REGROWING
REGROWING
A LIVING CULTURE
A five-week series with Dougald Hine
STARTS 7 & 8 november 2023
* That’s roughly £67, €78 or $82
If the regular fee would be an obstacle, get in touch and we’ll arrange a reduced rate. info@aschoolcalledhome.org
What is the work of regrowing a living culture – and where does it begin? Join us for an autumn series with Dougald Hine, author of At Work in the Ruins and co-founder of a school called HOME.
Tuesday group
20.15 CET • 19.15 GMT • 14.15 EST • 11.15 PST
Wednesday group
10.15 CET • 9.15 GMT • 14.45 IST • 20.15 AEDT
The weekly teaching sessions last 75 minutes followed by an afterparty to which you are warmly invited.
The Work of Regrowing
“A gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture.”
In the five years since we started this school called HOME, these words have been a touchstone, a description we keep coming back to. This autumn, we invite you to a deeper exploration of what unfolds from this way of naming what is called for.
What does it mean to talk about a living culture? And if we say that the work is to regrow such a culture, what does that bring into view about the ways of living most of us grew up taking for granted?
Where do we begin? What are the small steps of regrowing, the simple practices that we could weave into our lives, starting from where we find ourselves?
Maybe it starts with friendship, as Gustavo Esteva once told me. The company of a few friends around a table. The commitment to keep a seat at the table for the stranger. And to keep the smokehole open, as Martin Shaw would say. We’ll talk about what that might mean in practice.
What are the daring moves that are called for now? Since writing At Work in the Ruins, I’ve found myself in unexpected conversations, glimpsing the possibility of interventions within the big systems of the world as we have known it. Moves that might just help create the conditions of possibility for the small path, the branching paths that lead into unknown worlds, those ‘presently unimaginable futures’ that Vanessa Machado de Oliveira encourages us to work for.
These are some of the threads that I want to take up with you over five weeks this autumn. I’ll share stories and examples from the thinkers and doers, artists and activists who helped me find my bearings.
And what Anna and I have learned from five years of bringing people together in this way is that there will be connections that spark, conversations that come alive and, in some cases, deepen over time into friendships and collaborations that none of us could have foreseen.
So if this sounds like what you need, in the darkening time of the northern year, then I look forward to having you with us.
Dougald Hine
WHAT PARTICIPANTS IN EARLIER SERIES SAY…
“Dougald is an artist of the liminal. His journey has led him to extraordinary places, people and perspectives. He will take you through mythic territory, drawing on stories and symbols from his life, to help you find your own. A deeply nourishing experience that will leave you enriched and sensitised to the mythic in your own journey.”
PHOEBE TICKELL
Founder of moral imaginations
“When I embarked on Homeward Bound, I was at a personal and professional crossroads. I hadn’t expected such an equally philosophical and practical experience – and I never would have guessed where home actually was, or been able to make my way there. But I’m glad I did, for the world looks very different now and it’s a journey I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”
SAM CONNIFF
AUTHOR OF BE MORE PIRATE
“It was like we were all sketching in charcoal every week, making things bolder, or darker, rubbing them out and redrawing them, until, by the last session, some image emerged from all our overlapping lines. Many of us went off and began to draw parts of our lives differently using the shapes we found together. Forms we could never have imagined on our own.”
CAROLINE ROSS
Artist & teacher
How this series will work
We meet over Zoom for a 75-minute session each week.
There will be two groups: one that meets weekly on a Tuesday evening (Swedish time), starting on 7 November, and the other on a Wednesday morning, starting on 8 November.
The teaching session opens with a few minutes to land together as a group. Then Dougald will give a short talk introducing this week’s theme.
The second half of the session is a time for questions and reflections.
At the end of each session, following a short break, you are welcome to join us for the afterparty – this is a chance to hang out and meet each other in a more informal setting.
A video of the main session will be shared within a day or two, and these will be available for participants to view for three months after the course.
All participants will be invited to add themselves to a contacts directory which will be available during and after the series as a way to connect and follow up on conversations during the sessions.
At the end of a series, you will be invited to join the Long Table, a self-organising community whose members met through earlier series and gather regularly on Zoom.
Dougald Hine is one half of a school called HOME.
His latest book, At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies was published by Chelsea Green in February 2023.
He has been a founder of a series of organisations including the Dark Mountain Project, Spacemakers and School of Everything. He presents The Great Humbling podcast with Ed Gillespie.
Originally from the north-east of England, since 2012 he has been settled in central Sweden where he lives with his partner Anna Björkman, the other half of this school.