A gathering of unlearning and reimagining
Realisation is a gathering that is part retreat, part symposium at St Giles House, Dorset. It is for those actively working at the interface between society and soul, and who feel the gravity of our times. Over the course of four days (the next Festival is 26th – 29th June 2025), you will engage with some of the most exciting thinkers and practitioners of our times, share experiences and expertise, music, movement, food and plenty of conversation.
You can find out more about the Festival by watching this recording of our short online event ‘Realisation 2024 – An Introduction’ with some of the Realisation Team – Pippa Evans, Nick Ashley-Cooper, Mark Vernon and Jonathan Rowson.
Resourced by an astonishingly beautiful place that carries the memory of the complex struggles of generations and has inspired philosophical and political innovation for centuries, Realisation is a space to reckon with now, imagine alternative futures, and develop a sense of calling and response, independently and together.
St Giles is the home of past politicians, philosophers and social reformers who have had a profound impact on the society in which we live. Our vision is to bring together a wide diversity of people with different views and perspectives to stimulate discussion, provide new insights and allow participants to learn and share ideas with others. Workshops will encourage participants to think, feel and explore what system change feels and looks like, and to reimagine what we are capable of.
As an educational space, St Giles’s green landscape encourages participants to reflect on their relationship to enquiry, dialogue and well-being as tools for social change. The setting will also provide a connection with the natural environment to help inform questions around our relationship with nature and the planet.
The gathering of thinkers and artists, pioneers and practitioners, performers and dreamers is hosted by the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury in collaboration with the team of expert generalists at Perspectiva as a charitable venture.
Head, heart & resolution
Realisation 2023 built on our gatherings in July 2021 and June 2022 (you can watch the talks from previous years here). It arose from a conviction that we live at a pivotal but precarious juncture; a time of reckoning that calls for candid, careful and courageous reflection in order to ‘realise’ a more beautiful, imaginative and thoughtful society. Read more about the background and aims of Realisation in this piece by Jonathan Rowson, co-founder and director of Perspectiva, What’s the point of The Realisation Festival? (PDF document).
The aim of Realisation 2024 is to foster a greater sense of clarity and a renewed consciousness of the needs of our time, while having a joyful and memorable time together. The weekend will include keynote panels, public dialogue, and embodiment workshops that allow insights to emerge organically. The input from expert speakers will range over history, philosophy, politics, society, nature, science and spirituality.
