Hi! 👋 I’m Catherine Woodiwiss. Thanks for visiting.
I’m a journalist-turned designer. I work in response to my environment, and right now, seismic disruptions are stretching and smushing our environments like silly putty. As a result, a lot of my work is directionally about naming and claiming what we most value, and finding ways to model collective life worth living.
What I'm up to at the moment:
Active Projects
🕯️ Hosting events in Austin for meaningful, aesthetic, co-creative, purposeful inquiry & fun. Recent examples: salons, dinner parties, pop-up choirs, seasonal rituals, existential field games, storytelling nights, pop-up theater, music jams.
🏛️ Building collective rituals, values, and practices for some of life’s most vulnerable moments, with teams of scientists, designers, artists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, & more in Canada, the US, and Europe. Live projects: For young people launching into adulthood: Liminal Learning. For people healing from major loss: The Social Healing Project. For people reimagining the future of capital, generosity, and relational wealth: Coralus.
REACH OUT FOR A “CURIOSITY CONVO” TO CHAT ABOUT THESE
What I’d Love From You!
🗣️ Facilitating groups from "here" to "there" is one of my favorite gifts. I'm equally comfortable in a boardroom and a backyard. Book me for a vision-setting & strategy session, project & culture-setting kickoff, reflective retro, gnarly conversation, or interdisciplinary design jam if you'd like an empathetic, agile, strategic, and dynamic facilitator for your group.
✍️ I write a Substack about society & belonging. Sign up to read it if you’re curious about hope-spotting in the apocalypse (and peep my publication bylines below).
💌 My dance card for thoughtful, multidisciplinary, improvisational yes-and collaborators is always open. If that’s you, Say hi! I'd love to chat & see if we can play well together.
Past Work
For those of you who are interested in working with me & appreciate credentials, here's who I've written for, facilitated for, and built with:
📰 The Atlantic · The New York Times · Texas Monthly · The Washington Post · Sojourners · ThinkProgress · Books & Culture
🌐 American Association for the Advancement of Science · Austin Center for Design · Baylor University Science of Virtues Lab · Bloomberg Philanthropies · Center for American Progress · Colby College · College of William & Mary · Deloitte · European Commission on Culture & Creativity · Fetzer Institute · Games for Emotional & Mental Health · Guild of Future Architects · H-E-B · Interaction Design Association (IXDA) · Interintellect · iPortunus · Johns Hopkins University · Life Itself (Bergerac Hub) · Perspectiva + The Realisation Festival · Solutions Journalism Network · South by Southwest (SXSW) · Templeton Foundation · USAID · Yoxi
To great work + great fun,
Catherine
catherine.h.woodiwiss@gmail.com