (IBI)