ama-teur: one who loves


︎︎︎






we never create alone



Like a musical jam session or a multi-ingredient soup, workshopology is the collective and experiential process of togetherness, creating spaces and temporalities where knowledge unfolds through experimentation, inter-disciplinarity, anti-coloniality and negotiations across pluri-versal visions. It opens our methodologies into a participatory practice of shared world-making, where creation becomes a collaborative process rather than an individual act.

The term originates from an open-source bio-art network called Hackteria, where knowledge is shared non-hierarchically, authority is distributed, and process is valued above predetermined outcomes. It builds on the concept of public amateurism, defined by artist Claire Pentecost as the process of learning, doing, and failing in the public sphere. More poetically said, workshopology is where we learn what works and doesn’t work under an ethos of love and care.




# the three cores of workshopology needed for relation-making and entangled transformation



seeds of awakening


︎︎︎





the action dimension

Workshopology is a service to the planet, where we enter into the dimension of awakened action. It grounds itself in the recognition that we are beings of the earth, enmeshed in its joys, wounds, transformations, and political ecologies. Despite centuries of colonial thinking that has created the illusion of separateness, to be is to inter-be with everything else. We inter-are.

Collective and participatory structures of workshopology can nurture attunement, repair, and new forms of co-creating with the more-than-human. These methodologies channel our experiences into medicine for the world, addressing contemporary conditions of alienation, erasure, scarcity, and uncertainty. 

Workshopology invites us to trust that what we need is already present among us, waiting to be activated through the alchemy of collective process. When we workshop together, we not only share knowledge, but we tend the conditions from which new worlds can take root.


# the sword that cuts through illusion to reach the shore of enlightenment



work with me


︎︎︎




Whether you work with people, plants, places, or the planetary, you desire for something porous and relational.


Whatever brings you here, you’ve arrived with an inner knowing that alone-ness is never where true change happens. You might be an artist wanting a more participatory practice, an educator searching for new embodied strategies, or a cultural worker holding space for communities in transformation. You might be a student, researcher, designer, musician, performer, community organizer, activist, land steward, storyteller, healer, or simply someone who senses that the workshop, the gathering, the collective space, is how we seriously what we need to survive together. 


# rather than scaling up, scaling deep works at the level of worldviews, values, and relationalities, changing the inner conditions that generate outer systems. 







book a free 20 min. exploratory call


︎︎︎



This is a space for us to meet, sense into each other's energy, and explore whether a next 1:1 Deep Dive (60 min.) feels correct. There is no agenda and no obligation, only an open conversation about where you are, what you are carrying, and what you are reaching toward. Bring a project, a question, or simply a curiosity about workshopology. To make the most of our time, you are welcome to share a few words about yourself and your practice (such as a website or portfolio link) when you book.




topics we can cover


︎ Designing Workshopologies

Building a participatory practice from the ground up, using specific tools and guidelines that I’ve designed through years of research and experimentation.

︎ Nurturing Collective Structures

How to design spaces where agency is shared, permeability is nurtured, and creation is a path to collective freedom.

︎ Honoring Your Energetic Boundaries

Learning to give without depletion. Understanding the extent of your capacity and the mechanics of energetic exchange.

︎ Navigating Institutional Labor

How to work within or alongside institutions without compromising yourself, your values, your energy, and/or your creative autonomy in the process.
︎ Identifying Your Medicine

Recognising the unique gift, specialized knowledge, or energy you carry, and how it wants to move through your work and into the world.

︎ Deepening Your Practice

How to excavate beyond the surface of what you do, developing greater interrogation, intentionality, and presence. 

︎ Transitions and Thresholds

For those at a crossroads between projects, identities, or chapters and are unsure of where or how to move forward.

︎ Holding Space for Difficulty

What to do when a workshop, collaboration, or collective process surfaces conflict, grief, or resistance. How to stay present without bypassing emotional truth.





# the basic architecture of workshopology





our next steps together ︎ 1:1 deep dive


︎︎︎



Following your 20-min Exploratory Call, a 1:1 Deep Dive (60-min for €150) offers a dedicated hour of focused and penetrating coaching. We might work through a specific project, design something totally new, navigate a blurry transition, or simply think together without a destination. I will bring my 10+ years of practice — as an artist, researcher, and workshopologist — to meet any topic you’d like to cover. Every session is different depending on the person, but what remains constant is the quality of attention, depth of inquiry, and commitment to defining what is alive in your work. Sessions are held online via video call with the option to record. You will receive PDF resources from me after our session to help you carry the insights forward.





When you contribute €150 to my upcoming research residency in Mongolia, I will reach out to you directly via email with a link to schedule your first 1:1 Deep Dive Session.

︎︎︎

MARY MAGGIC


︎︎︎


(b. Los Angeles) is an artist, researcher and pedagogue whose practice revolves around workshopology, a shared process of knowledge production and care that can move us beyond pollution, planetary wounds, grief, and collective uncertainty. These workshopologies center ecological crisis as the starting point for embodying our permeability and vulnerability, informed by what the more-than-human already knows and feels. With this participatory practice, Maggic constantly searches for new embodied strategies for dissolving the boundaries between the personal and the planetary, entering into new, de-colonial modalities of shared world-making.

After completing their Masters at MIT Media Lab, Design Fiction, their project Open Source Estrogen was awarded Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2017 in Hybrid Arts. In 2019, they completed a 10-month Fulbright residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia exploring the relationship between Javanese animism and the plastic pollution crisis. Later, Maggic received the 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, and in 2024 completed the Labverde Speculative Ecologies program in the Amazon rainforest of Manaus, Brazil. In 2025, they launched the art-for-ecology platform ATELIER FLORESTANIA, where upcycled plastic is transformed into life-size tree sculptures through public workshops, sold to raise funds for our real forests. Practicing workshopology since 2015, Maggic professored the Summer 2026 course Workshopology & Earthly Engagements at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Site-Specific Art. They are currently an artist-in-residence and project leader at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Network Medicine for the P.A.I.N. (Personal And Interconnected with Nature) project for Ars Electronica 2026. 

Maggic has exhibited internationally including Centre de Cultura Contemporánia de Barcelona (ES), Migros Museum of Contemporary Art (CH), Secession (AT), House of Electronic Arts Basel (CH), Centre Pompidou-Metz (FR), Montpellier Contemporary (FR), Museion Bolzano (IT), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK), Jogja National Museum (ID), Jeu de Paume (FR), MU Hybrid Art House (NL) and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE). Based in Vienna since becoming a mother in 2018, they are a current member of the global network Hackteria: Open Source Biological Art and the Asian feminist collective Mai Ling.




contact


︎︎︎


ooo.maggic(a)gmail.com


Workshopology and
Earthly Engagements


︎︎︎


a new course by mary maggic



Workshopology and Earthly Engagements is a new, experimental course taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Site-Specific Arts department. From March to June 2026, fifteen students from various backgrounds, disciplines, and career-stages met weekly to engage in a collective process of participation, reflection, feedback, and care. The class lectures were divided into six thematics:

1. Artists, Warriors, and Public Amateurs
2. From Biohacking to Collective Worldmaking
3. Love and Workshopology
4. Protocols of the Action Dimension
5. The Energetics of Workshopology
6. We Never Create Alone

Together over three months, students nurtured their individual seeds (topics they felt called to grow), excavated the hyperobjects of their seeds (systems they wished to dismantle), developed protocols (vehicles for delivering their medicine to the world), and designed choreographies (scores for their protocols). Their workshopologies were then given to the rest of the class in short-form and final long-form formats in a space of care and constructive feedback. A final class fanzine was created, co-authored by all of the students. The workshopologies in the order of the fanzine are as follows:

Alice Bazzichelli - Cosa Senti?
Amanda Montenegro & Anna Marie Lutz - The Guerilla Pharmacy
Anouk Euler - Impro-sensing
Bobbie Felstead - Usness in Vocal Mimicry
Carolina Páez - Befriending Composting
Erin Kostova - Comparative Empathy Masterclass
Iliya Hosseini - MAAAA
Martina Menegon - Becoming Chimeric
Mélanie Michel - Peeing Is Political
Miri Werther - Wearable Worlds (Un)Masking
Nazgol Sobhani - Roots, Memory, Migration
Paula Kiermaier - To Carry a Bag
Susangela Saracino - Holy Shit, a 24hr Totemic Ritual
Yevheniia Pavlova - Genie Coming Out of the Bottle







testimonials




“As a fellow colleague at Die Angewandte, and as a PhD student, I am extremely thankful for this lecture. I especially appreciated the non-hierarchical approach to teaching, which allowed for a bonding and caring atmosphere in class. It’s rare to find a space that feels so safe for vulnerability yet so rigorous in its research, and Mary really managed to create that.”

Martina Menegon, Sen.Artist, Transmedia Art, University of Applied Arts Vienna


︎︎︎



“One of a kind opportunity that has opened my eyes to new workshop approaches that focus on embodied practices rather than didactic approaches. As a person with a background that isn't located in the realm of "traditional" (fine) arts, this course has allowed me to redefine what it means to be an artist also within my line of work as a social scientist. I truly believe that this experience will have long-term ripple effects on my life.”

Mélanie Michel, University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna


︎︎︎


“It was the first time I told about my medicine in the group within the university. It was quite a surprise to speak about it so freely. The result of this event is still to come. But I already feel a significant change within myself. The feeling of not being ashamed but accepted fully and openly is something brilliant. During the course I started to develop individual artistic way to do the workshop. I also start to find the more precise links between my seed and the certain modern philosophical thoughts and authors. All these together allowed me to feel even more self trust, self confidence and most important - calmness and balance. And being in such a state is already quite a medicine which you can offer to the world!”

Yevheniia Pavlova, Site Specific Art, University of Applied Arts Vienna


︎︎︎

publications


︎︎︎












fanzines


︎︎︎




Estrozine 1.0
w/ Byron Rich, Gaia Leandra, Paula Pin, Amanda Padilla, and Carlos Gamez


Xeno Waters River Gynecology:
YES-HER Yeast Biosensors

Urine Hormone Extraction Action:
Materials & Methods





Schizozine
w/ Rian Hammond & Paula Pin (Spanish version here)







Becoming with Fungi
Research and Workshop Manual









Genital Panic
Manifesto for all unruly bodies

MARY MAGGIC   🌐   workshopology   🌐   work with me   🌐   about maggic   🌐   classes   🌐   writing   🌐   speaking