As part of the fifth session of the RAW Académie, RAW Material Company invites you to a public lecture given by Peter Webb on Wednesday 7th November 2018 at 5.30pm.

We are unique individuals constantly stimulated through our perceptions and feelings as we move through life in the world about us.

We are integral parts of environments with particular expressions, in constant transformation and change over time.

From day to day, year after year and throughout our lifetimes we weave ourselves together with these other realities, some of which we manage to explore through the relationships we develop.

The path we choose may be individual or shared and the depth of the relationships and subsequent understanding depends upon our ability to be open to others we meet. They too are unique in their manner of expression and to perceive their realities, we should be open to them and then can feel them ‘touch’ us somewhere inside ourselves. As we do so, an exchange of being is possible and through practice we can deepen this experience of relationships and allow it to grow, come to flower and produce fruits.

The seeds of these fruits contain the potential of change as they represent a union of open exchange. Germinating as unique expressions, they depend on exterior conditions so they may develop the potential for change.

Landscapes and all their component parts such as soil, mountains, flowing streams, trees and flowers, birds and larger animals; the space shared by them between sky and land where our eyes fall upon clouds, rain, wind and the brilliant sun, all are unique, rhythmic expressions just as are we. They touch us continuously through our senses and perception, yet do we really feel them? Or do we tend to name and separate them as we have taught our mind to do?

Through name and separation the relationship becomes merely a formal, unconscious act in which we barely participate. As such we share little of ourselves and tend to absorb even less of that which is outside of ourselves. Many now move through life being efficient like the machines we use, yet have no experience of feeling or inner life which is awoken through a relationship with the outside world. There is no growth, no flower and no seed to germinate. Somehow we all feel that something different can be done to awaken abundance.

Together we will explore how the landscape can touch us and how each of us in the group experiences that which we perceive. We will explore some ways to awaken and cultivate our sensitivity towards Nature and how we can develop relationships; between ourselves, and the different elements which compose any environment.

I hope that together we can understand germination as a small miracle of life where our personal shared experiences are the seeds and our group, the fertile soil and moisture necessary for their emergence and growth. Together we can explore how we can create the right conditions for change to manifest through the creative seeds we sow in our lives and our communities.

 

About Peter Webb

Peter Webb graduated in Horticultural Science in Australia where he was born. He worked as a seed collector and orchid cultivator at the Royal Botanic Gardens and then at Melbourne University in his hometown of Melbourne. He became involved with and studied permaculture then left to collect seeds, work with tree surgery in London (England), and studied Bio-dynamic Agriculture before moving to Brazil where he currently lives.

He lived in the mountains of Southeastern Brazil within a peasant community, where he built his house, raised sheep and planted his own food together with his companion. After 14 years he moved to Sao Paulo to live with 18 million people where his work is diverse; environmental recuperation, permaculture classes, tree surgery, teaching with Gaia Education, Schumacher College, eco-psychology, agro-forestry, Tibetan Buddhism and phenomenology....

After meeting artist Otobong Nkanga in 2014 just before the Sao Paulo Biennial, his work deepened into a sensitive exploration with people and their perceptions of objects and landscape.