The REGENESIS COLLECTIVE is a project of BMCAN. We aim to tell the new story of the regenerative movement as a framework for rethinking about the way we live on Planet Earth—from regenerative agriculture reshaping food production and care of the environment to regenerative economics reshaping city economies, such as Regen Melbourne and Regen Brisbane, based on Kate Raeworth’s idea of ‘doughnut economics’. 

The roots of our crisis are epistemic. They are anchored in our deeply held worldview about the nature of reality and the privileging of humans over all other species and lifeforms. The first step is challenging our thinking and learning from First Nations knowledge systems, to follow a path of ‘two-way’ learning, combining the insights of Western science with the eco-spirituality of Australia’s ancient culture.

Speaking about his new film, Regenerating Australia, Damon Gameau says: Our current economic system is degenerative and extractive; it steals the future. A regeneratively designed system heals the future. With so many people searching for meaning in their lives, regeneration offers a way forward. What could be more meaningful than taking part in the regeneration of our planetary home?

The Creative Arts—visual arts, film, music, dance, theatre, storytelling—and their various fusions and hybrid forms, have the emotional power to communicate to our longing for meaning in understanding our rapidly changing world, providing us with a new framework to address the serious challenges we face ahead.

The REGENESIS COLLECTIVE seeks to engage with this story of regenerative living through our blog, through multi-arts events that we co-create with our network partners, and through harnessing the power of the arts as a group of painters, musicians, sculptors, philosophers, poets, thinkers, soundscape artists, performance artists, and film makers who are interested in exploring immersive narratives that celebrate our relationship with Country in all its multiple meanings, as explained by Gungundurra Elder, Aunty Sharyn Halls when speaking about Blue Mountains City Council’s Planetary Health Initiative:

Country (Ngurra) takes in everything within the cultural and spiritual landscape—landforms, trees, rocks, plants, animals foods, medicine, minerals, stories and significant places.  It includes Cultural practices, knowledge, songs, stories and art as well as Spiritual Beings and people, present and future.  Ngurra has a deep meaning of belonging.  The best way to understand Ngurra is to walk along the track.

info@bmcan.com.au

visit our blog www.regenesis.org.au

We treasure living in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area with its 6 national parks of protected wilderness that have been home to Aboriginal culture for millennia.  Rock caves with sacred art that curated the Aboriginal relationship to country are found in secret places in the Wollemi and Gardens of Stone national parks.  We seek to learn from this history of the role of art to find ways of telling the stories we need to guide us in meeting the great challenges of our times.

Like many, we recognise that we are facing a crisis as global warming, catastrophic weather events, the increasing intensity of bushfires and desertification are intensifying armed conflict and asylum seekers fleeing conflict and devastation.  Scientists tell us we are also facing the sixth mass extinction event of biodiversity on Earth.  At the same time, rapid developments in artificial intelligence and bio-engineering are taking us into uncharted territory.

Through a process of co-creation, we aim to create multi-arts events and activities that will tell stories of redemption and regeneration in a new sacred relationship with our relatives, the creatures of the natural world.

The REGENESIS COLLCTIVE is a project of the Blue Mountains Creative Arts Network.

 The Blue Mountains—Home of the Regenesis Collective

The Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (BMWHA) is a wild area of high plateaus, vivid red escarpments, gorges, waterfalls and forest, just 100 km (2 hours) inland from the CBD of Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

It is the traditional homeland of at least six Aboriginal language groups: the Wanaruah, Wiradjuri, Gundungurra, Dharawal, Darug and Darkinjung people. The region is networked with Aboriginal stories, travel routes, special places and connections, and thousands of documented rock art and
occupation sites. The BMWHA is comprised of eight conservation areas including the Blue Mountains, Wollemi, Garden of Stones and Kanangra-Boyd National Parks.

Two-thirds of it is dedicated as wilderness, including the two largest declared wilderness areas on the eastern Australian mainland. It is also home to the City of Blue Mountains, which is comprised of 26 urban villages along the Great Western Highway and Bells Line of Road, attracting a large and thriving artistic community with strong environmental connections and is known as the City of the Arts.