At: Les contes de Salme, Vielsalm, Belgium
From: Monday 26th of July, 6PM
To: Wednesday 28th of July, 4PM

Organiser:
FoAM, Koolmijnenkaai 30-34, 1080 Brussels, Belgium
http://fo.am

Memories, documentation & testimonials can be found here:

• Interviews: lg10_interviews
• Summaries: LG10_harvest
• Photos: http://www.flickr.com/groups/luminousgreen2010/
• Quotes: http://lib.fo.am/luminous/reader_2010
• Memorable thoughts: LG10_pearls
• Testimonials: lg10_testimonials
• Further reading: http://libarynth.org/luminous/recommended_reading
• Tweets: https://twitter.com/#lg10

Luminous Green is a series of gatherings (workshops, retreats, symposia) for people who are committed to and engaged in creating a 'luminous green world'. What do we mean by that? FoAM's vision of a thriving future is firstly green - fresh, lush & flourishing. It includes humans living in symbiosis with the rest of the planet. The 'luminous' suggests 'illuminated, electrified and imaginative'. Illuminated in the sense of enlightened, where we can act from a place of considered reflection and awareness of the reality around us. Electrified as in sparkling, energetic & vigorous, as well as literally producing & consuming electricity to feed an open, connected and clean technological development. Finally, a human world becomes truly luminous & radiant by drawing upon the imagination of everyone involved.

A luminous green world is a place that FoAM is committed to cultivating, through our various activities. The gathering in which you are participating is one of these activities, inviting a diverse group of people to briefly step out of their daily maelstroms and help us look at what's around us today, as well as thinking about various paths that we could take, to make our lives more luminous - as individuals, organisations, communities & even species. We emphasize the importance of the involvement of artists, designers and other cultural creatives in transdisciplinary strategies.

Keeping in mind our aim to cultivate a luminous green world, this year we want to look at how to maintain flexibility and resilience in turbulent times. How do we keep our options open in the face of uncertainty? Whether environmental catastrophes, economic downturns, illnesses, miscommunication, or any other obstacles can become opportunities to increase luminosity. This ability to face the unknown by observing & absorbing, to respond, adapt and transform is what we understand as resilience.

During the retreat, we are interested in exploring ideas & techniques to help us cultivate resilience in individuals, societies and cultures. On the other hand, we'd like to dissect the concept of 'resilience' and question it from multiple perspectives.

We have designed the retreat around four main questions:

• what are possible paths towards a luminous green world?
• what happens to us & our paths in turbulent times?
• how can we recognise and cultivate resilient behaviours?
• why resilience?

We'd like to explore these questions across different scales (from human scale to planetary scale), from perspectives of different disciplines and cultures, using the mental, manual & ephemeral skills at our disposal. In other words - we would like to stimulate a diversity of ideas, approaches and methods, to help us untangle the complexity of our present condition, in a playful and inspiring manner. Vague? Complex? Ambitious? Perhaps, but we invited you to participate, because we think you can shed light on vague things, clarify complexity & have the ability to implement ambitious plans. We thought you could help.

Event flow based on adapted hosting methods and the “U Process”

• Audrone Alijosiute: Works to connect Lithuanian environmentalists & improve their communication at ECAT in Lithuania http://lokys.ecat.lt/
• Rasa Alksnyte: Choreographs, cooks, gardens & teaches at Zanzi & FoAM http://fo.am, http://bit.ly/a6hBam
• Pippa Buchanan: Educates, programs, works with plants & people, coordinates P2P University http://www.battlecat.net/
• Carole Collet: Researches, teaches and designs sustainable textiles at the Textile Futures Department of Central Saint Martin's http://www.carolecollet.com/
• Blaine Cook: Develops open source software, curious about food, currently at BT, previously lead developer of Twitter http://romeda.org/
• Pieter Dewel: Passionate about mixology, storytelling & Raconteurism http://be.linkedin.com/pub/pieter-de-wel/4/688/689
• Cocky Eek: Works with play & lightweight structures to stretch physical borders of human possibilities, co-founder of Foamlab in Amsterdam http://www.cockyeek.com
• Sara Engelen: Writes & edits about transdisciplinary issues, co-ordinates Crosstalks & Pecha Kucha Brussels http://crosstalks.vub.ac.be/
• Trudo Engels: Able to assume imaginary personalities, while coordinating the art lab Nadine http://www.nadine.be
• Maureen Evans: Writes about flesh and bone, politics and landscape, language and women, food and anarchism http://twitter.com/cookbook
• Nik Gaffney: Connects everything with everything else, thinks in systems. partially luminous, co-founder of FoAM http://fo.am
• Vinay Gupta: Focuses on the stuff nobody else will touch… http://hexayurt.com/
• Dougald Hine: Writes, speaks, makes ideas into reality in places such as the Dark Mountain School of Everything and the Institute of Collapsonomics http://dougald.co.uk
• Loes Jacobs: Writes, organises and operates as the silent engine behind Nadine http://www.nadine.be
• Thomas Jellis: Studies spaces for alternative experimentation at the University of Oxford, recently completed field-work at TML, Institut für Raumexperimente & Office for Experiments http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/graduate/research/tjellis.html
• Theun Karelse: Illustrates, works on a graphic novel, works with urban permaculture & foraging, picks fruits & plays football, co-founder of Foamlab in Amsterdam http://fo.am, http://foam-lab.blogspot.com/
• Lina Kusaite: Creates characters for games & books, works with textiles, plants & urban gardens, responsible for logistics at LG, co-founder of FoAM in Brussels http://fo.am and http://www.cocooncharacters.com
• Maja Kuzmanovic: Writes, speaks, cooks, designs social systems and events, coaches individuals & facilitates transdisciplinary collaborations, works as FoAM's principal invigorator, initiator & co-founder of FoAM in Brussels & Amsterdam http://fo.am
• Wietske Maas: Writes, researches, Hunts & gathers in urban environments one of the founders of Urbanibalism http://www.urbanibalism.org/
• Tapio Makela: Researches, exhibits and writes about media, society, culture, the environment (…), currently at the Creative Technologies dept at the University of Salford http://tapio.translocal.net/
• Annabel Meuleman*: Enthusiastically cooks delicious vegetarian dishes for groups from 2 - 500 people with amazing ease, founder of Picnik catering in Brussels
• Mahmood Nisar: Coaches, hosts dialogues, initiates projects, teaches & facilitates group processes in Germany & Middle East, curious about direct experiences with a background in sufism
• Anna Maria Orru: Worked as a future scenario researcher at ARUP, and as a biomimicry-inspired architect both at Grimshaw and exploration architecure. Now designed and founded SCENE thinking, a platform to help her clients incorporate systems thinking and biomimicry in their working and design processes. http://www.annamariaorru.com
• Nenad Popov: aka Jitter Jeday, studies at ArtScience, works with software and media http://www.interfaculty.nl/
• Simone Poutnik: Facilitates & motivates collaborative processes, serving the evolution of consciousness , co-founder of The Hub and Natural Innovation in Brussels http://www.natural-innovation.net, http://brussels.the-hub.net/
• Maarten Roels: Working on his PhD at the Centre for Sustainable Development, active as a member of Klorofil and other community building initiatives http://be.linkedin.com/in/maartenroels, http://klorofil.be/
• Christina Stadlbauer: Practices bee-keeping and shiatsu informed by her background in chemistry, currently working at FoAM in Brussels http://fo.am
• Bart Vandeput (Bartaku): seeks poetry in photovoltaics, conducts workshops, performs, creates kitchen-style solar cells, with strong links to Europe, Africa & South America. http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef
• Angelo Vermeulen: Merges art, technology and biology, by entangling living organisms such as plants and cockroaches with games and digital glitches. Currently working with ESA to explore possibilities of ecological habitats on space voyages. http://www.angelovermeulen.net/
• Hendrik Tiesinga: Facilitates processes and dialogues, , curious about social innovation & sustainable finance, previously worked with Pioneers of Change & Change Labs, recently co-founded Natural Innovation. http://www.natural-innovation.net
• Johan Zetterquist: Works as industrial designer at the Development Office looking at interdisciplinary collaborations to increase sustainability, recently co-initiated the project Foodprints with Anna Maria Orru. http://se.linkedin.com/pub/johan-zetterquist/9/791/797

Connections between participants and their FoAM contact persons

For FoAM, Luminous Green is a way to broaden our views and question our assumptions, to be able to make our activities relevant and interesting to people. One way of achieving that is to have good documentation that we can look back on and share with people we work with. A less tangible outcome, but in a way much more fundamental, is that we hope the participants will take something away that is meaningful to their work & life. What that something is, we can never say in advance. In the past, this has included ideas for new projects, new friendships, and new directions. Others found unexpected answers to old questions or opened up new questions. Finally, we especially hope for the participants' continued contact & involvement with FoAM.