Please note: Eventbrite only lets us take payment by credit cards. We know that's not ideal for lots of reasons, so if you want to come but can't book by credit card please contact us at info@dark-mountain.net and we can arrange an alternative.

Join us in Hampshire for a weekend of ideas, stories, performances and conversations, exploring some of the deep themes of life in the early 21st century.

• How do we make sense of our lives in a time of disruption and contraction? 
• Where are the stories - old or new - that help us reground ourselves? 
• Faced with the loss of much we took for granted, where are the practical projects that offer hope and meaning for the times ahead?

This year’s Dark Mountain festival will be a gathering of people searching for answers to these questions. For one weekend this August, we meet at the Sustainability Centre in the Hampshire countryside.

Drawing on the strengths of last year’s event in Llangollen, it will be a place of encounters and conversations, learning and sharing, stories, ideas, music and performance. There will also be campfires, wanderings in the woods, children’s activities, and workshops in everything from writing to scything.

Among the musicians lined up to play, we have Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Chris T-T, Marmaduke Dando, The General Assembly, Bill Harbottle and AllieKStewart.

Talks, workshops and activities will include:

• Jay Griffiths and friends from the West Papua Campaign;

• comparing crashes: discussing the lived experience of economic crisis with Smari McCarthy (Iceland; ex-Wikileaks), Arthur Doohan (Ireland; ex-banker), Anton Shelupanov (ex-USSR; criminal justice specialist) and Eleanor Saitta (USA; security specialist).

• revisiting the Luddites, 200 years on, with Warren Draper, Dougald Hine & Rachel Horne;


• the poets Mario Petrucci, Melanie Challenger, Em Strang & Adrienne Odasso;


• Vinay Gupta on parallel infrastructures for an uncertain future;


• the future of publishing with Sharon Blackie, Two Ravens Press;


• wild food foraging expeditions with Fergus Drennan;

• brewing workshop with Andy Hamilton;


• writing workshops with authors including Nick Hunt;


• the symbolism of the scythe with Paul Kingsnorth;


• a walk and talk with Adam Weymouth, exploring the idea of pilgrimage.

• late-night theatre in the woods with Dougie Strang's Liminal.

UNCIVILISATION 2011 will be a more outdoor experience than last year’s festival, but we will also have four covered spaces: a performance space, a writing space, a practical space and an open space where anyone can offer sessions.

There will also be open sing-arounds, so bring your own musical instruments.

And we’re working with the Sustainability Centre’s own cafe and local suppliers to ensure locally-sourced food and drink for the weekend.

PRACTICAL STUFF

Camping is included in the standard ticket price and (unlike last year) will be on the festival site.

There are also 25 hostel beds available at Weatherdown Lodge, in the Sustainability Centre’s grounds, at an extra charge of £20 for the weekend. (Please note, you will be sharing a small hostel dormitory with others.)

There will be a shuttle service by minibus from Petersfield railway station. Parking is limited, so if you are coming by car you will need to book a parking place (an extra £8) - and we will ask you to tell us how many spare seats you’re likely to have and where you could offer lifts from.

All tickets for the event must be bought in advance - there will be no on the day sales.