Upcoming Hub Residencies 2025
Whether you're drawn to quiet contemplation, artistic ritual, or deep relational living, we have a residency for you.
We’re excited to share with you the residencies available at the Bergerac Praxis Hub for Summer and Autumn 2025.
Whether you're drawn to quiet contemplation, artistic ritual, or deep relational living, we have four distinct opportunities to join us at the Life Itself Farmhouse and Bergerac Praxis Hub – a “secular monastery” nestled beside the Dordogne River in Southwest France.
Explore the offerings and invitations that call to you below.
🍂Autumn Praxis Residency (October-December 2025)
“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~Rilke
What does it mean to live well, together? How can our ways of being transform the world?
Join us for the third Autumn Praxis Residency at the Life Itself Bergerac Hub: a 2.5-month-long container for contemplative, relational, and embodied practice in community.
You’ll live alongside others who are asking questions like these in their lives and work, and experience the frame of collective rhythms and practices for conscious community living developed at the Hub over the past five years. These include experiencing the subtle activation of transformation from the inside out through the Awami Food Praxis system, developed by Valérie Duvauchelle from decades of learning in Zen temples.
This residency is your invitation to slow down, listen, practice, and live the questions - together, through cooking, sitting, resting, working and being together, we soften, reconnect, and become more able to meet the challenges we face and to become more conscious in how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world.
Details
A 2.5-month residency, living together in conscious community, working on your own projects, with a light framework of collective rhythms and practices.
📍 Where: Life Itself Hub, Bergerac, France (~1.5h from Bordeaux by train or car)
📅 When: 4 October – 15 December 2025
💶 Cost: €1100–€1300/month (private room + all food & amenities)*
📝 Apply by: 30 August 2025 (rolling admissions)
The first week of each month is an Orientation Week, where we form our collective body and introduce the foundational practices and structures of the community. Joining is only possible at the start of one of the Orientation Weeks.
Orientation Week dates:
October: 5–11 Oct (arrival 4 Oct)
November: 2–8 Nov (arrival 1 Nov)
December: 30 Nov – 7 Dec (arrival 29 Nov)
*While you're free to depart at any time during the three months costs are calculated per full month, unless you are only joining for the orientation week of that month.
☀️ Invitation to previous residents & members of the Praxis Hub Association (May-June 2025)
📅 May 15 – June 30, 2025
🔁 For returning residents & Praxis Association members only*
A light-touch reawakening of the Hub after winter. Come for a few days or several weeks to enjoy collective life in a more relaxed rhythm. Mornings offer meditation, gardening, and paddle trips; evenings include co-created relational practices.
📍 Life Itself Hub, Bergerac, France
💸 Sliding scale: €16–22/night
🍽️ Plant-based meals: €10/day
🛏️ Standard & Premium rooms available — View room details here
📩 To book, email: praxis@lifeitself.org
*Recommendations from people who have stayed at the Hub are also welcome.
🌊 Inner River Residency (July-August 2025)
In a world of socio-ecological crisis, what is the role of art? How do we know our creative work matters?
Inner River is a month-long residency for 10–12 artists—of any medium or experience level—to explore these questions through community, contemplation, and creativity. Grounded in the theme of ancestry, we’ll journey from our origins to the legacy we want to leave as future ancestors.
📍 Where: Life Itself Hub, Bergerac, France
📅 When: July 7 – August 4, 2025
💶 Cost: From €1150 (sliding scale pricing including private room + all food & amenities)*
📝 Apply by: 30 May 2025
Hosted in the beautiful Bergerac Praxis Hub, the residency blends open studio time with shared daily rhythms—morning practices, communal meals, and evening creative sessions. Each week opens a new chapter:
Week 1, Origin - We’ll start by taking a look at where we come from, and what has shaped us into who we are, as artists and people. Who are our ancestors? What are the gifts and debts of our inheritance?
Week 2, Journey - From there, we’ll look to the current moment in our story. Who’s here today? Who have we become, and who are we becoming? Where do we belong, and what are we guided by?
Week 3, Prophecy - Lastly, we’ll turn our gaze to the future. What is the story we’re writing? What is our gift to the world? What kinds of ancestors do we want to become?
Week 4, Offering - And in the last week, we will switch gears to a focused week of making!
Throughout, we will co-create the space with our own gifts - storytelling, song, reflection, art - and water each other’s growth through generous presence.
This is a space for people drawn to their creative spark, whether or not they call themselves artists. Expect slow mornings, riverside walks, time at Plum Village, and meaningful connection.
🌙 The Art of Ritual with Sylvie Barbier (July 2025)
📍 The Farmhouse, Thénac, France
📅 July 24–27, 2025
🎭 A 4-day immersive gathering
💸 From €540
What does it mean to call in the sacred today?
In this 4-day immersive workshop, artist and ritualist Sylvie Barbier (Art of the Second Renaissance and Life Itself co-founder) will lead an exploration of embodied creativity, ancestral connection, and collective ritual practice.
The workshop will explore the following practices - and many more:
Embodied sessions to guide us into trance-like states and reawaken our senses
The story your body wants to tell – tuning into the animality and wisdom of the body
Finding your voice and singing to the divine
Channeling the ancestral line
Connecting with your soul's wisdom and messages
Rooted in the Second Renaissance Manifesto, this experience is designed for artists, seekers, and anyone curious about the intersection of creativity, embodiment, and meaning-making.
This is not a retreat. This is a return.
Reserve your ticket here: https://ti.to/art-earth-tech/art-of-ritual-2025
Join the Praxis Hub Substack for more information about upcoming residencies and reflective pieces from the team.