Come and join us from the 24th - 31st of July 2026 for a transformative, artistic week around
the theme of Shadow Work and Creative Rebirth with
Sylvie Barbier
and Kay Michael at the
Life Itself Farmhouse Hub
in Dordogne, France.
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of life, but by making the darkness conscious." - Carl Jung
What must be released for the unborn future to be born?
Our shadows are at the core of our organisations' breakdowns, family and friendship disputes, and the disintegration
of political movements. Commitment to shadow work and loving accountability is non-negotiable if we are to bring
forth the transformation this moment requires.
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Carl Jung
During our week-long residency, we invite you to immerse yourself in the poetic and transformative terrain of shadow work, held through the vessel of ritual art.
The journey begins from a shared recognition: both of us have been shaped by lineages and personal enquiries where the unseen, the unspoken, and the unresolved have called to be honoured and transformed. Dreams, hauntings, old patterns, and ancestral echoes are not obstacles here — they are invitations.
Join us in exploring personal and collective shadow material through guided rituals/ceremonies, movement, elemental practices and artistic creation. Some rituals will be intimate and simple, others will be more collective and immersive. Throughout the week you will also have the opportunity to create your own rituals to be witnessed / experienced by the others.
It will end with an offering on the last day of the residency - Saturday 31st - at the Second Renaissance Festival (31st July-2nd of August) in the shape of performance, installations, interactive experiences, ceremony and ritual that distills the week’s work for an audience. This will mark the threshold between our inner journey and the outward celebration of the festival.
The residential holds two complementary movements:
Receiving - allowing unconscious intuitions and symbolic material to surface through dreams, artistic, and somatic practices.
Transmuting - activating creative life force and embodied expression as a sacred way to encounter and integrate what lies beneath the surface.
Workshops
Workshops will explore the following — and more:
Grief as portal: honoring what has died, what is dying, and what must be let go for new life to emerge.
Sound as presence and activation: using sound and song to tune into the field, release emotion, and call in energy.
Movement and embodiment: awakening the body as canvas and vessel for animality and deep wisdom.
Spoken word: poetry, rap, prayer, myth, and dramatic text as ritual access points.
Land based ritual: tapping into ancient and ancestral memory in relationship with Earth.
In the midst of shadow and death, something new wants to be born. This is the art of birthing an emerging dream. Together we are offering a place for the past, present and future to be witnessed, released and reclaimed. The intention is not to "resolve" the shadow, but to enter into a relationship with it—to let it teach, awaken, and reshape us.
Who is it for?
This residency is for anyone who feels the quiet pull toward ritual—whether or not they call themselves an artist or walk a spiritual path. It welcomes all committed hearts from: dancers, writers, dreamers, performers, painters, musicians, makers, visual artists and those simply curious about the deeper currents within themselves. It is for those who long to step into ritual space, to listen for the ceremonies that live inside them, to awaken the oracular body, to open an energetic field together, and to train the body to become a vessel of ritual in communion with others.
Note: This is not a therapeutic retreat, although the process can be deeply therapeutic. It’s an artistic and spiritual experiment in collective ritual creation. Each participant is responsible for their own physical and mental wellbeing at all times.
Facilitators
Sylvie 'Shiwei' Barbier
Sylvie is a French-Taiwanese visionary artist, curator, and co-founder of Life Itself. Her work focuses on transformational
art integrating Eastern and Western philosophies. Over two decades she has led rituals in galleries, retreat centers, public
spaces, churches, natural landscapes, and educational institutions.
Sylvie is also a mother of two and committed to bridging ancestral Indigenous knowledge with contemporary and future-oriented perspectives.
Kay Michael
Kay is a London-based theatre-maker, creative producer, and ecological facilitator. Her work creates cultural experiences
for personal and collective transformation across theatres, galleries, festivals, streets, woodlands, and retreat centres.
She is a co-founder of Culture Declares Emergency and a facilitator of Joanna Macy's Work That Reconnects.
Kay co-produced and curated the first Council of All Beings for global delegates at COP26.
Kay is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Letters to the Earth, an award-winning global creative
organisation fostering connection with nature through outdoor immersions, creative writing, and storytelling.
