Re:build and the Regenerative Renaissance
Written by Barbara Lima
I love building villages because they are big enough to create a way of life which is fundamentally different but also small enough to be designed and realized. — Victor Vorski.
When I asked Victor Vorski, a village and community builder, creative strategist and distributed-start-up mentor based in Portugal, what was his highest motivation as a Village 3.0 catalyst and one of the founders of re:build, an inaugural, online festival focused on our current regenerative village-building movement taking place at the end of this month, he told me a story about his childhood.
“I grew up in one of those communist concrete blocks in the seventies in Poland. On a physical level, there was nothing missing; they were newly built, warm, and there was unlimited hot water. But I remember going to my grandfather’s place, a house outside a smaller city, and noticing that, somehow, I felt better there. He had a garden, some chickens, and I could run around with other kids in the neighbourhood. Although I couldn’t analyse that feeling as a child, today I understand that being in a natural environment is better for my mental health than living in a soulless apartment block with no green areas or a community.”
The benefits of spending time outdoors for human well-being are long well-known. However, the understanding that nature is not only good to be in but a necessity in maintaining physical and psychological health, and cognitive function, is a newly-reshaped realisation supported by twenty years of scientific studies of Biophilia that our individual and collective COVID-19 experiences have brought us on a global scale.
After living in different parts of the world and experiencing life in big cities as well as in natural environments, I realized how much the latter benefit my mental health and how much happier I am in nature. It was the need for life in community in a natural environment that crystalized my purpose in building villages. In a way, coming to village-building is dealing with my trauma of growing up in those physically comfortable but soulless, devoid of nature and community, mass-produced apartment blocks. — Victor Vorski.
“How many years forward do you think the pandemic pushed the mainstream adoption of remote work?”, Victor asked me. “A decade”, I guessed, and he agreed. The fast spread of the coronavirus in big cities, along with a growing trend of flexible working conditions and increasing lockdown awakenings, has been driving the surge of the so-called Regenerative Renaissance. People are not just flocking to greener destinations in search for a better life; they are also rethinking concepts and practices in terms of food production and consumption cycles, governance structures, financial systems, and education and learning paradigms, to name a few. “A tsunami of change is hitting us hard, and I’m getting my surfboard ready. Those who have been leading the movement for the last two or three decades now have the responsibility to support its new adepts and co-creatively propel its development”, says Victor.
In the form of a collaborative open space, the framework of the festival is focused on the exploration of opportunities in responding to the mass-shift to remote work we are undergoing, which has awakened in many of us a desire to live in community and closer to nature. From ideation, through funding, community development and governance, to measuring environmental impact, re:build aims to bring together people working on answers to questions such as how to build a village, what makes villages regenerative, what role can we play in creating a better future for all, and how can we support each other and take regenerative village-building mainstream. “What’s great about this movement is that everybody is collaborative and willing to share. I think that we’re all here to build a more beautiful world, and, if we can help each other, that’s even better.”
The conference gives participants the opportunity to choose their track based on their needs in relation to five main streams: Main & Projects, People & Culture, Nature & Ecosystems, Building & Infrastructure, and Funding & Business. Live events will take the form of project presentations, question-based dialogues, expert masterclasses, and playrooms for human connection and networking.
“I’ve felt for many years that the main objective in a conference is not to hear people speak. I can go on YouTube and watch the world’s greatest thinkers speak for free. I believe we go to conferences to talk, connect and search for collaborators or clients. My intention is for re:build partners, session hosts and participants to think and be open about their needs. Not just share ideas and get inspired but also focus on finding collaborators and projects to get involved in, and make connections that result in co-creation and long-term relationships. This is what we are focusing on at re:build: creating an event where participants make meaningful and purpose-driven connections.”
According to Victor, remote learning is the next key-enabler of the village-building movement with a model in which local forest schools or learning communities where children play and learn together on the land is combined with online access to global, culturally diverse educators, peers and learning resources. “We currently have the tools required to address the common concern in regard to the enclosing aspect of life ensued from previous village models and to create 21st-century villages that are both local and global. The challenge in accessing high-quality health services in villages is the last obstacle which is being erased with the advent of remote diagnostics and doctor visits.”
With a combination of remote entertainment, remote shopping and, now, remote work and learning followed by remote health services, Victor believes that we are about to see a fundamental transformation in the way we live which will enable the regenerative village-building renaissance.
What will the future bring us in a post-COVID-19, Regenerative-Renaissance era? Victor sees a future where people live in smart Regenerative-Renaissance villages where life is both more local and more global. “For example, you and I are having this video-call. I’m in Portugal, you’re in China, and, in a few months, you’ll be in Costa Rica. After this call, I’ll go water my garden and maybe have breakfast in a great co-working space. It’s a lifestyle in which people are in the same measure connected to the earth, the local community, and the globe. I hope to see many of these villages in the future. We are already seeing that take the form of exchange of ideas, so now it is time for us to learn from each other and effectively collaborate on a global scale. We have a history of hierarchical, inter-governmental collaborative initiatives such as the United Nations, and, with the advent of free global technology, we have had changemakers establish dialogues focused on abstract aspects of creation. re:build is proposing a new collaboration paradigm, one in which we gather not only to share our ideas but mainly to co-create and bring our independent projects to life. These are the very early days of co-creative initiatives with a holacratic type of governance, and we are still understanding how holacracy works and learning to co-create, but I see these new forms of leadership and project management gain body and propel the rise of village-to-village collaborations. I hope re:build will be a turning point in enabling this movement to grow.”
re:build will be hosted online from April 30 to May 2 on Zoom and in Topia, “a magical digital world” intended as a space for co-creators and active participants in the regenerative village-building movement as well as members of the traditional real-estate sector and curious hearts who are interested in this new segment to take part in workshops and practical conversations. The festival is planned to take place as a global online event once a year in combination with physical gatherings in different parts of the world. If COVID-19 circumstances permit, this year’s physical gathering will happen in Alentejo, Portugal, from September 1–5.
For more information and to purchase your ticket, visit re-build.co.
Gaianet is a re:build partner and will be represented by Alexander Keehnen, Daan Gorter, Dhyan de Brujin, Marinice Fiorenza Vieira, Mária Gališinová, Simona Majerská, Robert Schram and Gerrit Bruggeman, who will offer and/or support sessions on the following
topics and projects:
Five Success Factors of Starting Intentional Communities (Daan Gorter)
New Paradigm Value Exchange (Dhyan Brujin & Daan Gorter)
Group Governance and Spirituality (Alexander Keehnen & Daan Gorter)
Asking the Community for Help (Alexander Keehnen & Daan Gorter)
The Eco Synergy Village Project (Robert Schram & co-initiators Kerry Lindsey and Troy
Wiley)
The EXOsphere Project (co-founders Simona Majerská & Mária Gališinová)
Daan and Marinice will, in addition, lead the following sessions under the Alpha Omega
Foundation: Designing a Resource-Based Economy (Daan Gorter)
Light Cities Project Presentation (Marinice Fiorenza Vieira & Daan Gorter)
For more information and to purchase your ticket, visit re-build.co.
Use the code GaiaNet for a 10% discount!
Barbara Lima is a multipotentialite whose often simultaneous, variable endeavours have found four common constants: the pen, the paper, her voice and her passport. Her highest motivations are self-development, and human and planetary regeneration.