What are the root causes of war and conflict? To reach the roots, we must look beyond surface narratives and understand the violent systems that instigate, enable, and maintain conflict globally. To catalyse change, we must first look within ourselves to understand why we should care – if at all – about conflicts in far away places. Is it empathy or justice? Is there such thing as “far away”?

This course presents a series of frameworks from global to personal that help us uncover the specific drivers of war and conflict, which often feel overwhelmingly complex. We first look at how global systems such as colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism underpin conflict. We then explore the power of narratives and discourse in shaping identity and reifying power structures, focusing on discourses that enable “othering” such as orientalism, islamophobia, and various types of bias.

This course employs a justice lens, rather than compassion narratives, to identify responsibility and complicity, and integrates restorative justice exercises to support action. Case studies of modern conflicts will be used to practice these frameworks, with particular attention paid to displaced peoples, border politics, and refugees.

This course will offer participants an introduction into the laws and rhythms of biographical development from the anthroposophical perspective. They will explore the evolution of the consciousness of the human being and ask what it means to be human in today’s world. This will include a re-membering of our childhood environment, an exploration into the impact of relationships in the events of our lives, the value and meaning of crisis and struggle in development and how we can prepare capacities for the future, Participants will learn how to participate and co-host biography groups where they will develop faculties to listen empathically, work with judgement and understand how diverse and complex individual lives can be.

This is a theoretical and practical course aimed at exploring a generalist approach to physicality and physical practices which supports the growth of overall human capacity. We will critically look at the current state of physical culture, present some latest developments and shifts in perspectives, analyze various theoretical and practical movement practice foundations. We will present and allow participants to explore the idea that one of the ways to get in touch with our own human complexity and thus – capacity (in the most general sense) is to become aware of the complex ways we move or could move if we were more aware of the needs and the facticity of our own bodies. By engaging into “complete movement practice” rather than a linear-specialized physical activity the participants will be able to practically test how such approach affects inner human capacity in terms of creativity, communication, sense of meaning, etc.

This is an open course! For more information and to book a place, contact [email protected]

Self-portrait painting; a practice in portrait painting using acrylics. Armed with a photo of themselves to engage with for the entire week participants learn how to navigate self portrait painting using acrylics on canvas. The course includes a lot of personal painting time within the larger group as well as group teaching session to encourage and practice giving clear and constructive feedback, receiving feedback, following instructions and cultivating courage. Participants are taught creative ways of meeting the challenges of art in practice and learn how to support others in this process.