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"We are a collective of artists making art to bring forth the second renaissance.
We are alchemists. We create a new world through our work.
We are the bridge between the dying past and the future unborn.
Art is an expression of our consciousness and humanity, this is our path of transformation.
Life as an art.
…
Our work is to create a space to be with all of it. To be with the joy, the darkness, the hope, the sadness, the unknown.
Our work is to inquire about what would a world that works for everyone look like?"
Thus begins the Manifesto on Art in the Second Renaissance, and this week we speak with its author, Sylvie Barbier, a French-Taiwanese performance artist whose work is some of the most powerfully raw, wild and beautiful I have ever seen. As well as being an artist and mother, she's an entrepreneur and educator and one of the two co-founders of Life Itself, which is designed to build a wiser future through culture, space and community.
The Life Itself website says, 'We are pragmatic utopians, committed to practical action for a radically wiser, weller world. We create conscious coliving hubs, start businesses, do research and engage in activism to pioneer a wiser culture and plant the seeds of a second renaissance.'
The Second Renaissance is an initiative of Life Itself which acknowledges that we live in a moment of potential crisis and collective rebirth and offers a home to the growing community of people who are working to make this rebirth happen.
Sylvie is an artist of extraordinary scope and depth and so the role of art in that rebirth is the focus of this episode, but we ranged far and deep into the nature of healing our shadows so that we can heal the ancestral and descendant lines, so that we can become the ancestors our descendants are proud of; we explored the nature of ritual in building new beginnings and helping endings; as we did with the Brother from nearby Plum Village, we explored the nature of life and death and how we can meet our own deaths with grace and joy and hope. Above all, we explored how we can fall in love with living - with life itself - so that we might lay strong foundations for real transformation.
And before we leap into our conversation, I want to remind you that there's an Accidental Gods online Gathering 'Walking the Path of the Inner Warrior' on Sunday 28th June - which is this coming Sunday if you're listening on or near launch day - 4pm - 8pm, on Zoom - we'll be exploring many of the ideas that we talk about in this episode, but anchoring them in your own life's experience. This follows on from our Gathering on Falling in Love with life, which, as Sylvie says in the podcast, is the key to working with our shadows. You don't have to have done that - if you're new to our work, we'll make sure you have secure grounding, but if you have been to other Gatherings, we'll build on the work we've already done this year. So - hope to see you there and then, and now, enjoy....
Links
Sylvie's website
Life Itself
Second Renaissance
Second Renaissance Manifesto
—About Accidental Gods—
We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.