THE co-founder of the Regen Gathering festival is moving to Scotland to help ‘repeople’ and ‘rewild’ an estate which is the size of Jersey.
India Hamilton helped to set up cooperative SCOOP as well as the Regen festival, which will continue into its fourth year this September, with Miss Hamilton still very much involved.
Last year’s two-day festival at Le Tâcheron farm in Trinity attracted more than 1,000 Islanders to various talks, demonstrations, performances and activities, all based around building sustainable systems of food and farming.
Miss Hamilton said she was excited by her new venture at Craiganour Estate, near Loch Rannoch in Perthshire.
She said: “I’ll be the fourth member of the population on the estate, overseeing the owner’s strategy for regenerative development, which is all about finding ways to bring communities in line with nature so that everything and everyone can thrive.
“My job is to build strategies, businesses and job opportunities which are both regenerative and creative, and led by art, culture and nature. Light artist James Turrell has already built a sculpture and building there [the ‘Craiganour Skyspace’], which looks like a modern version of La Hougue Bie.
“We will be hosting Luminaries there, a farming and finance gathering, which we held last year in Jersey.”
Miss Hamilton added: “I have a complete creative canvas but, at its core, my job is about reconnection: it’s about thought leadership, sporting and rental opportunities, and people going there to learn about the seasons, land and ecology.
“There will be a music studio there, an arts programme and a range of other services; it is very exciting. The owner has planted five million trees there since 1996 and is constantly pushing boundaries.”
Craiganour Estate is close to Dalnacardoch Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, which is leased by Durrell, where the Jersey-based international conservation charity is restoring habitats and ecological processes.
