Practical Astronomy for Time Keeping

Practical Astronomy for Time Keeping is a workshop developed to accompany the calendar project, Time as Lover. The initial intention of the workshop was to help people navigate the annual circular calendars that accompany this project. These calendars are a variation of the Gregorian calendar and intend to spatially situate the viewer in relation to celestial bodies. In order to understand the calendars, participants are provided with basic knowledge of astronomy that can be useful in telling time— be it seasonal time, or time relative to sunrise and sunset, and moonrise and moonset. The information is also useful in orienting oneself with the cardinal directions using celestial bodies.

The workshop is inspired by popular education, and seeks to unveil the ways in which hegemonic paradigms informing our relationship with time alienate us from the ecosystems and territories in which our lives are embedded. The long term goal of the workshop is to create a container to collaboratively create socially and ecologically relevant calendars. Going from exploring concepts of space that are unfathomably large (i.e. our location in the milky way galaxy) to those what we can hold in our hands (i.e. the cycles of seeds), this community-based experience explores a multi-scalar understanding of time and space. Participants are invited to use their bodies as landmarks in understanding relationships between celestial bodies.

Olivia 2021