scene ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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from the editor Dartington is a place of experiment, thought and creativity. Our ambition for scene is that twice a year it will offer readers insights into what is going on at Dartington: the artistic work we are creating, the new programmes we are working on, the people we are working with and the debates we are engaged in. We live in turbulent times and though based in the beautiful countryside of Devon, Dartington is very much part of the world. This participation in the wider social fabric and the interplay between art, social justice and sustainability is reflected in the mix of articles in this first edition. scene contributors will include artists, musicians, architects, ecologists, philosophers, teachers, entrepreneurs and indeed anyone who has something to say which is relevant to our main concerns. I am particularly pleased that for our first edition we have two thought provoking pieces from academic and social activist Bob Holman and Guy Watson, founder of Riverford Organic.
¯ Scene \'s¯en\(noun) 1.One of the subdivisions of a play. 2. A stage setting. 3. A place of an occurrence or action. 4. A sphere of activity.
EDITOR | Nick Comer-Calder www.caldercentral.com +44 [0]7779 320823 DESIGN & ART DIRECTION | biz-R www.biz-r.co.uk +44 [0]1803 868989 DRAWINGS | © Alice Leach www.aliceleach.com SPECIAL THANKS | To all Dartington staff who helped with this edition – your contribution was essential. Thanks also to our outside contributors, in particular Bob Holman. PRINT | Kingfisher Print & Design www.kingfisherprint.co.uk Printed on Cyclus Offset – FSC certified 100% recycled. Ink used is from sustainable and renewable sources. PHOTOGRAPHY | p5 © Marcus Crouch pp6-7 © Ben Smith at sitfoto.com p8 © Victoria Narewski pp9,10, 24 © Nick Comer-Calder p15 © Alice Carfrae LEGAL | The views expressed in scene magazine are not necessarily those held by The Dartington Hall Trust or its Trustees. Reproduction in whole or in part without formal written permission is prohibited and all artwork and texts remain copyright of the artists, authors and The Dartington Hall Trust. Drawings by Alice Leach remain solely copyright of the artist. The Dartington Hall Trust is registered in England as a company limited by guarantee and a charity. Company No.1485560 Charity No.279756 Vat No.402196875 Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington, Totnes, Devon. TQ96EL Tel: 01803 847002 Fax: 01803 847007
We welcome contributions from readers in all forms – letters, articles, photographs. So if you have something to say about what’s in this edition or about something altogether new, then please get in touch.
send contributions and letters to: The Editor scene magazine The Dartington Hall Trust The Elmhirst Centre Dartington Hall Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL email: scene@dartington.org Letters may be edited
the Dartington way – taking a broader perspective Vaughan Lindsay
‘More focus... greater specialism... CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER depth not breadth...’ so cry many who seek to solve the pressing problems we face today. It is true that focus can achieve a great deal, but fine analysis has limitations. The narrow, detailed view risks missing the organic linkages and interdependencies that make our society work. There is a risk of arriving at oversimplified goals that, whilst appealing in their clarity, miss the complexities of the real world. Focusing on a single issue – like profit – while important, will be unbalanced if considered in isolation. For example, we need to question the use of carbon offsetting as the single measure for environmental impact. While the measurement of the carbon produced by human activity has provided a powerful and simple metric to raise awareness of global warming, it also runs the risk of replacing one unbalanced single measure, profit, with another, carbon. As Professor Arthur Zajonc argues later in this issue, crucial insights into the challenges of today will not flow from reducing issues down to their smallest parts, but in combining this approach with a broader awareness of the interconnections and complexities of the world we live in. It is only by taking this approach that we will achieve the abundant life that was Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst’s original vision for Dartington.
This is why the Dartington way is consciously to resist any pressure to focus on just one issue or programme area. We believe there is a place for an organisation that actively seeks to encourage a broader perspective. It is for this reason that we have chosen the harder and more complex path of developing programmes across three areas – the arts, social justice and sustainability. By so doing, we have made Dartington a little more difficult to grasp than more specialised organisations – but it is this very complexity that means we offer a unique perspective. We do not turn our back on specialisation, but rather we seek to combine it with a more inclusive view. By so doing we strive continuously to see the wood from the trees.
‘More focus... greater specialism... depth not breadth...’ so cry many who seek to solve the pressing problems we face today ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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contents ARTS 001
the Dartington way
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a broader perspective Dartington CEO, Vaughan Lindsay, stakes out a place for Dartington in the world today.
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the Royal visit
Sunshine, flags, children and lots of hard work for the Queen’s visit in March.
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biomass heating: a fundraising success story
Funding a £1.2m project needs skilful planning, Dartington’s plan to convert to biomass heating is off to a strong start.
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captured
The richness of a year’s activities at Dartington in photographs.
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Rooks
A poem by Devon poet, Peter Oswald.
a place where new work is created
Director of Arts, David Francis, outlines his plans for making Dartington a leading centre for the production of new work.
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South West Music School Residential
A photo essay on a weekend of young people making dance and music.
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Meredith Monk: on being an artist
The renowned US composer, performer and vocalist gives her take on what artists need to be creative.
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new on the scene The Clockwork Moth
The founders of The Clockwork Moth shadow puppet theatre tell how they created their new show.
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from the collection
One item from Dartington’s art collection.
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DARTINGTON SCENE ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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focusing on process as well as outcomes
Director of Social Justice, Celia Atherton, argues that social justice should be about changing the way we think and act as well as generating measurable outcomes.
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stand up in court a Research in Practice (RiP) case study
A RiP initiative helped social workers be more effective in Court, so that decisions on children and families are better informed.
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modest living consumerism makes us miserable
Bob Holman, academic and community activist, suggests we would be happier with less not more.
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the power of telling stories
Todor Proykov from Research in Practice for Adults (ripfa) is at the forefront of new work on learning from telling stories.
this issue’s featured artist
ALICE LEACH
Dartington is all about developing new ideas and supporting new talent.
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The Salzburg Global Seminar
Director of Sustainability, Charlie McConnell, describes a major new collaboration between Salzburg and Dartington.
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Arthur Zajonc:
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green grows the garden
Schumacher College’s Sustainable Horticulture course draws on the Dartington estate as a living classroom.
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think big: act big
The Carbon Disclosure Project is hailed by world leaders. Schumacher College inspired Paul Dickenson to set up the project which is now supported by half the world’s largest corporations.
seasonal recipe spring greens with wet and wild garlic
looking for the underlying issues A regular teacher at Schumacher College, Professor Zajonc on why a holistic approach is needed to the challenges facing the world today.
living sensibly
‘Opinionated and anarchic’ entrepreneur Guy Watson founded Riverford Organic but still doesn’t believe organics is the whole answer.
Thoughtful food from the Riverford Farm Cook Book.
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Dartington directory
Useful numbers and email addresses.
With this in mind each edition of scene will be a showcase for work by an artist with connections to Dartington. We are delighted to have Alice Leach as our first artist. Alice was a pupil of Dartington Hall School and studied at Chelsea School of Art and City and Guilds of London Art School. With a growing reputation, she was recently featured in the Saatchi Online top ten chosen by Rebecca Wilson, Saatchi Gallery’s Director of Development. Alice is a member of the Dartington Printmakers and lives and works in South Devon. ‘I have long been fascinated by crows and rooks – with their strong form, restless movement, gimlet eyes, oversize beaks and contrary natures. Peter Oswald’s poem Rooks gave me the incentive to revisit a favourite theme for scene.’ Alice has a solo show at The Bowie gallery in Totnes 10th-21st July. www.aliceleach.com aliceleach-artist.blogspot.com 003
a place where new work is created Our prime focus for the Arts is to move Dartington from simply being a receiving house for artists’ completed works to becoming a major creative centre. We will of course continue to host existing works, but we want the emphasis to be Dartington as a place where new work is created. The new Dartington Space initiative is critical to our achieving this goal. Dartington Space will mean we can provide studios, technical resources and a place for creative ideas. Space will be for artists locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. In particular we want local people to feel this is a resource for them. I hope that in five years’ time artists planning new work will automatically call Dartington. Our plans for Space will build on areas where we already have a strong track record. For example, our existing film programme will be enhanced by a second screening space.
This new screening room will be digitally linked to the live performance space in Studio 3. So this will give us a powerful set of new resources for our existing audience for film, as well as meeting the local demand for training in digital media. With all this in place, we can offer people weekend courses around film-making, music, sound and digital media. Space will enable us to develop our relationship with major creative organisations such as the English Touring Opera. Last year ETO were wrestling to lift a complex new opera off the written page into three dimensions, so they came to Dartington for a week of workshops. They found that taking the company out of the mainstream enabled them to focus entirely on the piece, and they made tremendous progress. At the same time as creating new physical resources for the arts, we want to establish a new community of resident and associate artists.
We will have an associate artists programme which will provide opportunities for alumni of our key partners – Idyllwild, CalArts, University College Falmouth and KEVICC. Dartington will develop more opportunities that will help our associate artists build sustainable careers as artists or in the arts industry. As a start, we will have an artist in residence this summer from Iran. We’re working on this residency in partnership with Visiting Arts – a charity that looks to strengthen intercultural understanding through the arts. Hosting an artist from Iran will build on the legacy of Dartington as a refuge for artists from conflict zones. The artist (who works in film and digital media) will be based with the Schumacher College team. Having an artist embedded in a community focussed on sustainability is exactly the sort of cross-fertilisation of disciplines that makes Dartington unique.
David Francis DIRECTOR OF ARTS
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Over three days in February, 41 students from South West Music School and eight dancers from Swindon Youth Dance Academy were in residency at Dartington.The students composed and improvised music for animated films and footage from the Dartington Archive.
South West Music School Residential
The culmination of the weekend was new music and dance created to accompany a 1935 film of ‘Danse Macabre’ shot in Dartington’s Barn Theatre. Today’s students danced on the same stage used for the performance 75 years earlier.
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Meredith Monk: on beinganartist This is an edited extract from an interview with award winning composer/performer/ vocalist Meredith Monk while she was in residence at Dartington last year.
What is your sense of how it is to be an artist today? MM: ‘You have to have an inner intention to be an artist, and I think it has to come out of a sense of love and commitment... There’s a sense of taking a vow to be an artist – it’s kind of a calling – more than being a job – and there’s something good about that. The financial ebb and flow is part of the lifestyle... it’s not this steady thing, like having a job which is always going to be the same, but that’s one of the things I love about it – there’s a sense of freedom. And one thing you learn to do is to be very imaginative and to be able to flow with changes that come... I think that this is just one of the principles of life. I always say to young people that are starting out as artists just don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t follow your dream... We have very short life spans and I think that if you ignore your calling or your dream or what you love to do, in a sense you’re frittering away your time on earth.’
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What support do artists need to enable them to work well? MM: ‘I know what I need as an artist and that is time. I need time to have this contemplative period, to find the sources of what I’m going to be working on. I need time to be able to explore and not have to produce a product. I think artists need time to work and not have to come out with something right away, too early in a process, but be able to follow a process. Ultimately art is about mystery, it’s about articulating the unknown and articulating what cannot be articulated... And so if you’re always just taking your first solutions and you never have the time to go a little deeper – into what other possibilities there are – I think you end up making the same thing over and over again. I’m most interested in each piece being able to stumble around in the dark and leading me to something that I don’t know. I feel if I start with something that I know – then I know that already. So to me making art is also uncovering and I think you really, really need to have time to do that. You can’t just go into rehearsal and think... I’m coming up with a product in the first minute.
“”
This has been a wonderful period for us here at Dartington, I wish we could be here a little longer because already I can feel the end coming. We’re doing a showing and so what we’ve been working on is already turning into a structure. But to be here and able to have the luxury of not having to think about other things and just being in one place – I just think that’s what every artist needs. In the States, there are artists’ colonies and people can stay from two weeks to eight weeks – and everyone I know thinks this is a kind of paradise – and I think this is what Dartington is – it’s a kind of paradise. You get a lot from all the arts being together, the visual artists, writers and everybody in the same place. I’m very stimulated by talking to a painter, it gets me thinking about what they are doing with paint and wondering how that would be with music... it’s so interesting. I want to say how grateful I am to Dartington – it is an enlightened place at so many levels, all the projects on sustainability, the research and the arts. I don’t know of any other place like this – it’s really a privilege to be here.’
Just don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t follow your dream...
Meredith Monk will be at the Dartington International Summer School this summer. ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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newon the scene
The
Clockwork Moth Dartington College of Arts graduates, Charlie Scullion & Victoria Narewski, founders of The Clockwork Moth, discuss their first shadow puppet show, Clockwork, and living & working as emerging artists.
‘There are lots of Eastern countries that perform shadow puppetry; China, Bali, Java are the main centres. But we come from a Western tradition of shadow work which developed from the 17th century onwards. We chose Philip Pullman’s Clockwork because it’s a lovely story and so short we didn’t have to cut anything. Pullman draws parallels between life and a big clockwork mechanism where everyone has a part to play. Once the mechanism is in motion all the parts affect each other... but the characters don’t know that they are part of that mechanism. The puppets perform their parts but never see the story as it unfolds. We’ve been working on the piece for a year. We lived with our parents for free to give ourselves time to design the storyboard and work out the administration of the tour. In May last year we bought a little van and lived in that, while we rented a very cheap workshop in which we could finish the design process. Now we live in our workshop, with all our puppets and we rehearse in that room – everything gets done in that one room!
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We’ve had to give up some aspects of the comfortable lifestyle that we might want, but we plan that once we’ve done this we’ll have a little bit of cash to put into the next project so we can get a bigger enterprise going. I think the most important thing is – and funnily enough this kind of philosophy comes from Philip Pullman’s ideas on artistry – you can’t wait for the right moment and for inspiration to dawn on you. You have to treat it as a job. We sometimes have to work harder than we want to. There’s a point where you might think, “You know what, I’m just going to stop, that’s it for today.” But you know that if you do that, you won’t have everything you need for the next day. If you want to be a creative practitioner then you have to always be at work. So you have to push yourself – and if you don’t want to do that then you need to get a normal job. There’s never a point in time when we’re not thinking about the show. I dream about cutting out puppets! But because it’s a creative practice we enjoy it.’
from the collection LEE MOOR 2 WOVEN BY BOBBIE COX 1978 One of five tapestries titled Dartmoor Winter Granite Reliefs, this piece was inspired by the Dartmoor Lee Moor china clay works. The subtle textures of the granite and the washing out of the white clay have been realised by spinning local natural white, grey, brown and black fleece in the studio. It was woven on a vertical frame on one warp dividing it as needed to create the relief. Lee Moor 2 is temporarily on exhibition this summer at High Cross House, the current home of Dartington’s extensive 20th century art collection. Also on display this summer is Sense of Place, an installation of contemporary artworks created in response to the iconic modernist architecture of High Cross House by tapestry weaver Jilly Edwards and composer Nigel Morgan. www.dartington.org/high-cross-house ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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the Royal visit 11.03.2010 A moment of history Dartington’s first ever visit by a reigning monarch. The sun shone, the Queen smiled, the children waved... and the staff worked their socks off.
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DARTINGTON SCENE ARTS SOCIAL JUSTICE SUSTAINABILITY
Merlin Hyman,CEO of RegenSW sees Dartington as a model for their renewables strategy. In 2008 Dartington asked sustainable energy agency RegenSW if they would fund the installation of a biomass heating system. Regen were immediately enthusiastic, Dartington’s reputation as a cultural centre and leader in sustainability making them an ideal partner to bring biomass energy to the attention of other organisations and the general public. For successful implementation a number of major concerns had to be addressed: 1. Would biomass heating be the right solution for Dartington? 2. Could the capital cost be supported? 3. Could the Dartington estate supply the biomass needed? 4. Would biomass be competitive with the cost of oil/gas? RegenSW underwrote the cost of a feasibility study undertaken by major engineering company Black & Veitch. Visits were made to Castle Drogo and other sites with biomass heating. This measured approach, combined with Black & Veitch’s analysis, provided assurance that the project was technically viable.
Dartington is one of the ‘pipeline’ projects supported by the SW bioheat programme. The programme seeks to develop exemplar sites that will promote and encourage the use of biomass wood fuel installations. The importance of renewable heat has been neglected to date and is central if we are to put the UK on course for a secure and sustainable energy future. Dartington is seen by the programme as a very important site, due to its overall approach to promoting sustainability and renewable energy. Dartington’s woodlands will be central to the success of the project. At the present time the estate could produce 20% of the biomass required. Dartington have been included in a major Forestry Commission research programme on short rotation forestry for biomass production. Initial studies indicate that, depending upon the type of trees grown, between 22 and 100 hectares of woodland will be needed to support the biomass plant. Future projections on oil and gas prices clearly indicate that the price of biomass heating will be highly competitive over time. In addition, from April 2011 the government’s Renewable Energy Incentive will subsidise the cost of the biomass plant. The capital cost is in the region of £1.2m, Regen SW and other government initiatives will support up to 40% of this – Dartington will need to undertake a major fundraising drive to raise the remaining £750,000.
Dartington’s potential for self supply, along with the installation of biomass boilers into a very mixed estate portfolio, is in itself important to establish a body of practical knowledge and experience, but the aims of promoting sustainability and renewables skills training offers a much broader opportunity to accelerate the uptake of renewable energy. RegenSW are extremely interested in developing a relationship beyond the bioheat programme with Dartington as part of its core aims and goals in accelerating the uptake of renewable energy and promotion of skills and economic opportunities.
Merlin Hyman CEO REGENSW
biomass heating: a fundraising success story ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010
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captured: a year at Dartington
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Rosehips, Leaves © Richard Moran | People in Great Hall © Kate Mount | Monks, Casting, Birds © Alice Carfrae | Dancers on steps, Singer, Earth & Moon © Kevin Clifford | Bridge, Deckchairs © The Dartington Hall Trust | Bring the Carnyx– Apparitions by Stephen Montague, image © Alice Carfrae
If you have photographs of Dartington that you would like us to consider for the next edition of scene please email them to scene@dartington.org Please do not send hard copies of photographs.
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focusing on process as well as outcomes What should a social justice programme focus on? While only very recently brought together as a unified programme, social justice initiatives have long been a key aspect of Dartington’s work. Our list of achievements over the last 50 years is substantial: we established one of the first sheltered housing sites, hosted discussions central to the birth of a national health service, brought together children from very diverse backgrounds to live and learn together, researched the impact of our institutions for vulnerable young children and led the change of national policy on supporting vulnerable families. In addition, we were first to seriously consider the need for social workers and other professionals to use research effectively. All this is a proud backdrop to the start of a formal social justice programme at Dartington.
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Our mission is broad: to promote equality, fairness and the fulfilment of potential. I will explore each of these aspects in this and future articles. It all starts with the fundamental concept of equality – an ideal that has been with us for centuries and is as vital in richer as well as poorer societies. The last three decades have demonstrated, often painfully, that becoming richer as a society does not lead to everyone becoming better off. Quite the opposite, some become obscenely rich and society becomes unhealthily obsessed with individual wealth. This in turn creates wide-spread social dis-ease. Bob Holman, in his article on p16, refers to evidence that the greater the disparities in wealth the greater the unhappiness and bad health of both poor and rich. As Tony Judt writes in his new book Ill Fares the Land: A Treatise on our Present Discontents “The question of ‘usefulness’ needs to be recast, if we confine ourselves to issues of economic efficiency and productivity, ignoring ethical considerations and all reference to broader social goals, we cannot hope to engage it... we are intuitively
Celia Atherton OBE DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
familiar with issues of injustice, unfairness, inequality and morality we have just forgotten how to talk about them.” This thought underlies what we in the Dartington Social Justice programme have come to believe – that real social justice demands we focus on process as much as outcomes. How we talk about and do things, and why we do them, is as important as the measurable outcomes. Our Social Justice programme has always been about helping marginalised people get the best possible service they can – therefore the best possible opportunities in their lives. To achieve this, RiP and ripfa publish research, organise events and run websites – with the intention of changing the culture of social agency services. The School for Social Entrepreneurs supports individuals with great ideas in making social change. All this work focuses on shifting the way people think and act, and the values they hold. Such changes are as hard to measure as outcomes but they are just as vital if we really want to make the greatest difference in the lives of those we should be most concerned about.
standup incourt a Research in Practice case study
Research in Practice (RiP) at Dartington is dedicated to improving access to and use of research by services for children, young people and their families. Here we describe an innovative project to improve social workers’ use of research in court evidence.
The problem
The method
Courts disregarding social workers’ evidence
Collaboration and pilot study
Child and family social workers commonly reported that they are not viewed as experts by courts; they felt unconfident about citing research in court, and experienced crossexamination as undermining. Social workers often felt their evidence was only given credibility when corroborated by an expert witness such as a psychologist.
Colleen Eccles, Deputy Director at Research in Practice set up a project to tackle this issue, working with Nicole Erlen, a solicitor and barrister who trains social workers. Ten social work professionals collaborated to develop an action pack of resources. The action pack included tools to support social workers in using evidence – fact sheets, training exercises, tips, self-assessment forms and so on. Twelve more agencies tested the materials, Bournemouth Borough Council being one of the piloting agencies.
The results Courts listen & greater use of research Bournemouth’s representatives reported that involvement in the project led to better decision-making from the court and improved outcomes for children. ‘...a much clearer and more knowledgeable analysis was presented to the court. That can prevent delay because social workers know exactly where they are heading; they are focused and the courts are happy with that. That’s what they want.’ The project had wider impacts, there was an increased interest in using research generally – from senior management to social work assistants. And Bournemouth found that better use of research in court improved the status of social workers: ‘The change has primarily been around confidence... within staff from the higher echelons right through to social work assistants, but also confidence from the judiciary in the social work professional as well. That has caused a sea change. There has been an organisational change in culture, an enthusiasm and an energy that hasn’t been seen before.’ A final handbook was produced on the basis of feedback from the piloting agencies, including tools and film clips. RiP continue to hear from Partners that there is ongoing improvement in social workers’ skills in court.
Jane Lewis DIRECTOR RESEARCH IN PRACTICE
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modest living Bob Holman RETIRED FORMER PROFESSOR AND COMMUNITY WORKER
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Last year a Joseph Rowntree Report published research which demonstrated widespread unease about the effects of certain social evils, particularly greed, consumerism and individualism, on our lives.
Another illuminating publication was The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett which established that inequality is bad for everyone – the welloff as well as the poor. Almost every social and environmental problem, from obesity and mental health to violence and long working hours, is more prevalent in the most unequal countries like the UK than in those like Sweden and Norway where the income gap is much narrower. In Britain, no major political party has a programme to radically reduce inequality. My response is that we are not powerless and can still adopt lifestyles which challenge contemporary evils and inequalities. My wife, Annette, and I spent 25 years living in deprived areas. But I am not calling on a mass movement to deprived areas. On retirement we moved from Easterhouse to a small, ex-council house on the other side of Glasgow to be near our grandchildren. We still try to live in a manner which we call modest living. Few people need more than £40,000 a year for a comfortable life. My suggestion is not that those with high incomes give up important jobs but that they distribute any surplus over £40,000 to the needy or agencies serving them. We can also reduce spending on cars, plasma TVs, expensive gadgets, holidays abroad and so on. This does not entail living like a recluse. Rather it entails giving less attention to the quantity of our material possessions and more to the quality of our personal relationships.
We can also use our money in consumer and financial institutions which do not just stimulate greed. For instance, the Co-operative Bank centres on ethical policies. Unlike the High Street banks, it did not make the high-risk loans which contributed to the recession and does not pay huge bonuses. We can buy more of our goods from Co-op shops not large supermarkets which channel huge profits into the hands of directors and shareholders. We shop every day with the Co-op where we know the staff. We get our insurance and prescriptions from the Co-op and I will be buried by it with my wife getting the ‘divi’. Mutual building societies and credit unions exist for the good of users not just directors. Small, independent shops are also an integral part of communities. Particularly important is where we reside. Instead of seeking large homes in fashionable areas, why not cheaper ones in less upmarket locations? Yes, it may mean financial sacrifice for such a house will not increase in value as one elsewhere. But modest living is a statement against greed and materialism. It challenges the dominance of inequality since it means accepting less so that others can have more. Not least, people who opt for modest living in cheaper communities will find opportunities to improve the locality. This is not about going as a missionary with all the answers. More humility is required. A young couple with professional qualifications chose to reside in an unfashionable neighbourhood.
Years later, they are not in leadership positions. Their children attend local schools. They are liked and respected as good neighbours. With others, they participate in running a large summer camp. They are living where it makes a difference to community life. The goal of combating social evils and inequality can be helped by the response of modest living. If enough people do so, then it becomes collective action and that may change society.
Few people need more than £40,000 a year for a comfortable life.
Bob Holman’s new book, Keir Hardie: Labour’s Greatest Hero? published by Lion Hudson, is now available.
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the power of telling stories Faced with an information blizzard how do social work professionals keep up with developments in good practice?
Keeping up to date is key to good social work practice. To support their social workers’ development, one of Research in Practice for Adults (ripfa)’s local authority partners developed an online evidence bank. Though crammed with supposedly valuable information the authority discovered that few people used the bank – so they called ripfa Research & Development Officer Todor Proykov to investigate.
The best learning comes when there is a strong personal identification with what is being related. 018
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TP: We talked to staff in the local authority and discovered they were already overwhelmed with information and the dry impersonal content of the evidence bank did not engage or motivate them to read or learn from it. Todor (along with other researchers in this area) is discovering that people respond to the power of stories far better than to concise Powerpoint bullets. It turns out that stories told from a personal point of view are effective teaching tools because individuals relate them to their own experience. TP: The idea of using stories is very much at the cutting edge of social work knowledge exchange at the moment. Stories deliver messages that really stick with people. The form is as important as the content and the personal aspect of the story is essential – the best learning comes when there is a strong personal identification with what is being related. The researchers found that in addition to struggling with enormous amounts of new information, professionals today have far fewer opportunities to share with each other
in person. When presented with the opportunity, practitioners were eager to talk and quite spontaneous community learning took place. TP: We are seeing clearly that people learn best from each other, as a result we think that the future for ripfa is less about packaging information into easy to read bites and much more about facilitating knowledge exchange between people. Enabling people to learn from each other opens up the possibility of creating learning organisations – where people are learning from each other every day at every level. There is excitement in this field about the potential for combining the traditions of story telling and learning through personal experience with electronic communications. TP: It seems like going back to the way things were done in the past – learning by telling stories, learning by hearing how other people did things. But now with the addition of email and the internet this becomes much more powerful as long term learning groups can form regardless of location.
The rooks gather in court to defend themselves. They are not, they declare, omens either of grace or of doom; they are not weather forecasters, accurate or inaccurate, they are not singers of raucous songs; they cannot, in fact, speak. The rooks croak, emptying their emptiness. But there is no end to it, tiny zero bubbles of nothingness rising out of a nought, not the least bit diminishing it. How bright are the eyes lit by interior darkness, what piercing glances dart out of the fog of unconsciousness. How hard it is to stand on any kind of eminence and not take on some kind of significance.
Rooks A poem by Peter Oswald Drawing by Alice Leach
Peter Oswald was resident at Dartington between 1998-2005 and was writer-inresidence at London’s Globe Theatre.
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Schumacher College has been at the heart of Dartington since 1991. The College has three main roles – education, demonstration and thought leadership. The Salzburg Global Seminar will be a two day event about thought leadership and action on mobilising democracies to tackle climate change.
change programme and decided that their leadership seminars need not be restricted to happening in Salzburg. Building upon earlier meetings between senior staff at Dartington and Salzburg, we have agreed to organise an international event in London this April, and to bring in a third partner, the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development.
At Schumacher College we have had a long tradition of senior people from the public, private and third sectors coming on our courses. Last year we turned our minds to organising a large scale leadership event with an international perspective through a partnership with Salzburg Global Seminars.
Following the disappointing outcomes at last year’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, the seminar will focus on the question of why is it so difficult for democracies to mobilise citizens around the challenges of climate change. We have a situation where a large section of the public in all western democracies refuses to accept the overwhelming scientific evidence concerning the causes of rapid changes in the climate. The mass media is generally ambivalent about climate change. Elected politicians are subject to pressure from corporate interests and with few exceptions remain locked into promoting economic growth at the cost of environmental sustainability.
The Salzburg Global Seminars were set up in Salzburg immediately after the war. The Seminars are a US initiative to challenge present and future leaders to solve issues of global concern. Known as ‘The Marshall Plan of the Mind’, over the past 55 years the Seminars have attracted some of the world’s foremost thinkers. Salzburg Seminars have recently set up a sustainability and climate
Dartington partnership with
This event is designed for leaders from all sectors – from business, the media, educationalists, cultural leaders, academics, politicians and civil society movements. This is absolutely not just a talking shop. At Schumacher College we are experts in action learning and breakout sessions will focus on specific problems and challenges and how leaders and change makers might address them. We will provide long term support to these groups to ensure they have maximum impact. The outcomes of the Salzburg Seminar will flow into our ongoing leadership programmes at the College, at Dartington and internationally through our developing Schumacher Worldwide Programme. Prior to the Salzburg Seminar we shall have three consecutive weeks of courses examining other challenges and opportunities post Copenhagen. Speakers in these courses included, Rt Hon Clare Short MP, Vandana Shiva and Rob Hopkins. For more information about the Salzburg Seminar visit www.schumachercollege.org.uk
Charlie McConnell DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY
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Arthur Looking for the Zajonc: underlying issues Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, Massachusetts. This January Professor Zajonc came to Schumacher College to teach on a course entitled Science meets Spirit: the search for meaning.
My training and research combines quantum mechanics with a lifelong interest in the interaction of science and spirituality and I believe this theme is critical to our times. How do we meet the current scientific and technological challenges with our full humanity, in a way which tries to do well by our future generations? My view is that anytime a legislature or citizenry tries to address an issue – whether it is climate change or education or health care – you want to have a broad perspective both of the problem you’re dealing with, and the people who are affected by it.
How do we meet the current scientific and technological challenges with our full humanity?
I believe that very often we take up problems and deal with them at a superficial level. Consider why we currently face so many issues – bank collapse, climate change, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are these all independent of each other – or are they several symptoms of a single underlying foundational cause? We tend to tackle one issue and then another – but it’s a hydra-headed monster that we’re dealing with. So unless we take time to do a deep analysis of the problems and seek out the underlying cause we are simply going to keep running from one problem to the next. This is why I think a more holistic approach is necessary. This is what Schumacher himself stood for and this is what Schumacher College stands for now. That means a multidisciplinary approach which is open to not only the economic, political and social causes but also the spiritual causes that are at the root of many of our issues.
The people coming to Schumacher are not only active in this sort of comfortable country space – social action and social concern motivates all of us. We need it all – we need the stuff that is right off at the edge of the philosophical universe, challenging our very ways of thinking. On the other hand, there are people homeless on the streets – how do you work with them? I think this is part of the new architecture of our times, looking to conjoin these huge distances, to conjoin spirituality (which we think of as other worldly) with practical action. Places like Schumacher College are fragile, they are not like mainstream colleges educating 20,000 people at a crack, and the resources they require are uncertain. Yet it feels to me these are exactly the sort of places that are going to be disproportionately important for the future. Part of my coming here is an act of faithfulness to the vision of Schumacher, which, if one is honest, is at the margins of the mainstream, and yet keeps moving ever more forcefully into the mainstream. Providing courses on economics, like Schumacher himself taught – or in the new science or the new ecology – gradually these will become accepted as being essential to a viable future.
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green
grows the garden
In partnership with Cornwall’s Duchy College, Schumacher College runs a nine-month certificate course in Sustainable Horticulture. The course is a collaboration between Dartington’s Gardens Department, School Farm and Schumacher. The emphasis is very hands on, with students spending much of their time working on Dartington’s land.
The course’s Living Classroom Educator, Bethan Stagg, leads many of the course activities and brings to her work a deep conviction. BS: Without wanting to sound too Totnesian, I have deep and abiding passion for the earth, and how we can live on what it produces. Since I was a kid I have been fascinated by plants and their role in food production. The Sustainable Horticulture course is part of Dartington’s plan to make more and more use of the estate as a living classroom. BS: Schumacher is pretty brave and adventurous in the way it explores new ways of looking at sustainability and horticulture... they are much less conventional than many other organisations involved in food production. This is a good place for experimentation and there are plans to expand this whole area of work over the next five years. Sustainable Horticulture has proved to be popular with 18 students on the current course and many places are already booked on the next course starting in September.
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Students range from school leavers, through mid-life career changers to older people. Because the course offering is so distinctive people come from some distance to join – some even moving to the area. The teaching is highly practical and at least half the current students intend to continue working in horticulture. The sustainable aspect of the course is enhanced by a programme of visiting speakers. Prior to coming to Schumacher, Bethan worked on the Allotment Regeneration Initiative and also works at Plymouth University Open Air Laboratory. The attraction of Schumacher is in part its long history in the area of sustainability and the potential of the whole estate. BS: The work that is going on across the estate is informative and inspirational for students... the organic farming at School Farm, the agroforestry developments... there are not many places that have this scale of working estate to study.
global business, the Carbon Disclosure Project and Schumacher College
Set up in 2000, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) acts on behalf of 534 institutional investors, holding $64 trillion in assets under management. 2,500 organisations worldwide report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies through CDP. Paul Dickenson, founder and CEO, talks about the genesis of the project.
The next key moment was realising that just 100 people could stop climate change... if they were the managers of the 100 largest financial funds. These people have control over a very large segment of the corporate world. The idea that developed was that through this group it would be possible to create some kind of collective governance of global corporations.
‘In 1997 I joined the University of Bath’s MSc on Responsible Business Practice. Early in the course we went to Schumacher College where I encountered ecologist Stephan Harding – an associate of James Lovelock. It was Stephan who first gave me a really powerful vision of how destructive climate change could be – for all of us.
In the first wave of CDP activity we brought in 35 fund managers managing assets of $4 trillion. – approximately 50% of the world’s top companies. Now 535 companies are involved – which are in total responsible for about 50% of the total CO2 produced by human activity.
This is where Schumacher College’s holistic approach is so important. The teaching at Schumacher has a nuanced comprehension of the whole system – for example it sees that business can either compete or co-operate with the planet earth and offers the thought that it should co-operate because corporations – though not sentient – are not suicidal.
What we do addresses the sense of hopelessness felt by many people in the face of climate change. The nation state has lost the power to rule. Global business is the greatest source of power but is not sentient – it does not know what it is doing. If we are to harness the power of the corporations then we need to understand them. I see corporations as much more
So we need to find ways in which we can encompass this new world and offer ways by which people can find an intervention point. Global corporations are the largest factor in climate change, these corporations answer to their shareholders, their customers, their supply chains, there is a sort of global democracy here and the Carbon Disclosure Project is one way of shaping that democracy.’
In late 1999 I came across President Clinton’s report on carbon emissions – in the report was a graph showing the projected rise of CO2 emissions. Seeing that graph was another turning point – I decided to devote my life to tackling climate change.
complex and mysterious than is generally appreciated. For example when people say BP does such and such – what do they mean by BP – the CEO, the money in the bank accounts or the shareholders? We tend to anthropomorphise companies and this crude approach just doesn’t work.
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Award-laden Riverford Organic is based a few miles from Dartington. Riverford founder Guy Watson describes himself as ‘idealistic, opinionated and anarchic’, here he offers some thoughts on sustainability and business.
living sensibly There was no big idea behind the start of Riverford. I was a young man who’d worked in business and wanted to do something with farming and food. I was maybe an idealist in my gut but I had no conscious intention of starting a crusade. There are always compromises to be made in business and sometimes people who come to work for us find that difficult to understand. That said, I do want what we sell to be accessible and affordable by everyone. I was gratified that our last survey showed the number of our customers in households with a combined income of less than £30,000 is rising and stands at around 30%.
of time thinking about. Yes, we can be intelligent in our use of technology; yes, we can reduce the impact of what we do – and we can have windmills and solar panels and all those things are good. But there can be no sustainability until there is widespread acceptance that we can be happy with less. And I do have some optimism – this sort of thing is entering the language now and more people are making decisions about what they do based on the quality of their life rather than avarice.
Within the organisation we try to have a fairly egalitarian pay structure and for the past few years we’ve been slowly moving the business towards employee ownership. I’ve never been as totally committed to the organic cause as some people would like me to be. I don’t believe organic is the answer to everything, just as I don’t believe local food is the answer to everything – they are both part of the jigsaw puzzle about how we might live more sensibly on this planet. I don’t talk about living sustainably because that’s a long way off. I’ve been ranting about Marks & Spencer claiming they are going to be the most sustainable retailer – what do they mean? There is almost nothing sustainable about the way most of us live – Riverford is about trying to do things just a little bit less badly. My underlying feeling is that the heart of our problem is greed, if we don’t address this then we will never have a chance of living sustainably. No politician or policy maker will ever say this but it’s what I spend a lot
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I was maybe an idealist in my gut but I had no conscious intention of starting a crusade.
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spring greens with wet and wild garlic by Jane Baxter
Gardens Tel:+44[0]1803 862367 gardens@dartington.org Press Office Tel:+44[0]1803 847026 info@dartington.org
from the Riverford Farm Cook Book Research in Practice Tel:+44[0]1803 867692 ask@rip.org.uk
Serves 6 Ingredients: 1 tbsp butter 1 tbsp olive oil 2 wet garlic bulbs, chopped (or 1 garlic clove, sliced) 2 bunches spring greens, shredded crossways into 1cm strips
Melt the butter with the oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes without browning. Add the spring greens, turn up the heat and stir vigorously for about 4-5 minutes, until wilted. Stir in the shredded wild garlic leaves and cook for 1 minute. Add the grated parmesan, season to taste and serve.
1 bunch wild garlic leaves, shredded 1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
www.riverford.co.uk
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