Thoughts upon Leaving Dartington - by train. Sharon Hamlin

Gliding through the tranquil Devon countryside on the day after we joined Donna and Tim on the final part of their 222 mile walk I felt moved to record my own thoughts on the significance of this event and the importance of Dartington to me, as Donna’s mother:-

Dear daughter of mine,

How proud and pleased for you am I that you have completed the return journey to Dartington, seven years after you walked “home “from there in your final year of study. At that time the world was reeling from the impact of the events of 9/11 which led you to enquire of those you encountered along the way what they considered to be important to them.

When planning this return journey, at the beginning of the year, you could not have known how this September, in the year 2008, would see the world in turmoil again; not this time as a result of outside attacks against the West, but due to internal commercial processes all but consuming themselves in a feeding frenzy of greed, fuelled by the unshakeable, unfathomable, insatiable belief, stronger than ever during those intervening years, that capitalism and economic growth must continue, can continue and will continue at any cost.

How sad that it would seem the same commercial pressures which are currently tearing the world apart should also bring an end to the opportunities which Dartington has given you and so many others over the years. And how fitting, though ironic, that on the day you completed your epic journey (this time suggesting to those who joined you along the way, that they think about how Dartington was important to them); the world’s greatest economic power had been forced to consider the consequences of its past excesses, which had so nearly brought about a worldwide catastrophe, with potentially even more far reaching adverse effects than the events of 9/11.

In 2001, the President of the USA famously spoke of the forces confronting the West as “evil”. I am reminded of John Milton’s verse of 1634: “But evil on itself shall back recoil…” which leaves me wondering about the significance of it all.

What poignancy then did I feel in contrasting these thoughts with those I had whilst walking with everyone in silent contemplation on the gently winding path to Dartington, beside the calm meandering river, beneath the ancient sheltering trees, under a warm blue sky in the early Autumn sunshine? To consider once again the paradox that the only constant in life is change, which as David Williams suggested in his address to the group at the end of the walk, if wisely anticipated, rather than pointlessly resisted, can lead to an open embrace of all the possibilities and opportunities that life has to offer. And how well the experience of Dartington has prepared you for this! I have witnessed how it has enabled you to freely explore your potential for creative expression, to gain confidence in learning how to deal with the challenging, often frightening, world which lies outside the sustaining, nurturing walls of Dartington and to mature into the beautiful, thoughtful, enquiring, reflective, sensitive and caring young woman I know you to be. If this is a measure of Dartington’s success then I am so happy to have supported you to be a part of it.

From those bold yet tentative, lonely but strong-hearted, steps towards an uncertain homecoming seven years ago, you have retraced the path in the loving companionship of those who are dear to you, committing to memory all that was significant about the Dartington experience in a carefully documented account of what it was like for those who were there.

This time you walked towards the certainty that change can bring about new openings as well as endings in the knowledge that Dartington has helped you to seek the potential in discerning and exploring whatever lies on the path ahead.

And in doing so I have been inspired by your endeavours to appreciate that Dartington offers not just an alternative education in the Arts - something completely other than its competitive counterparts, but an antidote to the materialistic, commercial world which we have just witnessed in the grip of global panic even as you walked, just walked, and continued to walk with strong sturdy feet upon the solid earth in a spirit of positive commemoration of the special and unique place that is Dartington.

With all my love to the ‘you’ you were, the ‘you’ you are, and the ‘you’ you are becoming,

Your ever loving

Mama xxx

Sharon Hamlin ( Littman) Friday 26^th September 2008

David Williams. Text spoken at the walk's ending. Dartington 25th September 2008

TEXT FOR DONNA & TIM

So, 222 miles in 21 days, from London to Dartington. The mirror image in reverse of a walk Donna first made in 2001 as part of a remarkable 3^rd year project. En route this time, Donna and Tim have been joined by a number others, to accompany them on sections of the walk and to share conversation: thoughts about Dartington, memories, associations, anecdotes, perceptions of its pasts and possible futures. These co-walkers have included former and current staff and students, as well as others with a close association with the college. And now many of you here on this last leg from Totnes …

In some ways, the closing of a loop, an ending of a cycle. A slow embodied and mindful return for Donna to a very different Dartington, itself, as we all know, about to migrate in some unknowable form or other a little further south-west. And an almost-ending of Tim’s MA. A gathering before a dispersal. A farewell. But the walk itself has also been – and remains - an invitation to new meetings, exchanges, reflections into the future about location, context, community, change as the only real constant, about ‘home’, displacement, new beginnings, and at its heart, focused questions about what is important. Perhaps above all it invites us to inhabit something of the paradox of change: hold on tightly, let go lightly.

My old friend Ric Allsopp, who I've known for about 25 years - he was one of the core reasons for my own return to Dartington from Australia in the late 1990s – was one of those invited to walk who couldn’t take part; he was working elsewhere throughout this period. Ric emailed me a copy of his response to their invitation:

… I had hoped to be able to join you to walk and talk - but I'm afraid the dates just don't work out for me. So - best of luck with the project. I'm not sure if I actually have anything to say about Dartington - a thirty year involvement in the College leaves me with the feeling that it is time to walk on. 'Dartington' will remain as it always was - an unstable set of ideas and acts of public dreaming; an opportunity to engage with some extraordinary people who more than occasionally managed to share a radical educational and arts ethos and way of doing things which gave rise to challenging, absorbing and uplifting work - work that will continue to define and disturb and resonate with contemporary arts practice. Best wishes, Ric

When Goat Island were here a year or so ago, as part of their last tour of their last piece The Lastmaker, they talked with us about endings and about how one might go about managing one’s endings. The Goats said: “As a company, we came to the conclusion that it was time to come to a conclusion … We needed to take control of our ending before our ending took control of us. We considered the possible endings we did not want to define us, endings of burnout, internal conflict, self-repetition, or diminished quality. We wanted to reject these, and to reject the notion of their inevitability. Thus we decided to approach our ending as we have tried to approach all our changes: creatively”. At that time we felt we had no ownership of our ending here, it didn’t belong to us and it was both disorienting and painful. After a while we started to look for ways to approach this ending creatively. Donna and Tim’s walk is a brilliant example of one such creative approach, and as an event it resonates strongly with Dartington’s longstanding engagement in acts of walking as a reflective, creative and performative practice.

Earlier this week, I joined Tim & Donna for one leg of the walk, 11.5 miles, much of it on the coastal path, from Sidmouth to Starcross. Many things came up for me on this day of walking and talking in the sunshine. In particular, a focused sense of those colleagues and students who have been closest to what’s really important about Dartington for me: as possibility, as open invitation, as human encounter, as continuous and sometimes precarious unfolding. Some of them are here today. Some aren’t, but in other ways of course they always are. And then some perceptions about what I have valued most and still do: perhaps in particular, the ways in which sometimes here teaching has become so much more than some dumb claim to possession of knowledge to be conveyed – at those times it has been about not knowing, about experiencing, being present and attentive and open to the extraordinary creative possibilities of other human beings. In the best of times I have been utterly inspired by the engagement of some students, completely blown away by the quality of their work, unsettled, knocked over, rearranged, lifted up. It has changed me. What could be better than a teacher wide-eyed and joyous at something really taking place, and at the knowledge that he knows bugger all, and is only just beginning …?

So, I want to thank you, my teachers, my friends – Donna and Tim, Augusto, Pete ... You are beautiful. You practice hope, it’s a thing you do with imagination, attention, and grace. And as Patti Smith once wrote, the air – this air - is filled with the moves of you. Our conversations will go on and on, I know.

In a moment I will invite you all to share a cup of tea and a home-baked Persighetti scone, and to talk, with Donna and Tim and each other. But before that, some final words from the Goats, on the work of ending:

“There is much to do: the work of ending. At the moment we find it difficult to imagine work more rewarding than that. Isn’t it, after all, the work of our lives? ... We will try to live up to the words we have spoken to you today: to keep our promises, to be the people we said we were, to stage what we know in the stillest hour of the night to be true, to remind ourselves of the impossible, the historical, to choreograph a dance to repair the world, to say, “We have become human again””.

5.15 p.m., Thursday 25 September 2008, Dartington