Friday December 1st
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Discussion starts 7pm

The second collection of essays, reflections, poems and artwork by Nora Bateson, the noted research designer, film-maker, and president of the International Bateson Institute (IBI).

“Combining” is an embodiment of her recent work on Warm Data and offers a radical ecological approach to many of the key issues of our time: climate change, political upheaval, education, health, food and relationships.

Tuesday December 5th
Doors & Drinks at 6pm; Film starts at 6.30pm

“Community is not just a sentimental dream of young people, but the next stage of human evolution. The people of the future will live in community.” – Dieter Duhm

“The Village of Lovers” (Re/Culture Films, 1hr 14m, 2023) is a new documentary about Tamera, a radical social experiment in Southern Portugal. The community of Tamera originated in Germany and grew out of the “free love” movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But unlike others experimenting at the time, the Tamerans realised that to create a truly alternative social model, they had to do more than simply react against the dominant system.

Based on the ideas of co-founder psychoanalyst Dieter Duhm, and other influences including physicist David Bohm, Tamera emphasised trust – especially in the most intimate areas of human life – as core to long-standing cultural and political change.

Forty years on, with 150 permanent members, Tamera is also a research and education centre. With its vision of a new planetary culture of “healing biotopes” it may provide a regenerative model for a post-capitalist society, rooted in reconnection to life.

Tuesday December 12th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

With climate breakdown set to increase the pressure on our already fragmented social networks, we need to learn how to care for one another outside the mechanisms of the state.

As we think about how to build radical, alternative communities of care, there are earlier experiments we can learn from. Long before wide-spread knowledge of global heating, or the surge in green politics, those involved in the feminist movement were already exploring ideas of mutual aid and anti-consumerism.

Lynne Segal, feminist thinker, activist and author most recently of Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care, will present some of the lessons from that time and how they might help us today. 

When Lynne moved to London in the early 1970s with her infant son, her Islington home became a shared living space for three single mothers, and an early feminist stronghold, where they attempted to establish new ways of living and caring for each other. As well as warding off the isolation and marginalisation of single motherhood, it also provided a focus for community activity and feminist politics. 

Drawing on that experience, Lynne will explore what a radically transformed approach to interdependence could look like in response to our everyday vulnerabilities of motherhood, disability and ageing. She will argue that education is key to creating a more caring, egalitarian world, and discuss the hope that comes from building caring collectives and radical friendships. Now more than ever, we need to learn how to share our resources and whatever joys we find in the process.

Thursday December 14th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

A majority of climate scientists agree that building an effective response to climate change requires us to abandon the obsession with economic growth. At the same time, as Mark Fisher and others have noted, it feels impossible to even imagine a coherent alternative to capitalism.

Chris Shaw, until recently Head of Research at Climate Outreach, has identified five “guardrails” within mainstream discourse that constrain our imaginations and prevent the emergence of radical political ideas that might challenge the status quo:

1. Climate change is not a challenge to individualism;
2. There is only one dangerous limit, 1.5 degrees;
3. Climate change can be resolved within existing relations of production;
4. Technology can fix it; and
5. All we need do to avert social conflict is to find new stories.

In this talk, Chris, author of Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate Change, will analyse how these five guardrails are deployed by our dominant institutions – politicians, NGOs and strategic communications experts. And how, instead of accurately representing the risks we face, they present images and narratives of life in 2050 and beyond that depict a world much the same as today, with some minor adjustments for climate impact.

Without a shared understanding of the true extent of those risks, it will not be possible for societies to organise effective responses. As a first step, we must dismantle the liberal fantasies of our 2050 future if we are to have any chance of creating credible, just, and inclusive visions of how we might cope with what is now upon us.

Tuesday December 19th, 7-10pm

The regular monthly meeting of our sewing club, under the expert guidance of Anouchka Grose.

This month we’ll be working on our sewing machine skills. No previous sewing experience required.

Any cloth or other materials you’re willing to donate most gratefully received. Potluck dinner and BYOB.

Thursday December 21st
6.30pm-11.00pm

A party to mark the passing of the longest night. More details coming soon.

Thursday January 18th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

In Roger Hallam’s first talk for Kairos in April 2022, he argued that whatever you think about revolutions they are now inevitable, given the overwhelming evidence that existing political regimes are unable to reduce emissions quickly enough to prevent climate breakdown.

This breakdown will create a “fiscal crisis of the state” – it will run out of money – and regimes will fall. The key question then is whether these developments lead to fascism or some form of progressive revolutionary change in politics and society.

In this second talk, Roger will take a step back to ask what are we actually aiming to do. What does it mean to create a successful nonviolent and progressive revolution today? Based on his last decade of research into how to create social change, and his practical experience of initiating many of the biggest civil resistance projects around the western world, he will come up with a surprising answer.