Disseminating Permaculture: Milestones

Two of my social media outlets for disseminating permaculture appear to be nearing new milestones. London Permaculture Flickr is nearing 2 million page impressions (with 26 thousand + photos), while @LondonPrmcultr is approaching 3 thousand followers (and 3 thousand tweets).

The race is on to see which is met first. It's difficult to quantify the value(s) of this outreach, but I feel that just normalising the word 'permaculture' and/or provoking interest in it is a useful yield.

Today The Co-operative picked up one of my tweets promoting permaculture ethics for the co-op, which was nice.

Should @TheCooperative care for the earth, care for people and share fairly? #haveyoursay
— London Permaculture (@LondonPrmcultr) February 24, 2014

@JanvierUK @LondonPrmcultr @jameslbeane @CQuin @CarolReay1 You've been quoted in my #Storify story "Have Your Say" http://t.co/egPfgShbTs
— The Co-operative (@TheCooperative) February 25, 2014

History, memory and green imaginaries

On 30th November I'll be participating in the symposium 'History, memory and green imaginaries' at the University of Brighton's Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories. Below is the abstract for the short talk I'll be giving based on my Reels of Resilience work, after which I'll be taking part in a  round-table discussion and Q&A alongside Dr Rebecca Bramall, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at University of Brighton, Tim Cooper, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter and Victoria Johnson, Head of Climate Change and Energy at the New Economic Foundation (nef).

I was invited to attend by Rebecca Bramall who was interested in the dual worlds I inhabited as a film curator and a permaculture educator, so this should prove a good opportunity to present some design thinking.


‘Re-member, Re-vision and Re-claim – Using archival film to facilitate local conversations about community resilience’ 

Abstract

British non-fiction films of the first half of the 20th century display an apparently different country, one that is localised, less atomised, and more self-reliant. Propaganda films of the 1930s to 1950s, in particular, celebrate community and local resilience in a manner that appeals to the similar concerns of current social activists. What purpose might they serve now in kindling re-generative human habitats.

Natural Patterns

I've now tweaked the video of the Natural Patterns talk I gave at the 2012 London Permaculture Festival, incorporating the presentation slides at the relevant point, which will hopefully assist in communicating the information. Here it is: The book I mention in the video is Metapatterns: Across Space, Time and Mind by Tyler Volk, which I first encountered after seeing it referred to in Starhawk's book The Earth Path.

Volk has a few videos up on Youtube including a short series on Metapatterns. Here's the first:

During the Q&A I mention Vi Hart's videos on the Fibonacci sequence in nature, there;s an excellent series of 3 on Vi Hart's video channel, the first of which is embedded below:
 

Public Presentations

A good way of getting Permaculture ideas to reach a wider audience is to talk about it publicly - by which I mean outside the formal teaching context and its self-selecting attendees.

Thus far, the closest I've got to this if a kind of halfway house - giving workshops and presentations at small events and at the London Permaculture Festivals in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Stills for films in the Reels of Resilience show

 At the first London Permaculture Festival in 2010 I curated and presented the 'Reels of Resilience' film show of archival documentaries from the 1930s and 1940s, encouraging the audience to find parallels between then and now. I tried to make it more than just a film show, so that the audience would both observe and interact with the material. I thought that the Permaculture ethics were apparent in the films and that they showed ordinary people creatively adapting and responding to change and inspiration to us now with our different challenges. I had presented these films (and others) previously in other Permaculture and non-Permaculture contexts including the Permaculture Picturehouse in Hackney (2nd June 2009), Green on the Screen in Crouch End, a Transition Leytonstone event, and at The Hornbeam Community Cafe in Walthamstow - I also repeated the presentation at the 2010 Permaculture convergence.

I first conceived the idea whilst studying Action Research with Nick Wilding during my MSc in Human Ecology during which I created the document Reels of Resilience - Audience Development and Sustainable Community outlining the project in more detail.

At the 2011 London Permaculture Festival I was involved in two public engagements. I gave a presentation of the life and books of Robert Hart alongside Claire White's presentation of Forest Gardening. I also led a workshop on Future Scenarios connecting with the Permaculture Association's work in this area. I've written more about that here.

At the 2012 London Permaculture Festival I gave an interactive talk on the subject of natural patterns within the context of Permaculture, I've written more about that here.

Natural Pattern Talk at London Permaculture Festival 2012

 

Raw video of the talk I gave at the 2012 London Permaculture Festival  - I'm currently working on an edited version incorporating my presentation slides.

UPDATE (9th Aug 2012). The edited/tweaked version is now uploaded and viewable on this page, where it is joined by further supporting videos & references.

Using Photosynth

I'm always on the look out for new tools, and I've been meaning to try photosynth for a while. Being a Windows product, its not mac friendly, so It's taken until a pc entered the family for me to give it a go.



I'm already pretty happy with it, it adds greater verisimilitude than the panoramas I've been creating recently, so should help communication over the distance of space and time.

London Permaculture Flickr Site

The  London Permaculture Flickr Site is one of my major engagements with permaculture. I have used it as a tool of record, communication and dissemination of permaculture and I have used permaculture theory and practice in its development and maintenance.

I consider this to be work in 'Art, Media, Culture and Communications', one of the areas in which the Diploma essential criteria presents as suitable for a demonstrable application of permaculture in work and projects. The Diploma Guidelines describe 'Art, Media, Culture and Communications' as:

"Creating or operating publications or audio-visual and mixed media aids to communication and education in the permaculture community. Written, creative, artistic or cultural work that develops the public's understanding of permaculture."


History of the London Permaculture Flickr Site

On 12th March 2007 I set up a free account on the photo sharing website Flickr, my aim in doing so was to share photos I had taken of of permaculture activity around London during and subsequent to my PDC in Autumn 2006.

It seemed to me that there was actually a lot going on but it was largely invisible to those outside the groups engaged in that activity. I thought that making visible this activity might do much to increase the interest in, and the acceptance of, permaculture approaches and manifestations.

Dissemination