Tree Top Spa
The outdoor spa is open between 8am and 9:30pm and includes an open-air hydrotherapy pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, and relaxation area.
EVERYDAY ANALYSIS AND NEGATIVE ANALYSIS
This year at Spark, Alfie Bown from Everyday Analysis and Julie Reshe from Negative Analysis are running a three day course in the mornings. More details to follow.
SPECIAL GUESTS
Tianna Blue is a Los Angeles–based perfumer, educator, and founder of Aiotima, a creative perfume development studio working across fragrance, design, and experience. She is Head Perfumer at The Perfumer’s Studio LA and has served three times as a judge for the Art and Olfaction Awards. Her work explores scent as something shaped by perception: memory, place, encounter, and relationship. For Spark, Tianna used her knowledge of aromatherapy and aromacology to develop a natural fragrance for the retreat.
Margot Brouwer is an astrophysicist and the author of 'We Are Stardust', a book that explores our deepest existential questions through the lens of contemporary physics. Their work invites readers to encounter the scale, strangeness and beauty of the cosmos while making complex scientific ideas accessible beyond the specialist world. At Spark Margot will draw from 'We Are Stardust' to lead us into a very different kind of contemplation of heaven: not as a religious destination, but as the extraordinary physical universe in which we already find ourselves.
Leonie McDonagh is a comedian, dancer and good time merchant who is a founding member of ponydance theatre company - one of the most ognisable and acclaimed theatre companies in the country. Successfully marrying comedy, dance and theatre, they have won audiences, awards and critical acclaim locally and internationally.
Jonny McEwen began painting in 1986 and first exhibited in 1991. A Graduate of the Art College in Belfast, he has exhibited widely in Ireland, England, Wales and Germany. Since returning from his travels in Eastern and Central Europe in 1997, Jonny set up a studio in Belfast. McEwen’s work is part of the following public collections: UTV, Dept of Environment NI, Secretary of States Office, Office of Public Works, University of Cork as well as many private collections. He also created one of Ireland’s biggest public art pieces for the Skainos Building in East Belfast.
Barry Taylor is writer, speaker and public intellectual as well as the chair of theology for GCAS .His work focuses on the intersections between religion, theology and culture, with a particular emphasis on the impact and interplay of contemporary digital life on religion and belief (particularly Western Christianity).
Program
SUNDAY 11TH OCTOBER
15 | CHECK IN AND RECEPTION | FRONT DESK
Guaranteed check in is from 3pm, however your room might be ready before then. Get unpacked, explore the groups and join us in the Gallery to meet and mingle with the other Sparkers.
16 | WELCOME | GALLERY
We’ll begin by getting everyone together, introducing the broad trajectory of the retreat and giving you a chance to see who you’ll be sharing the next few days with.
17 | DINNER AND SPA
20 | INTRODUCTION | GALLERY | PETER
Peter will introduce the ideas that shape Spark. Over the next three days we’ll explore three forms of alienation: the strangeness we encounter in ourselves, the stranger we encounter in others, and the strangeness of the systems and structures that organize our world. Along the way we’ll be asking what happens when, instead of trying to turn from the stranger, we welcome them.
21:3 | THE BREAKFAST CLUB
This movie captures something of the whole purpose of the retreat. So, this is a chance to relax, and ease your way into the event We’ll watch the film through the lens of communal alienation: what becomes possible when we risk sharing something of our lack with others.
MONDAY 12TH OCTOBER
7:3 | BEACH WALK/SEA SWIM | BARRY | MEET IN LOBBY
For people who would like to start the day with a walk or swim, we will meet in the lobby of the hotel, and dander down to the beach.
7:3 | BREAKFAST AND MORNING SPA
Breakfast is served anytime from 7:30am and the spa opens at 8am.
10 | DECENTERING PRACTICE | PETER | GALLERY
Each morning begins with a reflective space that introduces the theme of the day. Today we turn toward ourselves, exploring the places where we get in our own way, repeat what we say we don’t want, and discover that we are not entirely at home in ourselves.
11:3 | COFFEE BREAK | LOAF
There is a beautiful little coffee shop across the road from the hotel, which will be providing tea and all your espresso coffee needs.
12 | SELF-ALIENATION | PETER | GALLERY
What would it mean to stop trying to get rid of the stranger within? In this talk Peter will explore self-alienation, self-sabotage and what it might mean to confront, and befriend, your own ghosts.
13 | LUNCH | Hotel
14:3 | Earth | tianna | GALLERY
For Spark, Los Angeles perfumer Tianna Blue has created a fragrance specifically for the retreat. In this session she’ll introduce us to the world of scent, talk about the process of creating the Spark fragrance and explore the strange power fragrance has to evoke memory, place and experience.
16 | DECENTERING PRACTICE | GALLERY
The afternoon workshops move the ideas of the morning out of the head and into experience. Today’s workshop will invite you to encounter some of the parts of yourself that don’t quite fit the story you tell about who you are.
17 | DINNER AND SPA
20 | MUSIC AND REFLECTION | BARRY & PETER | GALLERY
Barry and Peter will close the day with an evening of music, conversation and reflection on the theme of communal alienation. Through songs, stories and a little conversation, we’ll explore what it means to live with the distance between ourselves and others, and what becomes possible when that distance is shared rather than denied.
21:3 | PUB
TUESDAY 13TH OCTOBER
7:3 | BEACH WALK/SEA SWIM | BARRY | MEET IN LOBBY
For people who would like to start the day with a walk or swim, we will meet in the lobby of the hotel, and dander down to the beach.
7:3 | BREAKFAST AND MORNING SPA
Breakfast is served anytime from 7:30am and the spa opens at 8am.
10 | COMMUNION | PETER | GALLERY
Today our attention turns from ourselves to each other. What happens when we encounter the limits of the people we love, depend upon and desire? This morning we’ll reflect on disappointment, difference and the impossibility of ever completely possessing, or being possessed by, another person.
11:3 | COFFEE BREAK | LOAF
There is a beautiful little coffee shop across the road from the hotel, which will be providing tea and all your espresso coffee needs.
12 | COMMUNAL ALIENATION | PETER | GALLERY
Communion doesn’t require us to overcome the distance between us. It might begin precisely when we stop demanding that others complete us. Peter will explore how our lack separates us from one another, but can also become the very thing we share.
13 | LUNCH | MEET AT COFFEE SHOP
We have a special event planned for lunch, so dress up warm and bring something you can sit on (towel, blanket, coat etc.)..
16 | COMMUNION | GALLERY
If yesterday was about encountering the stranger within, today is about encountering the space between us. Through a shared experience we’ll explore what happens when we allow our incompleteness to be seen rather than trying to conceal it.
17 | DINNER AND SPA
20 | MUSIC AND REFLECTION | BARRY & PETER | GALLERY
Barry and Peter will bring the final full day to a close with music, conversation and reflection on the theme of the big Other. Together we’ll explore what it means to live without the fantasy that somewhere there is a person, system or authority holding everything together, and what kind of freedom might emerge when that fantasy begins to fall away.
WEDNESDAY 14TH OCTOBER
7:3 | BEACH WALK/SEA SWIM | BARRY | MEET IN LOBBY
For people who would like to start the day with a walk or swim, we will meet in the lobby of the hotel, and dander down to the beach.
7:3 | BREAKFAST AND MORNING SPA
Breakfast is served anytime from 7:30am and the spa opens at 8am.
10 | LITURGY | PETER | GALLERY
We often imagine that somewhere there is a person, institution or system that knows how things are supposed to work. In this talk Peter will explore the unsettling, and potentially liberating, discovery that there is no final authority holding everything together.
11:3 | COFFEE BREAK | LOAF
There is a beautiful little coffee shop across the road from the hotel, which will be providing tea and all your espresso coffee needs.
12 | COMMUNAL ALIENATION | PETER | GALLERY
13 | LUNCH | MEET AT COFFEE SHOP
14:3 | HEAVEN | MARGOT | GALLERY
Physicist Margot will introduce her book Written Stars and take us on an exploration of the universe through contemporary physics. A chance to step outside the language of psychoanalysis for a moment and encounter the strangeness, scale and beauty of the world described by science.
16 | LITURGY | WORKSHOP
Our final workshop turns toward the systems that organize our lives. What changes when we stop imagining that somewhere, behind the scenes, someone knows what they’re doing? This experience will explore what it means to live without the fantasy of a complete and consistent Other.
17 | WOOD-FIRED PIZZA | LOAF
For the last night we will be having pizzas at the little cafe across the road from the hotel. This has become a little tradition at Spark.
20 | QUIZ | LEONIE | GALLERY
After the pizza there will be a dance party in the hotel.
THURSDAY 15TH OCTOBER
7:3 | BREAKFAST AND MORNING SPA
10 | GO IN PIECES | GALLERY
Spark ends not by trying to tie everything together, but by marking what has happened. Go in Pieces is our closing ritual: a chance to reflect on the last few days, acknowledge what has shifted, and say goodbye before returning to ordinary life.
14 | COFFEE AT PETER’S | BELFAST
For anyone still around, we’ll finish with an informal coffee at Peter’s place in Belfast.