Sensitive Fluidity Conference
Dear Fellow Colleagues,
The
water conference here in Blue Hill in July of 2024 was incredibly rich
and gave us many new insights into water as an element for life.
Building out of the work of Theador and Wolfram Schwenk and John Wilkes
we were able to begin to discern the fullness of water's capacity to
serve life. Out of this meeting there was the impulse to begin working
on one or two venues for publications, articles, and work updates of
researchers worldwide working with water to keep it as an element which
serves life in all its manifestations. The echoes from this conference
keep on coming and it has been very nourishing. Check back for
updates as people are sending in photos and impressions of the
conference and queries for further work.
There
are many who made this conference possible, but, I would like to extend
my deep gratitude to Jennifer Mitchell and David Putnam for their
steady and wise support for this work for many years.
There are various threads emerging from our collaborations and we will bring you up to date on these shortly.
Jennifer Greene, Water Research Institute 9/1/24
Simon Charter, MEd
Simon Charter started work after university in the fields of engineering and particle physics, then
followed 4 years of biodynamic farming and gardening and further training with
artistic therapeutic work . His artistic, ecological and practical interests
came together in his early 30’s
in working with water in the environment. Over the last 34 years this has focussed on landscape
projects involving Flowform water sculptures
(as discovered by John Wilkes). These have included waste water systems for sewage and agricultural effluent, therapeutic and
educational environments as well as garden landscapes just for their beauty. He
have made some original
Flowform designs and continue
to run a small business , Ebb and Flow Ltd
, bringing
rhythmically flowing water into the world in many contexts and many ways. See more...
Jennifer Greene
Jennifer Greene is the Director of the Water Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine.
In 1965 Jennifer was inspired by Schwenk’s themes from the classic book Sensitive Chaos.
In the 1980s she invited John Wilkes to the United States where the
Flowform work was inaugurated. Jennifer was later fully trained in
Switzerland and Germany in Schwenk’s Drop Picture Method which describes
micromovements in water flow that relate to water quality. Years of
water phenomena experiments and studies have been born out of this work.
Schwenk’s work forms the basis of Flowforms, metamorphic thinking, and
deepening phenomenology. See the Water Research Institute page for more on Jennifer's work.
FOR:
Naturalists, Educators, Scientists, Designers, Farmers, Water Lovers
We will engage in water experiments, studies of metamorphoses in water and plants, artistic activities including modeling a clay meander, and working with Wilkes' understanding of fluidity as is expressed in the development internationally of "flow forms".
Field trips to Acadia National Park and to observe local reversing falls phenomena will
give space for being actively present with the water that surrounds us. See conference background page for more...
