We are excited to announce that Dougald Hine, renowned writer, thinker, and CEMUS affiliate, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for the ClimateExistence conference.
In addition to his keynote address, Dougald will also be leading a parallel session.
Dougald Hine [Social thinker, Writer and Speaker, a school called HOME, CEMUS affiliate – Sweden]
Photo: Ingrid Rieser
He has given keynotes and talks on numerous platforms – from the European Commission and TEDx events to the back rooms of pubs and squatted social centres – and is a regular guest lecturer at universities, art and architecture schools across Europe. In 2012, Google invited him to São Paulo and Buenos Aires to speak at its Think Infinite! events, his work was featured as a case study in the EU’s Team Culture report on ‘the role of culture in a time of crisis’ and he was named by NESTA/The Observer in their inaugural list of ‘Britain’s 50 New Radicals’.
In 2015-16 he served as leader of artistic development at Riksteatern, Sweden’s national theatre, bringing together a year-long artistic workshop on ‘the role(s) of art under the shadow of climate change’. In collaboration with three Swedish playwrights, he wrote Medan klockan ticker (‘While the Clock is Ticking’), a play commissioned by the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, based on interviews with climate scientists about ‘what it’s like when the Anthropocene is your day job’. He is an associate of the Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University and sits on the advisory board for the Penn State University Press series, Ivan Illich: 21st-Century Perspectives.
Many of his books have been collaborations with visual artists, ranging from COMMONSense (2009) with Anne-Marie Culhane and Access Space to The Crossing of Two Lines (2013) with the Stockholm-based artist duo Performing Pictures. For Walking in the Void (2021), a collaboration with the glass artists Baldwin & Guggisberg, he contributed an essay in twelve parts, ’THE ASTEROID: An Anthropocene Whodunnit’.
After ten years as a director of the Dark Mountain Project, he handed on his responsibilities in 2019. His recent projects include Notes From Underground, a ten-part essay series for Bella Caledonia exploring the deep roots of the new climate movements, and The Great Humbling, a podcast which he presents with the futurist and ‘recovering sustainability consultant’ Ed Gillespie.
Originally from the northeast of England, Dougald is now settled in the small Swedish town of Östervåla where he and Anna Björkman are creating a school called HOME, ‘a gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture’. His latest writing is published on his Substack, Writing Home.