A creative summit at the nexus of art, energy, and ecological imagination
Context & Genesis
Feeding the Insatiable was conceived as a creative summit held at Dartington Hall, Totnes (9–11 November 2016), jointly organised by art.earth, Schumacher College, and Regen SW, forming part of the wider Arts & Ecology programme.
In the wake of global climate challenges (not least the recent COP21 outcomes), the summit sought to explore how artists, thinkers, and practitioners might more imaginatively engage with energy, ecological futures, and cultural change.
Regen’s involvement included co-design, providing sector knowledge and networks, contributing to the programme, and helping ground the summit in renewable-energy realities.
The summit’s call was broad and open: to encourage debate — practical, philosophical, metaphysical, and theoretical — about how creative minds and creative spirit can be brought to bear on issues of energy, transition, and culture.
What Happened
Over three days, Feeding the Insatiable blended keynotes, artist presentations, workshops, dialogues, and site visits, bringing together international voices and local practitioners.
Highlights included:
- Opening Keynote from Robert Ferry & Elizabeth Monoian of the Land Art Generator Initiative (USA), with contributions from eco-artist Chris Fremantle.
- A second keynote by Laura Watts (writer, poet, ethnographer of futures) on day two.
- Sessions under thematic tracks: Ecologies Shaping the World; Communicating Artist Projects; Energy Generation and Poetics.
- Workshops ran concurrently (e.g. “Switching Heads – sound mapping the Summit,” “Playing with Metaphor,” “Fire/Wood: tracing the energy path”) allowing participants to experiment with embodied and sensory approaches.
- A tour of the Dartington estate’s renewable energy installations was built into the programme, connecting artistic imagination to real infrastructural systems.
- An award event, White Hart Bar, and performances (e.g. Lola Perrin) created informal spaces for exchange and reflection.
Throughout, discussions probed major questions: How to move from communication to creative transformation? What narratives do we need? How can metaphor, art, and poetic thinking amplify energy imaginaries?
Value & Impact of Creative Convening
Bringing creatives, technologists, theorists, and energy practitioners into sustained dialogue at Feeding the Insatiable offered several distinct benefits:
- Cross-disciplinary insight
Artists and scientists rarely occupy the same rooms. The summit broke those silos, allowing energy sector people to hear metaphorical, poetic, material perspectives, and for artists to better understand grid constraints, renewable systems, and public behaviour challenges. - Shared language & imagination
Creative practitioners helped open up new metaphors and narratives — bridging the gap between data and emotion. The summit’s sessions on energy and metaphor or imagined narratives explicitly made space for this explorative work. - Networking & collaboration seeds
The summit acted as a matchmaking node: artists met engineers, communities connected to theorists, and local practitioners discovered international models (e.g. Land Art Generator). - Legitimacy & visibility for art in energy
Regen’s role in co-design flagged to the energy sector that creativity is not decorative but integral. The summit placed art and energy in the same frame, making visible the cultural dimension of the transition. - Experimentation & prototyping
The workshops and tours were not lectures, but hands-on labs — enabling participants to prototype ideas (sound mapping, ritualistic interventions, poetic readings) that could later inform further projects. - Reflective critical space
The summit was not just celebratory; it allowed critique — questioning whether renewable energy is always “positive,” interrogating infrastructure and the aesthetics of energy systems, and pointing to shadows. Feeding the Insatiable explicitly invited “real and imagined narratives” rather than rosy futurism.
Challenges & Lessons Learned
- Scale vs depth — With many sessions and diverse fields, some participants may have felt stretched across themes. Depth in individual projects sometimes competes with breadth.
- Follow-through — Summits can inspire, but converting ideas into ongoing practice or funded projects requires more infrastructure.
- Bridging to sectors — Some energy sector actors may remain skeptical of poetic or metaphorical modes; making value evident (not just aesthetic) is critical.
- Audience balance — Balancing academic, artistic, practitioner, and community voices is delicate; openness must be tempered with curatorial rigour.
Reflections & Forward Thinking
From Regen’s perspective, Feeding the Insatiable strengthened its credibility as a creative partner in energy. It signalled willingness to take aesthetic, conceptual risks, and to host a conference that sits at the intersection of art, ecology, and energy.
Moving forward, such convening has ongoing potential:
- Use summit outputs (workshop designs, art provocations, recordings) as resources and toolkits for communities and energy organisations.
- Develop follow-up labs or residencies seeded by summit connections.
- Organise thematic mini-summits (e.g. art + grid data, art + storage, art + community energy) to deepen focus.
- Encourage local iterations — create regional nodes that adapt summit principles at community scale.
- Document and publish critical reflections, ensuring that creative engagement in energy is not seen as a veneer, but sustained practice.
