Kairos Spring Residency: Reworlding with Tim Waterman

Wednesday April 29th to Tuesday May 5th
Selgars Mill, Uffculme, Cullompton, Devon

The worlds created by capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism are coming to an end. By remaking the collective imaginaries - of everyday landscapes, of the past and the future, and of consciousness and the human mind - we can end these worlds peaceably and bring about the new world struggling to be born.

Join us for the first Kairos residency: six days of talks and discussion, walks and contemplation, community-building, rejuvenation and fun.

Geographer and landscape historian Tim Waterman will present the ideas he’s currently developing for a forthcoming series of four books on “Reworlding”. His daily talks will spark a group exploration into how the human imagination shapes the world around us and how we can start to move towards a new paradigm.

In addition, we will have guest facilitators to lead other activities that will help us to re-conceptualise and re-connect with the land. We'll explore the mythology, history and ecology of the local landscape, learn to read the topography with maps and make our own, become better attuned to the more-than-human world around us, acquire ancient countryside skills, and experience other embodied and meditative practices.

In a session by Devon-based writer Eleanor Robins, we'll learn the age-old art of memorising poetry by walking it into a landscape, bringing us into intimate relationship with both language and land. We'll acquire tools to help us memorise a poem over the course of the week, with the chance to offer this poem as a recited gift at the week's close, and go home with a living memory of the landscape of the residency.

Kim Willis will discuss the importance of mythology and story telling, sharing a series of stories that fit the themes of Tim's work. Chris Holland will teach us about bird language: how it works, how to interpret the different sounds birds make and what their calls can reveal to us as we move through the landscape. Alison Seddon will lead an embodied, interactive workshop to playfully explore different ways of relating to each other so we can prepare for the transformations that are coming with grace, humility, love and delight. And local musician Ella Paul will perform for us one evening with the chance for us all to learn simple instruments and join in.

We'll talk about bio-regionalism, land redistribution, rewilding, regenerative agriculture and how to build new land-based communities. There'll also be plenty of unscheduled time for games, cooking, reading and helping in the vegetable garden, as well as the chance to bring your own offerings to the residency and to shape how it unfolds. Activities that have already been offered include a map-making exercise, watercolour painting, aikido, an introduction to the work of painter Tom Phillips, finding bugs and beetles, and natural dying and twine-making.

This is the first of a planned series in which we take the Kairos mix of radical ideas for social and cultural change, intelligent salon-style discussion, group participation, community building and conviviality in a semi-domestic, semi-public space, and extend it over a series of days in a beautiful, rural setting.

As this is an experiment, and as we’ll be living together, cooking together, managing the space together and co-creating much of our time together, we do ask that you only apply if you’re confident you can embrace a spirit of flexibility, amiability, imagination, hands-on participation and openness - to people, ideas and imaginative possibilities. We want this to be as sociable and fun as it is stimulating and galvanising.

SELGARS MILL, DEVON

We’ll be staying at Selgars Mill, a beautiful converted 19th Century mill house with cottages, set in eight acres of secluded grounds in the Culm Valley in Mid Devon. We're aiming for a selected group of 20 staying mainly in single occupancy or twin rooms. There are also a couple of multiple occupancy rooms, an annex apartment, a shepherds hut and several newly built (un-heated) cabins. (There are photographs of all the rooms here.)

As we want to make sure that everyone who comes has both something to contribute - to the discussions and to our temporary community - and a clear sense of what they hope to gain from it, we are asking for applications, from which we'll select a diverse mix of activists, artists, designers, academics and thinkers of all sorts, who reflect a range of ages and economic circumstances.

Applications are open to all, but we will prioritise regular visitors to our Tottenham Court Road space who are already part of the Kairos community.

We have extended the deadline for applications, which we are accepting on a rolling basis.

COST & TIMINGS

To increase inclusion, Kairos will be subsidising this event. There will be a standard event fee of £200, with accommodation on a sliding scale from £50 to £550 according to room-type and means. Food and activities are included but you will need to arrange your own travel. Please note that we will all be contributing to the cooking and other chores.

We also have one free space for someone who could otherwise not attend, in exchange for some additional hands-on help.

The residency will start on Wednesday April 29th and finish on Tuesday May 5th. Preference will be given to those who can attend the full six days. However, if there’s a good reason that you’re only able to arrive on Thursday morning, or need to leave on Monday afternoon, we may be able to accommodate you.

“REWORLDING” with TIM WATERMAN

Tim Waterman is Professor of Landscape Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Tim gave a talk at Kairos in July 2024, Planetarity: Some Tools for Thinking About the Earth. 

He is the author of "The Landscape of Utopia" (2022), "Landscape Citizenships" (2021) co-edited with Ed Wall and Jane Wolff; "The Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food" (2018) co-edited with Joshua Zeunert; and "Landscape and Agency: Critical Essays" (2017) co-edited with Ed Wall.

You can watch videos of past talks by Tim here and here.

During the residency, Tim will be sharing his work in progress on a four-part book series, “Reworlding”. Each book will look at different ways in which the shape of human imagination needs to change in order to bring about more ecological and democratic futures.

Talk One: Planetarity and Future Imaginaries

The historic projects of colonialism, imperialism, and globalisation are the product of shared imaginaries propagated through literature, the arts, science, and political texts.

In his first talk, Tim will outline how enlightenment ideas - which were at once poetic and romantic, toxic and destructive - created the framework for building the liberal and biblical "city on a hill" in the New World. These Utopian ideals shaped both city and countryside through processes of building and plantation, but also through ecocide, genocide and the disindigenation of landscapes.

From the last century to the present, however, ecological, democratic and egalitarian models have gained strength and coherence, and these shared imaginaries have great power to effect positive change.

Talk Two: The Magical Extraction of the Curse of Labour

In his second talk, Tim will explore the relationship between land and labour from the enclosures and clearances to the present day. Social theorist Raymond Williams called the process through which the bodies of working people disappeared from the English landscape during the enclosures, the “magical extraction of the curse of labour”. Tim will draw parallels between the increasing invisibility of land-based labour in the 19th century and the development of the 21st century precariat and ‘bullshit jobs’. He will also share some thoughts about the way in which “AI” and technofascism continue the war on meaningful work.

Talk Three: Good Things

It’s often hard to talk about things like goodness and justice and easier to identify and address evil and injustice. However, it’s crucially important to frame visions of the future in terms of positive goals.

Tim will show how “goodness” is defined through our relationships in the world and in the material things we encounter. Things, too, are not merely objects, but also processes, deliberations and negotiations. When something good appears on the scene, we call it "a thing". Goodness and thingness are in dialogue, and this talk will explore how.

Talk Four: Frugality’s Futurity

Pablo Picasso’s etching from the turn of the twentieth century, "The Frugal Repast", shows a lean and bony couple before a table filled with emblems of lack: an empty plate, a glass less than half-full, a crust of bread. The couple is neither holding food nor eating, rather they are holding each other and gazing with dead eyes at a future that appears bleak. This is the popular image of frugality - of dearth and necessity. The wolf is at the door.

However, the root of the word frugality is the Latin frux, meaning fruit. How might we think of frugality, not in terms of deprivation, but as the basis of fruitful practice. The apple tree is pruned hard and its fruit is thinned. This economy in the management of the apple tree is a fruitful practice - it results in the largest, healthiest, sweetest fruit. The rewards of thriftiness and prudence are therefore not just moral righteousness in the present. Rather, they bear fruit in the future.

Frugality is thus an apt simile for Utopian methods in design that seek to create places for human, environmental and ecological flourishing. Utopianism is a way of approaching a future that is coloured with hope and expectation - one that learns from the past and requires action (often collective action) in the present. Sustainability in design then becomes a form of delayed gratification and sensible management, rather than abstinence or forbearance. It bears fruit abundantly and deliciously in the future.

PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE

Wednesday April 29th
4-6pm: Arrive at Selgars Mill, Uffculme Road, Cullompton, EX15 3DA.
Trains are every hour from Paddington. Suggested trains are the 14.03 that arrives at Tiverton at 15.57 or the 15.03 that arrives at 17.01. It’s a 10 minute taxi ride from Tiverton Station to Selgars Mill. We’ll set up a Whatsapp group so you can coordinate taxis.
6-7.30pm. Drinks and intros
7.30-8.45pm Supper in the Mill (and clear up as per the rota)
8.45pm: Shared Readings. Please bring a short passage on the theme of Reworlding that you’d like to share with the group.

Thursday April 30th
8-9am: Yoga with Prerna or running with Anton
8-10am: Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-12midday: Tim Waterman, Talk 1: Planetarity and Future Imaginaries, followed by group discussion.
12-1pm: Free time and lunch prep
1-2pm: Lunch (there may be a structured conversation over lunch)
2-3pm: Ellie Robins will introduce us to a landscape-based memory practice that we can work on in our own time throughout the week.
3-5pm: Open Space*
5-7pm: Small groups (organise yourselves), free time or supper prep (as per the rota)
7pm: Drinks
7.30-8.45pm: Supper in the Mill (and clear up as per the rota)
8.45pm: Kim Willis: Old Myths, New Maps: Stories for Reworlding.

Friday May 1st
8-9am: Yoga with Prerna or running with Anton
8-10am: Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-12midday: Tim Waterman, Talk 2: The Magical Extraction of the Curse of Labour, followed by group discussion.
12-1pm Free time and lunch prep
1-2pm Lunch (there may be a structured conversation over lunch)
2-5pm Interactive group workshop with Alison Seddon
5-7pm. Small groups (organise yourselves), free time or supper prep (as per the rota)
7pm: Drinks
7.30: Supper in the Mill (and clear up as per the rota)
8.45pm: Open Space*

Saturday May 2nd
8-9am: Yoga with Prerna or running with Anton
8-10am: Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-11am: Free time
11-3pm Visit to Culmstock Beacon, view the Bioregion & Deep Time Walk (bring a packed lunch)
3-5pm Open Space*
5-7pm: Small groups (organise yourselves), free time or supper prep (as per the rota)
7pm: Drinks
7.30pm: Feast in the Barn (invite any local friends) followed by games etc

Sunday May 3rd
8-10am: Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-12 midday: Tim Waterman, Talk 3: Good Things, followed by group discussion.
12-1pm: Free time and lunch prep
1-2pm: Lunch (there may be a structured conversation over lunch)
2-4pm: Open Space*
4-5pm: Small groups (organise yourselves), free time or supper prep (as per the rota)
5-7pm. Bird Language with Chris Holland
7-7.30pm: Drinks (and final supper prep)
7.30pm-8.45: Supper in the Mill (and clear up as per the rota)
8.45pm: Musical performance by Ella Paul followed by workshop

Monday May 4th
8-10am. Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-12midday: Tim Waterman, Talk 4: Frugality’s Futurity, followed by group discussion.
12-1pm: Free time and lunch prep
1-2pm: Lunch (there may be a structured conversation over lunch)
2-4pm: Open Space*
4-6pm. Small groups (organise yourselves) and supper prep (as per the rota)
6-7pm: Sharing Our Poems
7-7.30pm: Drinks & final supper prep
7.30-8.45pm: Supper in the Mill
8.45pm: Clear up as per the rota, and hanging out

Tuesday May 5th
8-10am. Breakfast (help yourselves)
10-11am. Closing & Goodbyes.
11am Leave Selgars
Train from Tiverton at 11.29. arrives Paddington 13.29.
Or, Walk in the Blackdown Hills, dependent on demand and transport.

This schedule may change. All activities are optional. If you have anything else you’d like to share please let us know.

*Open Space Options - to be decided collectively
Suggestions so far for activities people have offered to share with the group include:
A map-making exercise with Eleanora
Watercolours with Trudi
Aikido with Morag
Intro to the work of painter Tom Phillips with David
Finding bugs and beetles
Natural dying and twine-making
Helping out in the Selgars Kitchen Garden
Screening of documentary “Our Land”

HOW TO APPLY

Please email us at events@kairos.london and tell us why you'd like to come on our Spring Residency. Please include answers to the following questions.

• What do you hope to gain from the residency? How are you already engaging with the ideas Tim is exploring in his work and how might a better understanding feed into your own thinking and doing?
• What particular perspectives, expertise and enthusiasms will you bring to the discussion of Tim’s work and to our conceptual and embodied engagement with the local landscape.
• What groups, networks, communities, “worlds” are you part of and how might you help to nurture, disseminate and act on the ideas discussed and developed during the residency?
• How else might you help to develop, enrich, nurture or entertain our temporary community?

Please note that Selgars is not a fully accessible venue. Let us know if you have accessibility issues. Our Club Rules, including our no phone policy, will apply during the duration of the residency.