Pros and Cons

Pros

A move to Dartington was something that CCANW had considered early on, so this approach from art.earth to become part of a family of like-minded art and ecology organisations was welcomed.

A Memorandum of Understanding was agreed in 2015 between Schumacher College (a part of Dartington Hall Trust) and CCANW, covering a period to the end of 2017.

High Cross House could have provided an ideal base for CCANW.

A MA/MFA Arts and Ecology course was scheduled to start in September 2017 in collaboration with Schumacher College.

CCANW aspired to increase its international and transdisciplinary working, taking advantage of its existing contacts in South Korea and Italy.

A trip to South Korea in 2016 resulted in a substantially funded collaboration with Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology over the Science Walden Project. This was only possible because of Clive’s contacts and Richard’s academic background.

Part of that funding from UNIST was used as match funding towards an application to ACE in 2017 for the Across Borders project, embracing Science Walden and other international partnerships.

A collaboration with another South Korean group called Yatoo led to a Global Nomadic Art Project (GNAP) being hosted by us at Dartington. This took advantage of Dartington’s extensive Estate which bordered the River Dart.

GNAP and other initiatives, such as the Evolving the Forest conference, took advantage of Dartington’s facilities including accommodation, meeting rooms and catering, much of which originated from the time that the College of Art was based there.

Cons

Art.earth’s gallery at Dartington was closed by the Trust and turned into a café.

Our proposal in 2016 to be based at High Cross House was turned down by Dartington.

The MA/MFA Arts and Ecology course scheduled to start in 2017 at Schumacher College was cancelled.

An application in 2017 to the Creative Europe EU fund was abandoned because our chances of success were unlikely with the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union at the start of 2020. Brexit was opposed by most working in the creative industries in the UK.

In March 2018, John Rae resigned as Head of Schumacher College and the MOU was not continued.

We were asked to remove our collection of art and ecology books from the Elmhirst Library by the end of July 2018.