Tuesday February 17th, 6.30 for 7pm

This event is now fully booked. We don’t have a waiting list.

With the prospect of civilisation collapse looking ever more likely, Utopian visions of any sort now appear beyond our reach. And yet the opposite, the bleak futures set out in so many Dystopia warnings, is not inevitable.

Instead, we need to look beyond the Utopia-Dystopia binary and find another way to imagine the future. The concept of Thrutopia offers such a way. Literary works like Manda Scott’s “Boudica: Dreaming”, Stephen Markley’s climate epic “The Deluge”, and Megan Hunter’s “The End We Start From”, recently adapted for the cinema, have pioneered the way.

Through a series of short talks and readings, followed by plenty of time for discussion, we’ll explore the concept of Thrutopia with philosopher and activist Rupert Read, novelist Monique Roffey and fiction writer for children and young adults, Laura Baggaley.

Rupert will argue that neither Utopian dreams nor Dystopian warnings are much help to us now. He’ll explain how Thrutopia, a concept he developed in 2017 influenced by Ursula K Le Guin, is needed instead. Thrutopia, he’ll argue, is our best-case North Star for a collapse-aware, reality-based future.

Monique will discuss, and for the first time read publicly from, “Gen Dragonfly”, the Thrutopian novel she’s currently writing. Set in Sussex in 2055 after the collapse of many of our current systems, it focuses on how we “get through” a full-blown poly-crisis thirty years from now. While life is tough, 2055 is also a time of “active hope”, miracles, alien disclosure, poetry and druidry, when love will be discovered as valuable – as an unforeseen, reliable system or currency.

Laura, whose most recent book is an eco-romance called “Dirt”, will talk about how fiction can change the stories that society tells itself, exploring the particular challenge of writing Thrutopias for young readers.

Wednesday February 18th, Drop-In 2pm-6pm

The books in our library contain a wealth of ideas from thinkers past and present. Together they add up to a radically new, emerging world-view.

We’re starting to open our library for readers every Wednesday afternoon. Drop in and browse our growing collection or bring your own book to read, but please don’t bring laptops, kindles, smartphones or other electronic devices. To view our catalogue, visit our Library page.

Thursday February 19th, 6.30 for 7pm

This event is now fully booked. We don’t have a waiting list.

In a future shaped by rapid AI-driven changes to the labour market and intensifying climate risks, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an essential structural reform, not a welfare tweak. As work and communities are transformed, UBI could provide a secure, unconditional income, buffering households against upheaval, enhancing social cohesion and sustaining purposeful human activity.

In this talk, Kate Pickett – epidemiologist, Director of the Born in Bradford Centre for Social Change at the University of York, author of “The Good Society” and co-author of “Basic Income” – will outline how UBI can protect health, education and opportunity in the face of the systemic shocks that are on the way.

She will show how UBI can act as a shield against poverty-related stress, a key determinant of health and inequality: A predictable income supports preventive care, stable housing and continuous learning, and mitigates the health and educational disparities exposed by volatile labour markets and climate events. The policy is particularly protective for vulnerable groups – women, disabled people, migrants and youth – who are most at risk when shocks hit.

Kate will explore the crucial design choices behind any UBI scheme. How much do people get, who is eligible and how do we administer and fund it? How can we develop feasible and acceptable processes and design elements and fund them through progressive taxation and public investment?

UBI is a potential lever to reduce inequality, improve health outcomes, and strengthen democratic legitimacy by decreasing precarity and increasing participation in civic life. Kate will invite us to join a collective ambition – grounded in evidence, tested through pilots and scalable to diverse contexts – to move a universal basic income from a distant ideal to a practical, transformative policy.

Saturday February 21st, 1 for 2pm

How can we craft the stories that we can live by in the future, and that we’ll be proud to leave behind?

We’re at a crossroads. With every day that passes, our choices become starker: do we give everything we’ve got to a future in which all of humanity flourishes in co-creation with the web of life? Or do we accelerate the rush to species-level extinction?

While this is the question of our times, we don’t always have the stories that will offer us the keys to get there. Our Dystopias are being lived in real time and the downward trajectory is all too obvious. Utopias feel like a distant fantasy, becoming less real by the day. And yet we are a storied species: everything we do arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other. If we can fashion the stories of a way through to the flourishing future our hearts know is possible, then we can get there.

Manda Scott, author of the “Boudica: Dreaming” series and host of the Accidental Gods podcast and the Thrutopia Masterclass, believes that 2026 is the pivotal year of our epoch – this is when we can shift away from the death cult of predatory capitalism and towards the Thrutopian future that is our birthright.

In this special afternoon-long workshop, Manda will join us via video link to explore the inner evolution that can help us reach towards new, Thrutopian ways of being. She will outline the ideas, then lead us in a journey through time and space to enable us to connect with the wisdom of future generations. We can then begin to find the agency in our own lives and build “MADE” futures – underpinned by Motivation (I yearn for a future I can see and believe in); Agency (I have the tools to change my inner and outer worlds); Direction (I can see both the next best step and the light at the end of the tunnel) and Empowerment (I am free enough of the old system’s shackles to take the steps I need).

Join us to explore the ways forward.

Tuesday February 24th, 5.15 for 5.45pm

The Trial of the Chicago Seven, directed by Aaron Sorkin (2020, 2hr 9min) tells the story of a group of radicals accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The trial that resulted stands as one of the most memorable and unusual courtroom spectacles in American history.

Politically and culturally, 1968 was a year of unprecedented radicalism and revolutionary agitation in a decade of significant turbulence that saw the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the abdication of Lindon B Johnson. The Vietnam war became the longest war in the US history; American casualties passed the 30,000 mark. When the Viet Cong mounted their Tet offensive, anti-war protests grew larger and louder on college campuses. Black Nationalists movements such as the Black Panther Party were already organising and protesting police brutality and systemic racism.

The Chicago conspiracy trial is a culmination of these developments. The defendants transformed the courtroom into a political stage, using the devices of law and justice to counter the charge of conspiracy with theatrical defiance, aiming to put the state itself on trial for the “absurdity” of prosecuting dissent against the Vietnam War, systemic racism, and economic inequality. The courtroom spectacle crystallised the 1960s radical spirit, and brought about a rupture, putting the American body politic in contradiction with its professed values and ideals.

There are significant parallels between that period and the recent decade, particularly the targeting of various movements supporting Palestine liberation. The proscription of Palestine Action recently and the Defend Our Juries protests and prosecutions carry resemblances with the radicalism and defiance that characterised the 1960s.

Following the screening, Awol Allo, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sheffield will lead a discussion on the parallels between these two moments, and on the appropriation of the legal system as a site of struggle against the state.

Watch the trailer

Wednesday February 25th, 6.30 for 7pm

For our February Book Club, we’re reading “The Landscape of Utopia” by Tim Waterman, a collection of short interludes, think pieces, and critical essays on landscape, utopia, philosophy, culture and food.

Tim will be the main speaker at our six day Spring Residency “Reworlding” at Selgars Mill, Devon between April 29th and May 5th.

Publishers description: “Exploring power and democracy, and their shaping of public space and public life, taste, etiquette, belief and ritual, and foodways in community and civic life, the book provides a much-needed critical approach to landscape imaginaries. It discusses landscape in its broadest sense, as a descriptor of the relationship between people and place that occurs everywhere on land, from cities to countryside, suburb to wilderness.

With over fifty black and white illustrations interspersing the twenty-six chapters, this is a book to dive into and spark discussion on new modes of thinking in the wake of unfolding global crises.”

Tim Waterman, who gave a talk at Kairos in July 2024, “Planetarity: Some Tools for Thinking About the Earth”, and took part in our Colin Ward Festival last September, is Professor of Landscape Theory and Inter-Programme Collaboration Director at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

We have a free digital download of “The Landscape of Utopia” that we can share with you, or a 30% discount on the physical book. Email us at events@kairos.london and let us know which option you’d prefer.

Friday February 27th, 6.30pm for 7.45pm

Friday Night Music is our new fortnightly series of relaxed drinks evenings featuring a short musical set followed by food and socialising.

Come before 7.45pm to hear the music, or after 8.30pm if you just want to join us for supper and/or drinks. Entry is free after 8.30pm. The bar is open for drinks until 11pm.

Klezmer Foygl, which means “Klezmer Songbird” in Yiddish, is a new ensemble playing both traditional and original Klezmer repertoire. Led by Clarinettist John Macnaughton, the group is rooted in traditional Yiddish music, while adding an innovative, contemporary London twist to its sound. John will be joined by Josh Middleton on accordion and Theo Malka-Wishart on double bass. For a taste of their music, visit Klezmer Foygl’s YouTube channel. 

The band will play a 30 minute set, followed by the opportunity to learn some songs and traditional dance steps.

Tickets are half price for Kairos Community Members. Community Membership is automatic and free for anyone who has attended at least three talk or discussion events, at least one of those in the last nine months. The Coupon Code to book will be on the next Community Membership email. If you can’t wait, email us at events@kairos.london.

Tuesday March 3rd, 6.30 for 7pm

Join us for our regular open mike night, where we learn about each other’s projects, build connections and offer each other support.

Open Projects Night is for: Anyone with a radical idea they’d like to share and workshop. Anyone setting up or running a small Kairos-aligned project who needs support. Anyone with skills and experience they’d like to share. Anyone who would like to help grow our interconnectedness.

The evening will include a series of presentations, followed by questions, discussion and offers of support, and a one-pot vegan supper that we’ll eat together.

All are welcome to attend. If you’d like to present, please send a brief description of your idea or project, along with any multi-media to events@Kairos.London by Sunday March 1st. If you’d like to just come and listen you are also most welcome.

Thursday March 12th, 6.30 for 7pm

In the modern age, it’s easy, and can seem harmless, to outsource memory to databases, photography, AI, and even tech as simple as books and the written word. But the pre-moderns knew that memory is far more than just a mechanical function. They understood it as the source of creativity and imagination, a vital way of relating to land, a living repository of ancestral wisdom, and more.

In this talk, writer and independent scholar Eleanor Robins will offer a fresh and urgent picture of what we’ve lost by forgetting our memories, suggesting that rediscovering memory practices is a powerful form of resistance in the current paradigm shift. Then we’ll put these ideas into practice, using a selection of memory arts to collectively memorise a short poem.

Eleanor writes about imagination and the possibility that we’re living through a paradigm shift in consciousness, primarily through Substack, where she is currently running the World Swallowers’ Memory Club, a group devoted to memorising poetry as an act of resistance.

Thursday March 19th, 6.30 for 7pm

Across many contemplative traditions, non-duality names a way of understanding the world that refuses the fiction of separation. It reminds us that self and world, inner life and social reality, mind and body are not oppositional but deeply entangled.

Less often recognised is that non-dualism is also a key idea in the feminist tradition. Feminist traditions have long challenged the hierarchical binaries that underpin power: male and female, reason and emotion, culture and nature, human and non-human. These divisions are not neutral. They are historical narratives that justify hierarchy, violence and exclusion. From a feminist perspective, non-dualism becomes a framework for truth, relationality and attention to lived experience.

The urgency of this perspective is clear in the present moment. We are living through overlapping crises that can feel relentless: the return of authoritarian politics, mass violence, public reckonings with hidden systems of sexual power and impunity, alongside ecological emergency. These issues are connected by a worldview that fragments reality and separates us from the world we inhabit.

In this talk, Minna Salami – a Nigerian, Finnish, and Swedish thinker, author of “Can Feminism Be African?” and the Substack Kaleido: The Europatriarchy Files – will bring together the political and spiritual meanings of non-duality by exploring what happens when we observe that politics and spirituality are also not separate.

Drawing on feminist philosophy and contemplative insights as well as contemporary political and cultural examples, she will argue that moving beyond either/or thinking is not a retreat from politics but a deepening of it: a shift toward relational power, epistemic clarity and more integrated ways of knowing, living and acting in a time of profound uncertainty and crisis.

Wednesday March 25th, 6.30 for 7pm

For our March Book Club, we’re reading “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” a posthumously published collection of essays by David Graeber.

Publisher’s description: “‘The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,” wrote David Graeber, as well-known for his sharp, lively essays as he was for his iconic role in the Occupy movement and his paradigm-shifting tomes.

There are converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a mythical past. Thinking against the grain, Graeber was one of the few who dared to imagine a new understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future — to imagine a social order based on humans’ fundamental freedom. In essays published over three decades and ranging across the biggest issues of our time — inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid, and protest — he challenges the old assumptions about political life. A trenchant critic of the order of things, and driven by a bold imagination and a passionate commitment to human freedom, he offers hope that our world can be different.

During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . . “, edited and with an introduction by Nika Dubrovsky and with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit, make for essential and inspiring reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber’s enduring significance as an iconic, playful, necessary thinker.”

Thursday April 2nd, 6.30 for 7pm

For the latest in our series of reading evenings, we’ll be sharing excerpts from books, essays, poems and other texts that explore new ways of understanding and relating to our animal kin. How can we humans restore our relationship with the rest of the natural world?

All are invited to bring a short passage. We’ll discuss the ideas raised after each reading. Texts could include  “The Spell of the Sensuous” by David Abram, “Why Look at Animals?” by John Berger, “Between Light and Storm” by Esther Woolfson,“Ways of Being” by James Bridle, “Leviathion” by Philip Hoare, “Animal Dignity” by Melanie Challenger, or whatever you’d like to bring. For more inspiration, you can browse our library catalogue.

Please let us know what you plan to read by emailing events@kairos.london Please come prepared to read from a written text, not from a phone, kindle or other device. The readings will be followed by a one-pot vegan supper and informal discussion.

If you’re unable to attend but have suggestions for texts to include we’d love to hear from you. And do let us know if there are any written works you think we should add to our library collection.

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

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, helping in the vegetable garden, music and yoga, as well as the chance to bring your own offerings to the residency and to shape how it unfolds.

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.

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 (a mix of activists, artists, designers, academics and thinkers of varied ages and economic circumstances) 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 glamping cabins.

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.

Every Wednesday afternoon, 2-6pm
Wednesday Reading Room
Our weekly library opening hours are between 2 and 6pm. Drop in and browse our growing collection or bring your own book to read, but please no laptops, kindles, smartphones or other electronic devices. If you’d like access at another time, email events@kairos.london and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

Every other Friday evening, 6.30 for 7.45pm
Friday Music Nights
Friday Music Nights is our fortnightly series of relaxed drinks evenings featuring a short musical set followed by food and socialising. Come before 7.45pm to hear the music, or after 8.30pm if you just want to join us for supper and/or drinks. Entry is half-price for Community Members and free for everyone after 8.30pm. The bar stays open for drinks until 11pm.

The Last Wednesday evening of Every Month, 6.30 for 7pm
Book Club
Look out for listings here, or email events@kairos.london if you’d like to join the Book Club WhatsApp group.

The First Wednesday evening of Every Month, 6.30-10pm
Wednesday Drinks
Our new monthly mid-week bar night, with free entry and a pay bar serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as well as vegan food. Whether you’re a regular Kairos attendee or have yet to come to one of our events, if you’re on your own or with a group, or if you just want a quiet catch up with a friend, all are welcome.

The First Tuesday evening of Every Other Month, 6.30 for 7pm
Open Projects Night
Our regular open mike night, where we learn about each other’s projects, build connections and offer each other support. Look out for listings on this page or email events@kairos.london with details of the project you’d like to share.

Friday day-time, 10am-5pm
Community Day
We’re now opening our doors on Fridays for aligned groups needing a place to meet. This is non-exclusive, daytime use of our space for brainstorms and strategy meetings, book group discussions and other creative get-togethers. Only by arrangement. Email events@kairos.london.