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His research interests include autoethnography, ecological arts practice, conservation and conversations around re/wilding, regenerative agriculture and the politics of being and selfhood in the Anthropocene. He is currently developing a number of projects on the Lizard in Cornwall at the intersection of contemporary arts research and re/wilding, conservation and the politics of land in collaboration with Professor Caitlin DeSilvey at the University of Exeter. He has undertaken post-doctoral research as a National Productivity Investment Fellow at Falmouth University in collaboration with the National Trust. Published papers include writing for the New Statesman, Digital Creativity Journal and the Living Maps Review.

As an artist he has developed a practice of Romantic Conceptualism that does not restrict itself to traditional boundaries, mediums or modes of practice, but rather develops a responsive way of being and making that is composed of and by its present context. He has exhibited internationally in exhibitions from New York to St. Petersburg.

Exhibitions include: This is The Future, Chiltern Sculpture Trail; British Art Show 6, Newcastle; Deptford X Festival, London; Conflux Festival of Psychogeography, New York; Artisterium, Tbilisi, Georgia; Performance Writing 12, Arnolfini, Bristol; Sideways: a festival of walking, Belgium; Remote Performances, Outlandia/Resonance FM, Scotland; Venice Biennale; HIDE, Secret Garden Party, Cambridge; Hermitage, Newlyn Gallery and Unbounded, Eden Project.

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In 1990 Stephan became one of the founding members of Schumacher College where he worked closely with James Lovelock, with whom he has maintained a long-lasting friendship and scientific collaboration. As a result of this, they were jointly appointed as founding chair holders of the Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo.

Stephan led and lectured on the college’s MSc Holistic Science for nearly two decades, teaching on the core models of the programme, as well as on several short courses at the College. At Schumacher College Stephan has taught alongside many of the world’s leading ecological thinkers and activists, including Arne Naess, Fritjof Capra, Brian Goodwin, Vandana Shiva, David Abram, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. He is now Deep Ecology Research Fellow at Schumacher College, where his interests are the intersects between scientific ecology (especially Gaia theory) and the world of psyche and soul.

He plays classical guitar and the Venezuelan cuatro and loves to speak Spanish, his native tongue.
Stephan is author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia, as well as Gaia Alchemy and Poems of Lorca: Courting the Dawn, translated with Martin Shaw.

Andy has doctorates in Ecology (Oxford University – studying patterns of distribution of mammals at the continental level) and in the Study of Religion (King Alfred’s College, Winchester – researching bardic performance within contemporary Druidry and radical environmental protest movements). Consequently, he is especially interested in the intersection between ecology and worldview or spirituality.

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He taught for many years as an Associate Lecturer in the Study of Religion at Bath Spa University and Oxford Brookes University (Research Methods, Issues in Contemporary Religion, Contemporary Paganism and Festivals in Religion and Culture). Andy is third supervisor for a PhD student at the University of Sydney, who is researching the experiences of participants at the Synthesis psilocybin retreat centre in the Netherlands.

His current research focuses on the proliferation of both scientific and religious interest in psychedelics, and the assumptions, sympathies and antipathies between the various discourses by which psychedelic experience is interpreted. Current papers include a study of the use of psychedelics within contemporary Druidry, an investigation of the purported ability of psychedelics to engender an ecological self, and a co-authored paper on the significance of the Green Man in contemporary alternative spiritualities. He is the author of Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom and a range of papers, many of which can be found at independent.academia.edu/AndyLetcher.

During this time TGL has established over 30 community food projects, businesses, and co-operative ventures designed to be self-supporting but to benefit from the mutual support provided under the TGL umbrella. The resulting network of projects have been shaped to grow resilience and respond to market failures around small-scale food production, and to revitalise local food consumption, production and employment opportunities. Simon brings his academic, business and supply chain development experience to the BSc Regenerative Food and Farming at Dartington.

He is also interested in how pre-modern poetics, mythologies and metaphysics explore and express fundamental relations between different realms of reality in a way that could nurture, energise and challenge our contemporary ecological understanding.

His book Shakespeare and the Grace of Words (Routledge, 2022) attempted to show, through an original reading of Shakespeare, how language is not a communication system used to describe, label and signify but a vital power that belongs to the core of reality and attempts to affirm and articulate a primordial goodness in a way that involves humans and more-than humans alike.  Valentin’s forthcoming book. Heaven’s Wildflowers: A Blakean Theory of Nature and Culture, explores William Blake’s visionary art, poetry and philosophy to show how poetic imagination, creative expression and sign-making form a continuum between human and more-than-human worlds.