Join us at The Foundry in East Cambridge from Saturday, February 15 to Saturday, February 22 for our third annual Foundry Festival! Immerse yourself in a week of free public programming and create connections with diverse communities.

All ages and skill levels are welcome to participate in as many activities as you are excited about. This is a great chance to engage the family over the February school break!

This year's festival theme is Resilience. Resilience to us is celebrating how our stories, cultures, and communities continue to thrive. It is not just the act of survival, but creating strong communities that take care of each other. Many of our communities have been consistently forced to practice resilience due to systemic oppression. This year we want to take the time to uplift the ways in which we band together to not only survive but to create moments together where we can truly live. We invite you to our weeklong festival that celebrates who we are, who we want to be, and a vision for a future where resiliency can be a word that is not only a response to hardship but the way we interact with the world around us. This year we welcome you to cook with us, create with us, dance with us, and continue to grow together.

Schedule of Events:

10:00 am - 11:30 am: Live Music Yoga Flow - Laura Charles and Miles Wilder - Drop-in program

Join Miles Wilder and Laura Charles for a very special Live Music Yoga Flow at the Foundry Festival! Laura guides you through a creative, slow flow practice accompanied by Miles' live improvised music. This is an all-levels class that will be focused on restorative body grounding and connection. Laura's teaching style is suitable for all levels of yoga experience, as she offers cues to follow your body's natural rhythms, strengths, and boundaries. We will move through a slow flow, and then complete our practice with gentle postures and stillness. Miles' music is live-composed using their unique multi-instrumental analog looping rig to create ambient soundscapes that support the important work happening in the room. Together Miles and Laura create an immersive experience that engages your outward senses while fostering a deep self-connection through guided movement and breath. This class usually happens monthly on the fourth Tuesday at the Substation in Roslindale. Miles and Laura are very excited to be able to present it here at The Foundry!

10:00 am - 12:00 pm: Smarter Together: On Tech, Community and Connection - Joint Family

Are you curious, creative, or simply looking to connect? Join us for a hands-on gathering where we'll explore how emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence, are shaping our daily lives- regardless of whether we use it or not. We'll share practical tips on how you can protect yourself from risks such as online scams, voice cloning, and AI-enabled fraud while working together to spot fake content. Through real-world examples, we'll learn about how this technology can impact all of us and why YOU need to be a part of the conversation. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or simply curious, this is your chance to share your concerns, gain insights, and connect with others in your community. All ages and levels of familiarity are welcome!

11:00 am - 2:00 pm: Collaging LGBTQ+ Protest, Love, and Joy - Kimm Topping - Drop-in program

Join us for a creative, hands-on workshop where we'll explore the power of art as protest and celebration. In this drop-in session, we'll use historic LGBTQ+ protest imagery as a foundation for creating our own collages. Through the lens of resistance, we'll focus on the themes of love and joy as essential forms of protest-because our joy and love are radical acts in a world that often demands we fight for them.

12:00 pm - 2:00 pm: The Heroes We Need Now: Design Your Monument! - Nicole Stone - Drop-in program

Have you ever wanted to make art that spreads joy in a big way? Do you want to lift up your voice to celebrate kindness, diversity, or doing good? In this kids and teens workshop, you'll design a monument celebrating your local heroes! This could be someone you know well or someone you admire in your community. Explore a variety of art materials and develop design strategies to bring your ideas to life. We'll provide art supplies like stencils, drawing tools, stamps, and colorful collage materials. Plus, you'll get to meet the artist and teacher behind the “Monument Project” prints, which were on display at the O'Neill Library in January. This opportunity is for the beginner through mature art makers. Submit your design to contribute to the effort to uplift Cambridge!

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Sing and Connect! Playful Vocal Improv - Lynn Rosenbaum - Drop-in program

Sing and connect with others through playful improvisation! Through creative and fun games, we will build a circle of song. By playing with melodies, harmonies, and rhythms and actively listening to one another, we will create amazing, original music. Our voices and our bodies are the only instruments! Appropriate for all levels of musical experience - including none at all. Lynn Rosenbaum is a facilitator with CircleSinging Boston and has studied and performed music, improvisation, and dance for over 30 years. She has been a frequent soloist with the Mystic Chorale, sang with the Boston Pops Gospel Choir, and played with the School of Honk. She has a Masters degree in Education and has taught children and adults of all ages, building community through music-making and play.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm: The Value of Repair: A Visible Mending Workshop - Maggie Ruth Haaland

In this two-hour workshop, we will learn the basics of visible clothing repair and practice slowing down in a gentle and fun container. As we seek to build a more sustainable world, taking care of our ripped and torn clothing can be an important and empowering step in shifting our relationship to what we already have. Visible mending is the process of not only fixing the hole but weaving beautiful colors and patterns into the repair. Together, we will learn and practice from the very beginning- from threading the needle to learning a few basic stitches and then will put it all together in a practice mend. Participants are invited to bring an item in need of repair, and we will spend the second half of class putting what we learned to good use.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Redesigning Cambridge: For Kids, By Kids (and Maybe Some Adults) - Amy Chiu

What would happen if a BUNCH of us (currently strangers, soon-to-be-very-good-friends) put our heads together to reimagine Cambridge? From tiny moments to the entire neighborhood - consider the course of your day as you spend it through the city. How can we make it just a little greener, inclusive...fun? For yourself? For others? Whether it's a popup reading spot, mobile library bus, community kitchen, city mascot (aside from the Cantabridgian turkey), or deeper, systemic change - let's brainstorm how we can build better in the place we call home, using cardboard and recycled materials! Hosted by a Harvard Ed school x UC Berkeley alum and creative workshop facilitator. Zero prep or experience is needed- just show up!

5:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Make Natural Clay Paint from Scratch - Biolithic Builds

"Regular" paint is liquid plastic mixed with VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds). Did you know you can make paint from natural, sustainable, local materials? At this workshop, you'll learn to turn Boston clay, sand, pigments and natural binders into a safe, zero-VOC paint suitable for walls and art. Participants will take home new knowledge and experience, as well as a small sample of their own homemade paint.

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Yoga as an Act of Resilience: Ancient Practices for Modern Times - Margaux Bertola

Join Margaux-certified holistic nurse, yoga teacher and reiki practitioner for an hour of utilizing Yoga and Yogic philosophy to support your selfhood. For the first few minutes, participants will be asked to formulate an intention for their practice. Afterwards, Margaux will guide participants in a 45 minute Gentle Yoga flow by candle light that will cultivate a balanced nervous system. Each participant will walk away with a template on how to start a personal yoga practice at home that supports not only their physical well being, but allows them to maintain and foster resilience off their mats. Open to all levels and bodies, comfortable clothing encouraged, yoga mats provided.

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm: Compost Chemistry: Turn Science Into Art! - Saskia VannJames - Drop-in program

Get ready to mix science with art in this fun, hands-on workshop! You'll learn how to compost by adding colorful pieces to a big mural that shows the perfect mix of "browns" (things like dried leaves) and "greens" (like food scraps). Together, we'll make a giant, eye-catching display that shows the right balance for great compost. Best of all, the mural will be part of Saturday's showcase for everyone to see. Come join us and turn learning about composting into an exciting art project!