Poetics of Place
with Sophie Craven
Book your place: https://forms.gle/icxXyTsSZQQJ6ges5
In uncertain times of ecological crisis, we have a lot to defend and to protect. But what are we defending, and what are we protecting? In the Western world, we have experienced a radical separation from the world around us, leading us to believe and behave as if ‘nature’ is not people, and people are not nature.
The etymology of ecology is oikos + logy, i.e., the knowledge of house or home and family or kin. In this four week long inquiry, we will delve into how we might explore our home and kin through the lens of a poetic imagination; i.e. to fall forwards and ‘downhill’ (Bachelard) into consciousness, to re-entangle ourselves within a wider web of interspecies relationships, to see the world as ensouled, and to yearn for it full-heartedly. For this we will work with the Penryn woodland as our ecological collaborator.
We will ask questions such as:
How have we learned to see the world and our place in it? How might we relearn through sensorial imagination?
Must we understand the other in order to love them?
Does language and sound separate humans or implicate us?
Join writer, artist and facilitator Sophie Craven for an intensive four-week exploration into the poetics of place. Drawing on thinkers such as Goethe, Bachelard, Brandon LaBelle, Tim Ingold, Alice Oswald, Bayo Akomolafe, Sophie Strand, Robert McFarlane, Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and others, we will thread theory into practice through silence, deep listening, creative exercises, winding discussions and makings.
Essentially, we will co-develop an inquiry into what it means to become intertwined and entangled with the landscape around us.
Using the ancient woodlands of Penryn, as well as The Convivial’s learning space as our campuses, we will explore what it means to ‘world the world’ (Mika et al) through eco-phenomenology, post humanist theory and practice, and storytelling.
This course is suitable for anyone with a keen interest in ecology and environment, place-based research and arts, eco-imagination and storytelling.
Course structure
Week 1, Saturday 2nd May, 10-5pm
Becoming chosen
Group introduction
Goethian observation, phenomenology and the sensuous world
Observations + exercises in the Penryn woods
Closing circle
Week 2, Saturday 9th May, 10-5pm
Becoming entangled
Posthumanism, porosity and entanglement
Observations + exercises in the Penryn woods
Closing circle
Week 3, Saturday 16th May, 10-5pm
Becoming story
Narrative ecosystems: Language, sounding and songlines
Storytellings in the Penryn woods
Closing circle
Week 4, Saturday 23rd May, 10-1pm
Gathering threads
Seminar to gather and share the threads of insight, epiphany, revelation and research (in the woods or at The Convivial depending on weather)
This course is offered as a deepening extension of two pilot day-long explorations which took place in November 2024 and January 2025.
Each day’s workshop will include a vegan lunch as part of the price. You can also expect a reading list before each week’s workshop as well as a longer course reference list, and practices for take-home exploration between each session. There will be an option to join a WhatsApp group for the duration of the course, in which we might participate in some boundaried sharing of practices, poems, references, thoughts, insights and epiphanies.
Book your place: https://forms.gle/icxXyTsSZQQJ6ges5
Facilitator
Sophie Craven is a writer, artist and facilitator based in Cornwall, UK. She graduated from SOAS university in 2016 with a BA in Arabic and Social Anthropology, and a specialisation in memory, imagination and heritage sites (with fieldwork taking place in the West Bank of Palestine).
Sophie worked in learning and facilitation for seven years, including co-founding The Slow Work Garden, before completing her MA in Poetics of Imagination at Schumacher College / Dartington School of Arts in 2024. Sophie is coordinator and host of The Convivial, and her current research interests include sacred landscape, ritual, mythopoetics and psyche.
Read more about Sophie’s work here: www.sophiecraven.com
Course costs and options
There are just 15 places available for this course. Please refer to the following suggestions when booking your place:
Low spare income - £115 (£30 per day’s tuition + lunch and practices)
Medium spare income - £230 (£60 per day’s tuition + lunch and practices)
High spare income - £345 (£90 per day’s tuition + lunch and practices)
Supporter ticket, e.g., funded by an organisation - £460 (£120 per day’s tuition + lunch and practices)
There are also three places available with the following conditions:
Bursary placement - £50 x 2
Volunteer placement - £25 (FULLY BOOKED)
The bursary placements are available to two participants from marginalised or underrepresented communities. The deadline for applying for these places is Saturday 18th April.
The volunteer placement is first come, first served and includes 2 hours of help in set up and pack down on the dates of the gatherings, arriving 1 hour beforehand and staying 1 hour afterwards. Duties may include but are not limited to: helping to gather groceries, cook, care for the space throughout the day, and wash up / pack down.
Please get in touch if none of these options suit; we do not want to turn anyone away for lack of funds, and gift exchange or skills exchange options are always available. You can read more about The Convivial’s pricing structure and considerations here.
Testimonials
“I adored the exercises in the woods, and it was a sign of my comfort in the container, and how that was held by Sophie, that I freely jumped into expressing how the river seems to be channelled through me, without any hesitation or anxiety.”
“I have nothing but praise. Sophie naturally created an atmosphere of ease. I was quite in awe of the depth of knowledge and conversations I witnessed, and really, truly felt inspired by all that I learned in the circle discussions, and experienced in the woods.”
“Connective, communal, joyful, profound, theoretically informed, nurturing, reparative, playful, rich…”
“Sensitively curated and skilfully held rituals supported us to feel, sense and imagine our inter-being with a wide ecology of life, bringing us into deeper personal and collective intimacy with place.”
“Grounded grounds, grounding grounds, ancient knowledge lost and found, spokes extend, expand the wheel, the call to arms to heal…” (from poet Alison Blomfield’s poem in response to Nov 2024 Poetics of Place workshop)
Book your place: https://forms.gle/icxXyTsSZQQJ6ges5