This is me, as I am now. In my mid 50s and becoming single, soon to be living independently for the first time since 1994. I’ve always felt that living in London was temporary, not suited to my constitution, but somehow I’ve stayed here for nearly 30 years. Time has raced by, and I want to slow it down a little. I’ve decided to move back to Norfolk where I come from. In the city of Norwich, I will be living in a little 2 bed terrace just like my birth home and minutes from my old infant school. I will have quicker access to wooded places to walk, such as Mousehold Heath, and beaches. I’ve started connecting with people involved in ecological and cultural projects, such as Culture Declares East of England.
All this change – and some other personal issues – means a lot of pragmatic, time-consuming work, quite a lot of expense, and reduced resources. In addition, last year, I reduced my regular paid work with Flow Associates to four days a month so that I could concentrate on these personal shifts, as well as dedicating more time to my calling of Regenerative Culture leadership.
I have a strong sense of my calling, which is to use my clarity of insight and nuanced, creative thinking to enable people to grasp the intricacies of the Earth crisis and its systemic causes, and also to imagine a wider range of possibilities for regenerative life-ways. In this calling, I have to look both ways to the darker degenerative and the brighter regenerative sides of the valley. This requires a good deal of emotional stretch and calibration to keep balanced. It means facing and staying with the trouble, and working to support each other as we find the global situation increasingly tough.
This work, typically unpaid, includes:
- developing my own creative practice, particularly making visual art and writing, both for my own personal exploration and for creative climate engagement with audiences.
- developing Climate Museum UK, a distributed and experimental museum stirring and collecting responses to the Earth crisis, and building the capacity of cultural workers to engage audiences in these issues. Building capacity includes supporting emerging practitioners joining our collective. I’m also building up collections of books, music and thousands of digital resources.
- supporting Culture Declares Emergency, a movement of individuals and organisations in arts and culture declaring a climate and ecological emergency. (For example, I’ve written content for a new website coming soon, which builds on my Culture Takes Action framework.)
- professional support, such as being a critical friend to UP Projects and on the advisory board of Culture Unstained.
- activism, showing up at protests and supporting creative campaigns for peace, climate justice and to end ecocide and the influence of fossil fuel companies.
- speaking at many conferences and events, advocating for a regenerative cultural sector that is ecocentric and possitopian, which in turn can inspire a regenerative world.
- supporting research and emerging practitioners, for example, giving interviews to MA or PhD students, supporting student placements and mentoring young people.
- writing and publishing articles for academic journals on regenerative culture.
- using social media, attending events, having one-to-one chats, and being in a range of networks to have conversations that further ideas about regenerative culture.
So, this post lays out an invitation to those of who would like to support this Regenerative Culture leadership, if you have any small resources and can see mutual benefits to your support.
If you have time and interest
- Explore, read, follow, share, like and comment on my social channels and blogs. Find them all here.
- Sign up to Culture Declares, to declare emergency and be part of a growing community.
- Contribute to Climate Museum UK by writing blogposts (e.g. reviews or Extreme Weather Stories), donating a resource (e.g. a book, or digital artwork), or signing up to our newsletter. You might even want to join as an associate, or full member.
If you have a little spare money, or commissioning potential
- Donate to my work, even a small amount such as £5. See the top link here.
- Buy my illustrated book Find Your Flow and Change the World or the Culture Takes Action toolkit. I’ll soon make my artworks available on this Etsy shop too.
- Invite me to speak, train, write or make illustrations on themes of culture, creativity, learning, futures and the Earth crisis.
- Get in touch with us on Climate Museum UK to commission us to develop a project (e.g. host one of our associates to engage with audiences), or to deliver some training. Email climatemuseumuk@gmail.com or contact via our social channels
- Get in touch with my colleagues at Flow Associates to deliver evaluation, experience design, audience research, digital strategy or horizon-scanning for cultural and science organisations. Email hello@flowassociates.com
Oh, also, when I move to Norwich, I’ll be offering B&B in my spare ensuite room, and nature+culture experiences of the city.
I’m always open to chats, event invitations and friendly connection to explore ideas in an open-ended way. Say hello!
With huge gratitude to those who have already supported me and this cause in moral, emotional, energetic and financial ways.
The Learning Planet 