The Dark Mountain Project

From the publication of Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto in 2009, Paul and I found ourselves in the middle of a widening conversation which spilled over into blogs and newspapers.

The refusal to offer a party line or to tell people what to do has often made it hard for the mainstream media to get a handle on the project. As the hackers say, "This is not a bug, it's a feature." But it certainly leads to some absurd titles for articles.

• Dark Mountain asks us to question the fundamental assumptions of our everyday life.
  'Preparing for apocalypse: It's a ton of fun', Irish Times, 7 January 2012
• For some people, the Dark Mountain is too stark a place: there are solutions possible which will result in continuation of a fairly similar civilisation. But for others, life is now about planning for a radically different future.
  'Ecological mountain to climb', Irish Examiner, 4 January 2012
• [Dougald] avoids talking about the development of Dark Mountain in prescriptive terms. He will rather sit with puzzlement and brokenness than impose pre-formed ideas on his work.
  'The Dark Mountain Project and narrating social change', Jeppe Graugaard, Science, Society & Sustainability, 21 November 2011
• During those two days something was kept alive, was nurtured, within us and between us. I am not sure how to put it. I am not even sure it has a name.
  'The Dark Mountain Project & Uncivilisation', Jeppe Graugaard, 30 August 2011
• What is becoming increasingly clear, thanks to the weekend at Uncivilisation and the Dark Mountain Project in general, is that there is a way through the tough times ahead.
  'Coming Home', Marmaduke Dando, 25 August 2011
• The dystopian take on the environmental movement provided by Dark Mountain's second anthology, is a wonderful, if disturbing, read.
  'Dark Mountain Issue 2', Mark Newton, The Ecologist, 25 August 2011
• It feels like the beginning of the story of the world. Not a world shaped by politicians or by global corporations, but by storytellers and singers who make us feel at home on the earth.
  'The Uncivilisation Festival: The apocalypse? Now we're talking...', Charlotte Du Cann, The Independent, 24 August 2011
• This was a place to talk. Which seemed kind of pointless... Until it started to feel right. Until I realised that this wasn't necessarily about building bunkers, it was about building soul, heart, spirit or something like it. There are many sorts of preparedness.
  'The Unbearable Darkness of Mountains', Alabaster Crippens, 22 August 2011
• Its importance... lies both in the fact that it is prepared to consider the very obvious possibility that efforts to create a sustainable society will not succeed, and because it places arts disciplines at the heart of re-inventing the basis of communities and societies.
  'Education for Sustainability and Beyond: Contemplating Collapse', Arran Stibbe, Higher Education Academy, 2011
• The prose essays in this debut volume of Dark Mountain are courageous and inspiring stuff... They demonstrate that lifting of the veil on consciousness, giving vent to voices that a person like me has been yearning to be nourished by.
  'Bombing Kelpies' - Alastair McIntosh, Bella Caledonia, 30 June 2010
• For me, and I'm sure for many others, 'Uncivilisation' was a kindling of consciousness, a communion, and a rare opportunity to begin the process of reconstitution.
  'Dark side of the mountain' - Douglas Strang, openDemocracy, 21 June 2010
• Festival season, or as some might call it, the corporate consumerist summer tour, will soon drown us in its ever-mushrooming wealth of yurt and organic-friendly entertainment across the UK. Uncivilisation, an offshoot of the radical journal Dark Mountain, hope, however, to provide something more. Even, possibly, subversive.
  'Events: pick of the week' - Guardian Guide, 22 May 2010
• It may be the most honest attempt at literature we've seen.
  'Still Far Away and on a Dark Mountain' - Sharon Astyk, Casaubon's Book, 1 February 2010
• A root-and-branch challenge to the foundations of a culture of consumption.
  'Tide of green ink' - Boyd Tonkin, Independent, 27 November 2009
• Much in contemporary thought is made up of myths masquerading as facts, and it is refreshing to see these myths clearly identified as such.
  'Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto' - review by John Gray, New Statesman, 10 September 2009