Our Approach

Helping People, Communities, and Organizations Act With Purpose

RUMINATION GARDEN advances advocacy by convening leaders and innovators across fields to amplify insights that advance public good.

We translate research and data into cultural advocacy projects that make information accessible, human, and actionable across diverse audiences and communities.

Organizational Strategy & Consulting. We offer strategic planning, communications and narrative strategy, and organizational development guidance to help leaders make decisions, develop and scale initiatives.

Cultural Work: We develop arts & cultural works, immersive gatherings, and research-based advocacy projects.

Cross-Sector Collaboration: We work across fields and sectors with methods and strategies rooted in equity with emphasis on: who is invited, who is paid, who decides, and who benefits.

Making Research, Data & Information Human

Many fields produce comprehensive research but fail to reach the people most impacted by the findings. The barrier is often specialized language, insider formats, and delivery systems built for peers, funders, or agencies.

Arts and culture can change that outcome by changing how knowledge is shared with the public. A story, performance, exhibit, film, or public installation can humanize information, making it accessible and actionable for more people.

One of the clearest examples of this practice is Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing’s Ice Watch, which placed large blocks of Greenland ice in major public squares so passersby could touch and witness melting ice over time (Copenhagen 2014, Paris 2015 during COP21, London 2018).

The work made the physical reality of climate change present in civic space, so the underlying research could be taken in through the senses as well as the intellect. (Project information: https://olafureliasson.net/artwork/ice-watch-2014/ and Tate listing: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/olafur-eliasson-and-minik-rosing-ice-watch)

The AIDS Memorial Quilt began as a response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s. Over time it became a traveling, participatory archive that made the scale of HIV/AIDS visible while holding each life as specific and named.

It has functioned as grief practice, public history, and education tool in the fight against stigma, with ongoing national exhibitions. (National AIDS Memorial history: https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history; “Change the Pattern” initiative: https://www.aidsmemorial.org/change-the-pattern)

Performance can also act as a public vessel for testimony and social analysis. The Laramie Project was created from more than 200 interviews conducted after the murder of Matthew Shepard, then shaped into documentary theatre that has been staged widely, including in schools and civic settings.

Its power is not only the content of the interviews, but the form: audiences encounter a set of voices that resist easy summary, which can prompt harder, more honest public conversation about violence, prejudice, and civic responsibility. (Background: https://www.matthewshepard.org/the-laramie-project/; legacy discussion: https://www.denvercenter.org/news-center/how-the-laramie-project-changed-theatre-and-the-world/)

Design can do similar work with data. Dear Data, by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, treated data as a creative material by exchanging hand-drawn “data postcards” for a year.

It’s not an advocacy project in the narrow sense, but it models a crucial move for public work: data can be translated into forms that invite attention and interpretation, which expands who can participate in meaning-making. (Project: http://www.dear-data.com/theproject)

Each of these projects demonstrate that the arts can convert expertise into public spaces of learning, discourse and action; making it a practical strategy for bringing research findings into public life.