Dartington Trust is a centre for arts, ecology and social justice, based on a 1,200 acre estate near Totnes, Devon in southern England. The research focus of contemporary Dartington is imagining, visioning, prototyping, and living ecological futures with a particular emphasis on food production, land use, and the arts.
Our researchers have expertise in a wide range of topics including arts practice-led research; animism; medieval literature; modernism; story and myth; arts, design and ecology; ecology and spirituality; Goethean science; regenerative economics, farming and food; social work with adults and children; social enterprise.
We offer research degrees in partnership with University of Westminster CREAM.
Research Degrees at Dartington
MPhil and PhD qualifications in partnership with University of Westminster
our researchers
Meet our academic staff, and the publications and research projects they are producing
also at dartington
Meet Research in Practice, who work to support evidence-informed practice with children and families, young people and adults
latest news
A postgraduate forum on the theme of Extinction took place on 3 November, organised by Dartington Trust and Art.Earth as part of the Borrowed Time symposium. Mirko Nikolic gave the keynote presentation. He recently completed a PhD at University of Westminster and is now a postdoc research at Linkoping University in Sweden. Chiara Flora Bassignana, a doctoral candidate at University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy and a visiting researcher from Dartington presented and there were 11 presentations from current students and recent graduates on MA Poetics of Imagination, MA Arts and Place and MA Mind, Movement and Ecology. You can see the presentations here.
WATCH PRESENTATIONS (VIA VIMEO.COM) >
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Dr Jo Joelson, Programme Lead, Arts and Place recently presented at the Man-Machine Wellbeing Symposium in Portugal. Jo discussed how light plays a central role in human experience. There are fundamental things driven on primal levels by light and our evolved biological relationship to light. Jo is particularly engaged with light’s role in theorising landscape and place.
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LISTEN HERE >
Emma Bush, Poetics of Imagination, just published an essay on bodies as instruments of sensory navigation in Walking Bodies, edited by Helen Billinghurst, Claire Hind and Phil Smith, published by Triarchy Press.
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Dr Sarah Kelly, Engaged Ecology, reports that recordings and resources from Bath Spa’s recent online art and ecology conference, Alternatives to Crisis, are available here >
We are a distinctive learning community where students and tutors learn in dialogue with each other and with the place itself. Through our two faculties – Schumacher College and Dartington Arts School – we offer learning on a small, friendly scale with intensity and rigour. As a testbed for enacting new visions and models, Dartington has a uniquely values-driven vitality to offer to its learners.
studying at dartington: key information
fees & funding
Information on our tuition fee tariffs, including those for international students (those outside the UK), additional programme-specific fees, and bursary opportunities.
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accommodation
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international students
Find out about the Visa and language requirements for students travelling to study with us from outside of the UK.
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flexible learning models
Our degree programmes are designed to suit the complexities of modern life, allowing you to live where you live and work where you work whilst studying.
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our faculties
schumacher college
Aan international college for ecological studies offering masters programmes, short courses and a horticulture residency.
dartington arts school
Low residency, leading-edge models of progressive learning in the arts and ecology, designed to offer you a learning experience rich in intellectual and creative exploration.
latest news & blogs
Dartington student nominated for 12 Theatre Awards
We are delighted for our student Rachel Long who has received 12 Theatre Award nominations for her performance piece, ‘Bright Mother’.
Zoe Benbow discusses her exhibition at Dartington
With the arrival of her arboreally-inspired paintings in our gallery space, we catch up with artist Zoe Benbow to find out more about her creative process, the influences and training that helped shape her work, and the ways in which place and the natural world continue to inspire her.
‘Remember Nature’ Residency at Hauser & Wirth Somerset
Students on MA Arts & Place spend two weeks at the high-end gallery developing work responding to the theme of ‘Remember Nature’, a project inspired by artist and activist Gustav Metzger.