December 2025 Newsletter: Year in Review
Welcome to our December 2025 Newsletter. In this edition, we look back over some of the highlights of 2025.
❄️ Winter’s Beginnings ❄️
Art of the Second Renaissance: Manifesto and Magazine
On Tuesday 28th January, we launched the Art of the Second Renaissance Manifesto and Magazine. Art of the Second Renaissance is a new movement aiming to redefine how art is made and to contribute to the emergence of a Second Renaissance. Its core activities include developing a manifesto, forming a collective, producing an annual magazine, hosting exhibitions, and creating projects that embody the movement’s principles. You can read more about the launch here.
In February, we launched ‘Seeds of a Second Renaissance’ - a curated, digestible, and accessible newsletter for anyone seeking to learn, participate, or collaborate in the movement. You can read all editions to date here.
Second Renaissance Forum is Live!
We also launched the Second Renaissance Forum. This is a space for original ideas relating to the paradigmatic cultural and societal (re)birth we call the ‘Second Renaissance’—a response to the breakdown of modernity and its crises, a period of transition and awakening, and the emergence of a growing ecosystem of people and organizations driving change.
🌿 Spring’s Seedlings 🌿
Human Transformation in a Time of Metacrisis (Harvard, May)
On May 2nd and 3rd, the Human Transformation in a Time of Metacrisis event took place, bringing together a global community of educators, practitioners, thinkers, and changemakers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The event focused on how education and inner development can address the Metacrisis, the interconnected challenges of our era - social polarization, ecological breakdown, and a crisis of meaning - signalling a world in transition.
Keynote speakers included Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; Rebecca Henderson, Harvard Business School Professor and author of Reimagining Capitalism; Tyler VanderWeele, Director of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program; and Futurist and Developmental Theorist Zak Stein. The conference also featured panels, workshops and unconference sessions led by Bonnitta Roy, Daniel Thorson, Isabela Granic, Peter Limberg, Kam Bellamy, and Brendan Graham Dempsey, exploring themes such as metamodern spirituality, youth flourishing, and collective healing. A youth-led collective session, EmpowerEd Through Arts, from students at the Boston Arts Academy also took place.
Sensemaking Studio: Find Out More – A Welcome Event
March also saw the announcement of the Sensemaking Studio and an invitation to join the team later on a live webinar to learn more about the Studio and its work.
From Polycrisis to Metacrisis: a short introduction
This year we released two new white papers. The first addressed the nature of the Polycrisis and Metacrisis: what they are, how they are distinct, how they are related, and why it matters.
In summary, our world shows signs of multi-systemic breakdown. In this context, polycrisis names an entanglement of interconnected crises that affect one another. Metacrisis, by contrast, identifies foundational conditions that generate these crises. Just as symptoms signal an underlying illness, Polycrisis points to Metacrisis. While the reality of a global polycrisis is increasingly acknowledged, awareness of Metacrisis is less common.
Reflections on the Life Itself Spring Gathering 2025
This year’s Life Itself Spring Gathering took place at the Bergerac Hub from Thursday 27th March to Sunday 30th March. We had 18 participants from the UK, Italy, Belgium, Canada, France, and Spain over the weekend and around 8 people staying for a community co-living/co-working week afterwards.
A Second Renaissance Oasis is Emerging
We launched the weekly Second Renaissance Oasis calls - an online space and a community infrastructure for those who want to connect, be and build in alignment with the Second Renaissance. These take place every Tuesday at 6pm CET on Zoom.
☀️ Summer Gatherings ☀️
Events
This summer also saw the first proto-edition of the Second Renaissance Festival - a small gathering of dance, music, art and ritual. It was a joyous and intimate occasion, and we’re very excited to see this project evolve in the years to come.
A few weeks later, we hosted the Sensemaking Summer School at the Riverside Hub - a week-long intensive, exploring the intersection of global catastrophic risk and cultural evolution, through the frameworks of Integral Theory, Metacrisis and Second Renaissance.
In July the ‘Inner River’ residency was hosted at the Riverside Hub, a month-long exploration of art and creative way-finding. See here for a beautiful recap written by Alexia Netcu, one of the members of the hosting team.
From Metacrisis to Second Renaissance: A 4-Week Exploratory Journey – Live Sessions in July
Rufus Pollock and Sylvie Barbier hosted the From Metacrisis to Second Renaissance: A 4-Week Exploratory Journey course in July. Bringing together 24 participants for online interactive learning, dialogue, and deeper exploration of the Second Renaissance framework.
Life Itself Research
The summer was a prolific period of activity for the Life Itself Research community, which continued its weekly programme of calls, with recordings available at the new research substack.
Anna Riedl gave a fascinating talk on her recent work on Autopoiethics, connecting it to her previous work with John Vervaeke on Relevance Realisation, rationality and wisdom.
Valerie Duvauchelle shared her experience of using insights from Zen monastic practice in developing a co-living framework at Life Itself’s Bergerac Hub.
Well-known scholar of metamodernism and spirituality Brendan Graham Dempsey gave an exciting presentation entitled “Measuring Worldviews: Putting Integral Altitudes to the Test”.
Jonah Wilberg gave a presentation on the intellectual history of the Metacrisis: discussing both the history of that specific term, and the broader history of related ideas within 19th and 20th century philosophy.
Alongside the research group, we released several podcasts over the summer featuring thinkers such as Zak Stein, Theo Dawson and Manda Scott.
🍁 Autumn Insights 🍁
Autumn Praxis Residency (Bergerac, October - December)
October 6th marked the beginning of this year’s Autumn Praxis Residency, a two and a half month-long experiment of living in deep connection, including participants from the Life Itself Practicum. Over this period, twenty-four residents, from nine different countries, practiced the art of co-living in our beautiful Riverside Hub in Bergerac. It was a beautiful and enriching experience, see here for a series of memories and reflections from the residency.
“Life Itself has been truly transformational. I am not the same person I was coming in. It taught me not only to think more about others but to also ponder where the future is headed, and what authenticity looks like. The people who do this kind of thing are very inspirational and kind. Would recommend!” - Tien, Autumn Praxis Resident 2025
Developmental Spaces: Cultural incubators for a time of transformation (October)
On October 2nd, we released our second white paper of the year. The paper set out a policy case for Developmental Spaces: collective settings for integrated inner development. You can watch the webinar here.
This early step aims to help build an evidence-based movement for Developmental Spaces, provided widely enough to serve large segments of populations. The ultimate ambition is a replicable, scalable model with potential to influence the deepest orientation of societies towards a regenerative future - a ‘Second Renaissance’. Learn more about the white paper here.
Over the Mountains Podcast Series (November)
On the 13th of November, Rufus and Sylvie released the first edition of Over The Mountains - a podcast and a blog exploring the understandings and system shifts needed to bring forth a Second Renaissance, and to live within a metamodern reality that works for everyone. It focuses on the societal, political, economic, and ontological transformations required for such a world to emerge.
Through conversations with sensemakers and the builders of tomorrow - such as Rufus Pollock, Liam Kavanagh, Sylvie Barbier, and Jonah Wilberg - this series shares deep knowledge from sociology, economics, political philosophy, history, neuroscience, and ideological science, making these insights accessible to a wider audience.
Looking back, 2025 was an exciting and prolific year for our community. We’re looking forward to continuing this work and seeing what we can accomplish together in 2026 and beyond. As a team, we’d like to extend a sincere thank you to the community for your continued support.
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