Annabel Howard is an interdisciplinary writer, educator, and inspirational speaker. Trained as an art historian, she uses word and image to craft engaging stories, lectures and workshops for international audiences of all persuasions. Originally from East Anglia (UK) Annabel lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) and is currently a Geography PhD Student at the University of Victoria.

The Artwork

Howard looked at how citizens can creatively connect to place in fast-moving, urban environments. Using Nature-based Solutions (pollinator gardens in Montreal’s “green alleys” and other overlooked, neglected spaces) her work asks how urban citizens can create a sense of commons and forge space (physical and psychological) for ritual and reverie against the backdrop of construction noise, car fumes, and population density. What fugitive moments can we claim through actions like guerilla gardening? How can we learn to attend to place through micro rituals? What might be some small, practical steps that can help enlarge our capacity for relating to, and caring for, the shared spaces in which we live?

Her project culminated in a workshop, a community-produced Zine, as well as a selection of ritual instructions that ask “What words, actions, and incantations can we find (and create) to elevate our engagement with, and attention to, place?”

The Workshop

A trial workshop was held in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal with a diverse array of participants ranging from neuroscientists, ecologists, and plant biologists to poets, bookmakers, performance artists, and community leaders. Participants were chosen to form a group that would bridge empirical and creative ways of knowing to co-create practices that could be adapted across diverse urban contexts. The workshop itself served as a forum to work through simple ritual practice and to collaboratively discuss what meaningful modern ritual might look like.

The workshop generated a lot of interest, with multiple requests for a workshop series to build ritual practice in community. These workshops, planned to begin in 2026, will serve not only to expand the discussion around ritual and its potential, but also to start building a network of urban practitioners.

The Reach & Resulting Materials

Thanks to the interest generated, Concordia University’s Centre for Expanded Poetics will print a run of the project’s zine on their Risograph Press. The zine will be printed in the Fall of 2025 and distributed around Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Its analogue and digital forms will function as a secondary, more in-depth (and replicable) open-source toolkit for educators, artists, and communities looking to find ways to reconnect with ecological rhythms.

Though rooted in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, the project’s framework is designed to be adapted in other urban settings across Canada, offering a toolkit of rituals and practices that can travel and transform with context.

Download the toolkit: ENBS toolkit – Annabel Howard.