Dr Troy Vine discusses the wide-reaching and influential legacy of the Holistic Science programme at Schumacher College with one of the founders of the College, Dr Stephan Harding.

Stephan tells the story of how Schumacher College came into being then how the early courses developed into the first masters degree: Holistic Science MSc. He touches on the spirit of Schumacher College and the foundational ideas that led to the diverse offering of courses that ensued. Troy then continues by sketching his vision for Holistic Science and showing how the subject continues to have relevance in the current and future ecological crises we face.

Holistic Science: a 30 year legacy at Schumacher College

Rachel Sweeney is the programme lead on the MA Movement, Mind, and Ecology programme at Schumacher College which begins for the first time June 2021. We caught up with Rachel to find out more about her background and the wealth of experience, knowledge and understanding of the many facets of movement practice she'll bringing to our learning community.
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses/movement-mind-and-ecology

Photo credit: Like Briffa

Interview with Dr Rachel Sweeney, Schumacher College

We catch up with the new lead in Regenerative Farming at Schumacher College, Dr Nathan Einbinder. Find out more about Nathan's background, approaches to food production and his plans for the future of the farming learning programme here at Dartington.

An interview with Dr Nathan Einbinder, Regenerative Farming lead at Schumacher College

Satish Kumar is a well-known and much-loved activist, teacher, and author. He is the Founder and Director of Programmes at Schumacher College, and runs regular weekend courses at Dartington exploring the power of love.

In this interview, Satish discusses what love is, the things that hold us back from loving wholeheartedly, and the transformative power that love can have in our lives and the world around us. He also touches on why we need to take care of ourselves and function from a place of hope as activists and world-changers.

If you're interested in joining us for The Power of Love weekend in February 2022, you can find out more and book here: https://www.dartington.org/event/power-of-love/

Interview with Satish Kumar on the Power of Love

Sophie Caldecott sits down with Mark Gatiss, celebrated British author, screenwriter, producer, director, and actor, to discuss his love of ghost and horror stories, his advice for emerging writers, and the week he recently spent teaching a writing short course at Dartington.

Find out more about our events and be the first to hear when new courses go on sale via our website, where you can also sign up to our email newsletter: https://www.dartington.org/

How to Write Ghost Stories: An Interview with Actor and Writer Mark Gatiss

Rob Unett is a prolific artist and creative director working in portraiture and illustration. He creates with bold imagination and observation, exploring topics like sexuality and gender through the human form and face. He's leading a course in experimental portraiture at the studio at Dartington this week, and is also giving a talk about his fascinating career in art and fashion in the Great Hall on Thursday 7 April at 8pm, where he'll also make art live on stage. Book your tickets this way to join us for this event: https://www.dartington.org/event/earth-talk-my-life-drawing-rob-unett/

And if you'd like to subscribe to our mailing list so you can be the first to hear about all the exciting events we have coming up at Dartington and Schumacher College, you can do that here: https://www.dartington.org/signup/

Rob Unett on Overcoming Creative Blocks and Pushing the Boundaries as an Artist

Dr Rachel Sweeney is Program Lead and Dr Marie Méténier is Associate Lecturer for Schumacher College's Movement, Mind and Ecology MA programme, and in this conversation they unpack what movement ecology is, and how it can reshape our relationship with the natural world. Their one-day workshop, Shifting States, at Dartington on the 29th April is going to be a really great event for anyone looking to get out of their heads and develop tools to physically engage with the more-than-human world. Find out more via our website: https://www.dartington.org/event/shifting-states-a-movement-ecology/

What is movement ecology? Dr Rachel Sweeney and Dr Marie Méténier discuss

We explore the latest exhition in our gallery space, which features the work of the pioneering British potter and artist Marianne de Trey, who ran a studio at Dartington for over 60 years. In this audio experience, Tattwa Gyani, Marianne de Trey's daughter, walks us through the space, outlining her mother's ever-evolving approach to studio pottery, her inspirations, and the relationships she built up over her long lasting and influential career.

Marianne de Trey retrospective explored with her daughter Tattwa Gyani

We explore the significance of James Lovelock's work, introduce his most influential ideas, and consider the legacy of the scientist who invented Gaia theory.

The enduring impact of James Lovelock's Gaia with Dr Stephan Harding

In early March 2020 a group of MA Ecological Design Thinking students set off to Peru to work on a nature-based educational project that was being set up there by a former student at Schumacher College. As the global pandemic struck, those students were faced with a dilemma: should they stay on or return home? In this interview we speak to one of those students, George Heibel, who chose to stay on and who, upon finding a deep sense of belonging and purpose in the cloud forests above the Amazon, continues to live and work out there two years later.  Interview by Will Kemp.

Finding home in a tropical cloud forest

Artist Zoe Benbow has returned to Dartington to present a solo exhibition of her paintings, taking the subject of ‘trees’ as a starting point. In this interview we meet up with Zoe in the gallery and discuss her process, influences and broader themes that can be found in her work. 

In recent times, when Covid restrictions have meant we have all had to stay closer to home, for city folk like Zoe the tree became a symbol of an accessible wilderness on our doorstep.

Often the paintings reference landscapes as remembered in fleeting moments, or recorded in photographs and drawings. By exploring the same motifs and images over a long period of time and through the medium of paint, the canvases do not aim to be a representation of a specific time and place, but rather to imply the sense of a landscape, to evoke a landscape of the mind’s eye.

In this way, Zoe alludes to the modernist tradition of abstraction, where the painting, exists between itself and its audience – forever in the present – creating a liminal space where we, the onlooker, become ‘the figure in the landscape’ and – like Mary Poppins jumping through the chalk drawing – hopefully we are visually able to enter the painting with a little reverie and magic.

Zoe Benbow is a studio based independent artist with many years’ professional experience and lives in Hackney with her teenage son.

Find details for visiting the gallery here: https://www.dartington.org/whats-on/info/granary-gallery/

zoebenbow.co.uk
Facebook: Studio Zoe Benbow
Instagram: @zoebenbow

Zoe Benbow discusses her work in the Gallery

In this gallery walk-and-talk we explore the thought-world of artist Lou Rainbow, who is currently exhibiting her ceramics, paintings and prints here at Dartington. Lou discusses the deep influences, distinctive processes and vivid characters that have shaped the bold, captivating work on display.

‘EVOKE’
25 November 2022 – 7 January 2023

Louise Rainbow is a painter, writer and ceramicist. She studied Fine Art, Printmaking and Creative Writing at Bretton Hall College, Leeds University.

After graduating she spent two years writing, performing and touring comedy and performance poetry called ‘Not Very Lady Like’ with The Live Poets Society in Manchester.

In her early career as a painter she had her work selected for the Royal College of Art Hunting Prize and has exhibited Field Notes and Vivid exhibitions, and has been painting and making ceramics since then.

Louise says: “All of my work is about surfaces and layers, about hiding and finding. Poems, stories, glazes, slips, varnish, wax, paint, ink. I want my work to show my energy but I don’t really want you to see. Each piece is made up of a million unconscious decisions”.

Her work is concerned with a personal need to recall a sensual often lost moment in time, an emotionally charged memory fragment, a mark, a touch, a taste something to be reordered, transformed and recorded, pocketed as it simply moves away from us in time.

Louise is the Arts and Literature Short Course Producer at Dartington Trust.

Lou Rainbow's Evoke exhibition in the gallery at Dartington

DartingtonPath

1. Introduction

2. What The Path Is Like

4. Bench 2, From Railway Bridge To Dartington Weir

3. Bench 1, Borough Park To The Railway Bridge

6. Bench 4, From Riverside Picnic Table To Dartington Drive

17. Bench 6, From Cliffside To Dartiington Drive

16. Bench 7, From Old Sewage Beds To Cliffside

15. Bench 8, From The Grotto To The Old Sewage Beds

14. Bench 9, From The Mill Race To The Grotto

13. Bench 10, From Lime Kiln Yard To The Mill Race

12. Bench 10, Lime Kiln Yard And Back Again

11. Bench 9, From The Mill Race To Lime Kiln Yard

10. Bench 8, From The Grotto To The Mill Race

9. Bench 7, From Old Sewage Beds To The Grotto

8. Bench 6, From Cliffside To Old Sewage Beds

Satish Kumar brings a lifetime of wisdom to a live audience at the Great Hall, on the Dartington Estate in Devon as he shares his recipe for a happy and contented life. Introduced by Riverford Organics' Guy Singh-Watson.

Satish Kumar: Elegant Simplicity

Dorothy Elmhirst, Foundation Day, 10 June 1967

Leonard Elmhirst discusses Dartington Hall

In this audio diary, Andy Letcher goes into the Redwoods outdoor teaching Space at Schumacher College to consider what it means to be an activist. He remembers his time squatting trees as an eco-protester during the 1990s and asks if there are different ways of being active that don’t have us mirroring the thing we oppose. Must activism always involve protest or are there different ways of making change in the world?

Activism - with Dr Andy Letcher

Dartington's link with one of the most influential American choreographers of the 20th century. Listen to this podcast to learn more about Merce Cunningham's visit to Dartington in 1964 and the performances in the Barn Cinema.
Photo credit: Merce Cunningham & Dance Company (1964). Courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Trust, all rights reserved.

Merce Cunningham at Dartington

*THE BELOW HAS BEEN REPRODUCED WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF BOTANICAL MIND*

About 400 years ago, during the scientific revolution, science and soul were drastically separated, propelling humanity into four centuries of scientific exploration based on empiricism and rationality. Although the huge development of science has given us many benefits, its predominance has made us into detached observers fundamentally disconnected from each other and from nature.  And yet, in our own time, science has given us detailed knowledge about the evolution of our Earth – Gaia - whilst depth psychology in the guise of alchemy provides us with profound insights about the workings of the human psyche.  Dr Stephan Harding explains how Gaia Alchemy integrates the sciences of the Earth with alchemical approaches to psyche so we can live harmoniously within the limits of our planet.

Dr Stephan Harding holds a doctorate in ecology from the University of Oxford and is the Resident Ecologist and Deep Ecology Research Fellow at Schumacher College, where he co-founded (with Professor Brian Goodwin) and co-ordinated the MSc in Holistic Science for the last two decades. Stephan was co-holder with James Lovelock of the first Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia, his first book. His forthcoming book is called Gaia Alchemy.

www.botanicalmind.online

The Botanical Mind

Gaia Alchemy with Dr Stephan Harding

Dartington Trust is a centre for learning, arts, ecology and social justice based on a 1,200 acre estate near Totnes. This podcast is an window into our broad range of programmes, including conversations with lecturers at Schumacher College and Dartington Arts School, recordings of live talks and events, as well as reports of our latest activity both here in Devon and further afield.

Popular tracks by Dartington Audio Unit