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Courses and Events

CaminArte, Bajo Los Ojos de Erika

By on

May 13, 2025

- Category : Courses and Events

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

Hola, me quiero presentar en este pequeño artículo que con mucho cariño quiero compartirte, mi nombre es Erika Peña, soy actualmente la coordinadora de comunicaciones y voluntarios en Sunseed y tuve la oportunidad de decir que sí a un taller que nuestra project Manager Ashley nos ofreció a los miembros de Sunseed como continuación del proyecto “Storytelling for Change“, que se llevó a cabo en Sunseed Desert Technology el pasado febrero como parte del proyecto Community Café, una actividad de Youth Participation financiada por Erasmus+. Mientras tomaban un café, tres amigos intercambiaron ideas sobre cómo los jóvenes pueden convertirse en agentes de cambio a través de la narración, basándose en una experiencia de vida, lo que lleva a este fantástico proyecto en curso.


En fin, no te voy a mentir querido lector, pensé que iba a hacer un taller donde aprendería esta nueva herramienta del storytelling de forma didáctica pero no sabía, o más bien no leí bien el programa que se envió con tanta atención donde decían  que había que hacer una actividad donde se plasmará todo este conocimiento, pero bueno ya me estoy adelantando un poco en la línea del tiempo, a la final Freddy, otro voluntariado también aceptó hacer el taller y ambos pasamos a estar en este punto de que nuestra comunidad se tenía que organizar para el evento y a la vez nosotros éramos sus representantes dentro de él; que para mí fue algo cool porque los otros participantes nos podrían preguntar más sobre Sunseed o los podíamos guiar con facilidad y así seguir conectados con los demás compañeros que estaban apoyando las comidas y las facilidades del lugar.

En efecto, Sunseed llevó a cabo el taller de Community café, cofinanciado por el Programa Erasmus+ de la Unión Europea, donde vinieron diferentes personas de España, Portugal, Suecia y Francia con perspectivas de ser activistas y/o empezar a hacerlo, fueron 5 días con muchas actividades de reflexión, aprendizaje, crecimiento personal y social y por supuesto, diversión; cada día aprendíamos sobre el storytelling y fue así como en el último día, las facilitadoras de Community Cafe nos explicaron como iba hacer la parte de acción de este taller, la cual debería ser con un llamado a la acción, para cada proyecto y personas antes de octubre. De igual modo, compartí con la comunidad en nuestra habitual reunión de los viernes, durante el evento de CaminArte, y en diferentes espacios con algunos compañeros sobre el proyecto Community Café y el programa erasmus+.


Así que ahora, me encantaría compartirte lo que hicimos, queríamos celebrar el día de la tierra, teniendo en cuenta el tiempo que aún Freddy estaría en Sunseed, y otros factores que nos hicieron elegir el sábado 19 de abril para llevar a cabo nuestra actividad, la idea era sencilla hacer un día de limpieza del ecosistema en el que Sunseed se encuentra, el semi desierto almeriense, y que los residuos que recogemos de esta caminata fueran el suministro de materia prima para hacer accesorios y/o elementos que se volvieran incorporar a nuestro espacio y cerrar el ciclo de desperdicios.Todo esto nos lleva a reunir que mediante el ingenio de Freddy para construir, la logística por mi parte y la planeación holística de Ashley, tuvimos como resultado en evento que llamamos “CaminArte: de la basura a la creatividad”.


En primer lugar, desde un mes antes empezamos con la creación del póster y empezamos a esparcir tanto en redes sociales como en los pueblos más cercanos los posters para invitar a las personas por fuera de Sunseed a que se unieran a la actividad, teniendo la finalidad de mas de tantas personas como sea posible para el sábado, cada semana en Sunseed tuvimos pequeñas reuniones para ir planeando el evento e ir viendo que teníamos que hacer o revisar dentro de nuestras instalaciones y también compartirlo con la comunidad para que todos estuviéramos con la misma información y tener sugerencias en el camino.


Fue así como terminamos realizando con toda la energía desde la mañana una caminata por tres rutas diferentes cerca del proyecto, recogiendo  botellas, latas de aluminio, vidrio y plástico de diferentes maneras y tamaños, volver a la casa principal, unir todas las bolsas, comer un delicioso arroz vegano juntos, tomar un pequeño respiro y seguir en la jornada de la tarde con diferentes ejemplos de accesorios para colgar como decoración. En este punto, querido lector, ya estábamos a media caña con la energía para seguir pero poco a poco la creatividad se fue incorporando y tuvimos diferentes ideas entre pintar, cortar y formar estos decorativos, y ya por último, tuvimos una deliciosa merienda y agradecimos por esta oportunidad que tuvimos, y yo en particular de ver cómo un grupo de personas con intención de mejorar nuestro espacio, se pudo hacer realidad mediante iniciativas como la de Community Café.


(English)


Hello, I’d like to introduce myself in this short article that I’d like to share with you with much love. My name is Erika Peña. I’m currently the communications and volunteer coordinator at Sunseed, and I had the opportunity to say yes to a workshop that our project manager, Ashley, offered to Sunseed members as follow up to a project called Storytelling for Change that took place at Sunseed Desert Technology last February as part of the Community Café project, a Youth Participation Activity funded by Erasmus+. Over coffee, three friends brainstormed ideas about how young people can become agents of change through storytelling, based on a life experience.


Anyway, I’m not going to lie to you, dear reader. I thought I was going to do a workshop where I would learn this new storytelling tool in an educational way, but I didn’t know, or rather, I didn’t read the program that was sent so carefully, where it said that an activity would be included in all this knowledge. Well, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. In the end, Freddy, another volunteer, also agreed to do the workshop, and we both reached this point where our community had to organize for the event, and at the same time, we were its representatives within it. Which for me was cool because the other participants could ask us more about Sunseed, or we could easily guide them and stay connected with the other colleagues who were supporting the meals and facilities at the venue.


Indeed, Sunseed held the Community Café workshop co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, where different people from Spain, Portugal, Sweden and France came with the prospect of becoming activists and/or starting out. It was five days with many activities for reflection, learning, personal and social growth, and, of course, fun. Every day we learned about storytelling, and on the last day, the facilitators of the Community Cafe explained how the action part of this workshop would be carried out, which should include a call to action for each project and person before October. In the same way, I shared with the community about the Community Café project and the Erasmus+ programme at our usual Friday meeting, during the CaminArte local event, and in different rooms with some colleagues.

So now, I’d love to share with you what we did. We wanted to celebrate Earth Day, taking into account the length of time Freddy would be at Sunseed and other factors that led us to choose Saturday, April 19th, as our activity. The idea was simple: to have a day of cleanup of the ecosystem where Sunseed is located, the semi-desert of Almería. The waste we collected from this walk would provide raw materials to make accessories and/or elements that could be incorporated back into our space and close the waste cycle. All of this led us to the conclusion that, through Freddy’s ingenuity in construction, my logistics, and Ashley’s holistic planning, we had the result an event we decided to call “CaminArte: from trash to creativity”.

First, a month beforehand, we started creating the poster and began distributing it on social media and in nearby towns to invite people outside of Sunseed to join the event. Our goal was to attract as many people as possible to come to our event! Every week at Sunseed, we held small meetings to plan the event and figure out what we needed or review within our facilities. We also shared it with the community so we all had the same information and received suggestions along the way.

This is how we ended up carrying out with all the energy from the morning a walk along three different routes near the project, collecting bottles, aluminum cans, glass and plastic of different shapes and sizes, returning to the main house, joining all the bags, sharing a delicious vegan lunch, taking a little break and continuing in the afternoon with different examples of accessories to hang as decoration or turn into useful things. At this point, dear reader, we were already half-hearted with the energy to continue but little by little creativity was incorporated and we had different ideas between painting, cutting and forming these decorations, and finally, we had a delicious snack and we were grateful for this opportunity we had, and I in particular to see how a group of people with the intention of improving our space, it could become a reality through initiatives such as the Community Café project.

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Volunteer Stories

Singing the Many Voices of Los Molinos

By on

April 30, 2025

- Category : Volunteer Stories

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

A few shy stars blink the big night’s eye
And the deep, quiet joy in my bones could be what’s holding up the sky.
Then, car headlights move across the canyon wall.
A causal glimpse of shattered gypsum and sandstone fall.
Just one quick and tragic flash
Before the busy dark resumes,
Frog chorus, human voices, and my joy,
Silver on the underbelly of the clouds.
Los Molinos del Rio Agua is a living landscape that sings out as warblers, collared doves, nightingales and sparrows. It hums through blocks of fallen sandstone and sighs through grass cañas and laundry lines. It laughs over stones and silt and gypsum shards. It choruses as frogs and crickets as the light falls. And it murmurs in various human languages around Sunseed’s patio tables, where orange trees cast shadows and listen in over our shoulders as we talk late into the night.

One Thursday evening in April, we gathered around these tables for the weekly ‘existential night’ activity. On this particular night I hosted a poetry workshop, inviting 17 members of the community to come together and put the ongoing song of Los Molinos into our own words.
Each of the 17 writers was invited to call to mind a specific place within the river canyon. They crafted a poem each, which captured how their chosen place had ‘spoken’ to them, attending to what it told them through sound, smell, touch, colour, light, temperature, and so on.
It was my intention for the workshop to be a collaborative experiment in bringing language into Sunseed’s regenerative technology toolbox. As a social-ecological transition project, Sunseed is set up to animate and restore the landscape, and many tools have been built and applied over the years to help the constantly evolving community group achieve this. Through their composting and waste water systems, solar panels, seed-saving methods, native tree nurseries, and kitchen laboratory, to name a few technologies, cycles are closed, soil erosion is minimised, and gifts from the earth are honoured and shared.

Language is not often seen as a regenerative tool. Rather, it is often seen as a purely human possession, one that distances us from mute nature and makes us more powerful – able to advocate for our own interests over what is sustainable for ecological systems. However, there is a sensory, interspecies conversation unfolding all the time. When we listen with all of our human faculties of perception, we acknowledge the expressive power of all the organisms around us. Our attention enables us to participate in this sensorial exchange, and our use of language can have an animating magic when we use it to give meaning and significance to what we have experienced through this participation.

When we interpret and describe what our surroundings have conveyed to us, whether a feeling, emotion, or message, we affirm the voices, the vibrancy and affective power of our surrounding ecosystems.
Language conveys meaning best when it can land in the body. From my work in the environmental science and policy space, I know first-hand that it’s best to share messages in a way that can be felt by those receiving them, in order to foster mutual understanding and generate positive action for nature. So, this part of the workshop applied an embodied method to share the experiences described by each poet.
Once each poet had something down on paper, we organised ourselves around a table that we imagined to be the river canyon. We became waypoints on a route that joined up all of the special sites that we had written about.

This is something that our Indigenous ancestors, and many living cultures that hold onto oral storytelling traditions, understand. To share our poems in the workshop, we created an imagined map, wherein each one became a waypoint for navigating the canyon and a verse in the collective song. This method was greatly inspired by Indigenous Australian Song lines: complex, beautiful systems of oral narratives that carry cultural information across Australia. Songs and stories that can be walked as paths across the land describe the social and political customs, ancestral lore, navigation information and ecological wisdom that enable one to deeply understand the land as they go.
I invited each poet write and share their poem in their native tongue, to express themselves in a way that felt free and natural, and add a diversity of sounds to the Los Molinos night. We hear birds sing in foreign tongues and nonetheless enjoy what we hear, after all. Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, and English decorated the evening soundscape. Some were kind enough to provide translations, as well.
It strikes me that all of the poems speak of quiet moments of connection with the canyon; moments that offered the writers a place to rest their bodies and boost their spirits. To read this collection of poems is to understand how the landscape sustains the attention, care and action of Sunseed’s community.

It is a collective song of gratitude, a tender glimpse at the deep attachment they feel to Los Molinos del Rio Agua, as well as the reciprocity in this attachment. The land and its waters holds these people, peacefully and lovingly. It nourishes their continued dreams in return for all their efforts to call these dreams into being through their contributions to Sunseed.
If you’re ever wanting to walk in Los Molinos, you’ll no doubt feel its potent, peaceful magic for yourself. Nonetheless, I have mapped the way woven by our collective song. Following this route might help you to connect with it through the eyes, ears and fingertips of the creatures who live here as you go.



1. 37.0886287, -2.0736533 – Dora Young
2. 37.0890267, -2.0726502 – Leonie
3. 37.0890352, -2.0726770 – Erika Peña
4. 37.0896536, -2.0711106 – Ashley Sheets
5. 37.0898718, -2.0728326 – Karolina Wajman
6. 37.0916947, -2.0742917 – Xavier Santotomas Mena
7. 37.0936973, -2.0761478 – Jonatan Mauricio
8. 37.0904366, -2.0752466 – Simone Sgarbossa

Author – Dora Young. See more writing at https://dorayoung.substack.com/.
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Organic Gardening

The Creation Of Our Sunken Beds!

By on

March 29, 2025

- Category : Organic Gardening

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

We share with you the article that our dear ESC from the garden department, Ruta, left us about her experience from September to March in this activity:

When we look at the world around us, valleys tend to have greater amounts of water, high levels of organic matter and more flourishing biodiversity. These sunken beds are trying to recreate this in our gardens. They help the soil retain moisture, which is especially important in this drylands environment where water is a scarce resource.

Over the last few months we have been creating some sunken beds of our very own! Here we will detail the process of their construction…

1. We began by measuring and marking out the dimensions of the sunken beds. We decided on 50cm x 500cm. This size matched the size of drip irrigation pipes already installed for this plot.

2. We utilised one of our communal activities to dig the beds. A couple hours with 8 people managed to do it! We used hoes to loosen the compacted soil and then shovelled the dirt into buckets. We created two piles of soil… one with the topsoil (makes up approximately 10 cm of the surface) and one with the subsoil (the remaining soil that lives deeper down). We dug about 40cm into the ground.


3. Next, we created wooden structures to hold the soil in place and prevent the edges of the beds from collapsing in. Trying to be as resourceful as possible, we decided to use pallets that we found around the Sunseed grounds. We disassembled them and created walls that were approximately 30 cm high (and we re-utilised the nails that the pallets had been assembled with to hammer them together). We then used a saw to create points at the end of the legs, this made sure inserting them into the ground was possible.


4. We used a sledge hammer to insert the wooden walls into the ground, making sure to align them with the original dimensions of the beds. We also ensured that the walls emerged from the ground a little (5cm approximately).

5. Some sub soil was used to fill some areas where the path had collapsed into the bed during the digging process. This was a little tricky in some areas where a lot of soil had collapsed in. Some sticks were used to reinforce some areas and prevent further collapse.

6. Additional pieces of wood (50 cm in length) were placed in between the bed walls every metre or so, to further reinforce the walls and make sure they did not collapse.


7. More subsoil was also placed on the paths, so that the beds ended up being even deeper!

8. The soil at the bottom of the beds was then loosened a little using a pitch fork/hoe, so it has better drainage and is not so compacted.

9. Then we began filling up the beds with top soil, compost and mulch! We mixed the topsoil (from the pile we created when digging) with some good quality compost, and we then added it to the beds until it amounted to a depth of 30cm. To further increase the quality of the soil and add more nitrogen, we added some of our freshly brewed compost tea (consisting of nettles and mallow) into the beds. Finally, we covered them with a thick layer of mulch (both green and brown material) (approximately 5 cm deep).

10. Next we did some work on the paths! We placed some cardboard on the paths to ensure the paths stayed clear of any weeds. Then a layer of little wood pieces, cañas, nut shells and other things we found was added on top. Ideally we would have had some wood chips but due to not having any on hand, we used wood that was filtered out of the compost and other organic hard materials that we found (including snail shells!). We decided to place some broken tiles (that came from our old roof) on the outside of the paths, right up against the sunken beds walls. The idea behind this was to prevent people from treading on these areas and risking the soil collapsing into the beds.

11. Now we wait for a few months until the mulch layer is composted and the soil in the beds has time to readjust to its new home…. And then we begin planting! Thank you to the many hands that contributed to the construction of these lovely new soil houses!



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Courses and Events, Sunseed News

STORYTELLING FOR CHANGE

By on

March 21, 2025

- Category : Courses and Events, Sunseed News

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

What if the stories we tell could shape a more sustainable future? 

From the 19th to the 23rd of February, the Storytelling for Change activity took place at Sunseed Desert Technology as part of the Community Café project, a Youth Participation Activity funded by Erasmus+. Over an unforgettable week, 20 participants engaged in hands-on experiences in sustainable living, eco-friendly practices, and the power of storytelling to inspire change.

Through a tour and Q&A of Sunseed, a collaborative session on making homemade preserves, and a workshop on ecovillages and the Four Dimensions of Sustainability, participants explored sustainable lifestyles in a practical, hands-on way.

Since our long-term project Community Café aims to share stories of resiliency and regenerative practices from the ecovillage world, storytelling was also an important theme of this activity. 


On Day 3, after an introspective nature walk, we explored this theme: Why is storytelling so important in this world, and how is it a powerful tool for activism? With the support of both facilitators and participants, we created maps of our reflections.

Space was given for participants to explore and share storytelling through different creative outlets, including an emotional session where they shared their life stories through drawings, creating a mask that represented their inner activist, and sharing their stories one-on-one using the inquiry method and active listening.

Midway through the event, we organised a World Café session in the garden. Participants were encouraged to discuss the following topics: social aspects of ecovillages (challenges of living together), challenges of eco-warriors, communicating sustainability, green and ecovillages practices in urban and conventional spaces.
To complement this session, Claudia Schöller, a changemaker and local activist, was invited to join the conversations, bringing her input and experience into the sharing.

After these explorations and empowering sessions, it was time to take action! 

We invited participants to take the lead in organising local activities that would make a meaningful impact in their local/regional communities, and we were truly inspired by the ideas that emerged. It became clear that their time at Sunseed ignited a spark of creativity and motivation to create change. While each local action is unique, they all share a common goal: to offer youth opportunities to be inspired and take action, empowering them to initiate positive changes within their respective communities. The aim is to allow other individuals to experience what they lived during the week: connections, inspiration, empowerment and living in harmony with nature. As these projects come to life, we are thrilled to support them in this process and bring even more young people into this movement!

Stay connected for exciting updates on our local activities and upcoming creative adventures with Community Café! Follow us on these platforms to join the journey: 

Insta: thecommunity.café

Fb: community café 

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES


Storytelling  for Change as seen through the eyes of the participants…

 1

I came to the Storytelling for Change event without knowing much about it or Sunseed, to be honest. I was already interested in the ecovillage movement, and while Sunseed doesn’t define itself as an ecovillage, it’s an intentional community—a key element of any ecovillage. Also, I’d get to see my girlfriend after two months apart, so there I went. 

To put it in context: I’ve always suffered from intense social anxiety. Over the years, I’ve come to understand it better, but it still felt like playing Russian roulette—sometimes it would spike, and then I had to decide whether to isolate myself or act like a robot having a really bad trip. So, there I was. I couldn’t sleep, thinking I was the worst person ever because I hadn’t brought anything to help with my snoring, which affected my five roommates. I ended up not writing much because I thought the light of my computer and the typing would bother them. Didn’t want to add salt to the injury. 

The second day arrived, the first day of activities, and I woke up stiff as a spy in enemy territory. I clumsily tried to do my morning routine in this new space, grabbed my little notepad to journal my anxiety away, and went out to face my destiny. The first activities were all about bonding and creating a safe space. I remember cynically thinking, “This is just going to make me MORE anxious, my heart is a HARDENED BLACK BLOCK…“. Then it hit. I wrote in my notepad, “The day seems to be going well. I’m feeling much better than yesterday. Got some activities left, so I’ll come back when I need it.” Turns out I didn’t journal again until two weeks later. 

I get goosebumps remembering that wild emotional ride and how it defied all my expectations. I knew I was in the right place, and these people were my people: misfits, rejects, weirdos, rule breakers, romantics… activists. We trusted and cared for each other fast, thanks in part to the organizers (also big weirdos, with love), but also because it just clicked between us. We agreed to behavior rules that made sense, and expressing ourselves authentically was encouraged. So, there we were, a bunch of people being our loving selves without the fear of being mocked, taken advantage of, or rejected, as we had been so many times before. 

I woke up each day a victim of FOMO (not advised, though—you’ll eventually burn out). Everyone was so interesting, I wanted to be everywhere with everybody, do every activity, build a rocket and go to Mars. As time went on, the activities became more intense and inspiring. The focus shifted from bonding to learning how to tell our own stories, to building our own activist projects, all with the support of this beautiful group. All of us had something authentic and important to share. I believe this mutual trust was rooted in our vulnerability. Not all the feelings were fireworks and sparks—there were also cloudy, cold, rainy days, some fog with rays of sun, and everything in between. Our emotions were valued, and the organizers adapted the activities to suit the collective mood. 

I couldn’t get paranoid because it all felt so very honest. Of course, I learned about storytelling, and the organizers put a lot of effort into that, but to me, the most important thing we created was this space of trust, inspiration, openness, and love. Everything else followed. For every young activist, there are a good number of people—maybe everyone in their lives—telling them they’re idealistic, utopian, out of touch with reality, and need to grow up. In this space, our desire to change the world was shared and encouraged. Our skills and ideas were valued and nurtured. And finally all those ideas were materialized into an actual project. Be it with some of the cool partnering organizations, be it individually, all of us were offered guidance and support in bringing our fighting spirit to life, to give it a body. I had spent years thinking about doing a workshop to teach critical thinking, and finally the opportunity to do it came, with the support of amazing people. You could say this experience was literally life changing for me. Couldn’t be more grateful.

-José Manuel

2

Throughout my life, I have always disliked the exact moment on my own birthday when the table is crowned with a cake topped with candles, and the guests begin to sing “Happy Birthday. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the discomfort I have felt in such situations for so long is not only due to being socially exposed and becoming the center of attention for a while, but also because, throughout my life and in many of the different spaces in which I have grown up, I was never taught to celebrate myself, to celebrate my own presence.

Very often, we go through our daily lives constantly playing a role that will be accepted by others. This makes us constantly think about what others expect from us, what is considered good and beautiful in the society we belong to, how we are expected to live, and so on. And in this continuous act of playing someone else, we completely forget who we are, what we like, how we want to express ourselves, live, or interact with the world.

It is true that, to some extent, we all go through life wearing a mask. However, there are places and spaces that invite us to set it aside for a while and simply enjoy being ourselves. I think that’s why I enjoyed my time at Sunseed and the project so much—because there, there was an atmosphere of acceptance, love, and freedom. There, you could express your opinions, fears, and insecurities. You could laugh out loud, knowing that no one would judge either your humor or your laughter. In short, you could simply be yourself, with the certainty that your worth as a person would always remain intact.

And not only was it wonderful to experience myself from that place of freedom, but it was also incredible to meet other people who were opening up with all their hearts. That is why, for me, being part of this wonderful project has been a precious gift that has reminded me that celebrating others and being celebrated is something we should never be ashamed of—and that it should not be reserved only for birthdays but for every single day and in every single space.

-Marina



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Sunseed News

From November to December: Inspiring Change Together at Sunseed

By on

February 6, 2025

- Category : Sunseed News

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

Another year, 2024, is gone and we wanted to take stock of the activities we have carried out as a community over the last few months. These months have been a period of learning, achievements, and connections. We want to share the highlights and tell you what’s next in 2025.

These last few months of activities went by very quickly, from welcoming our previous cycle of volunteers in November to improving the hay shed (where the eco-maintenance team explained how to mix mud and other ingredients to make it as good as new) to restoring the living room floor in the main house and adding a small reading and sitting area just below the stairs. On the more pedagogical side, we had many presentations and educational activities, including a session from the drylands department showing us the different plants we have in the drylands nursery, a presentation on the social situation in Colombia by Erika, our new communications coordinator, and a final presentation by one of our outgoing trainees, Gerko, on his research in seed conservation over the last 4 months.

A Creative Group

Our Drylands assistant Paula, apart from being a joyful and committed woman with local seeds and knowledge of the whole process of watering and planting them at the right time, has also led activities such as the renovation of the stone bridge connecting the passage from the poza to the far side of the valley.

In her last weeks in the project she has started a mural with other creative volunteers in our little study room. We love a renovation project! 

One of our last community activities was organizing our stand for the market in Sorbas. For this, Eli, our sustainable living coordinator, had, weeks before, generated several meetings with volunteers and ESC to make crafts and handicrafts to offer to the public, as well as bring teas, soaps, and organic incense, another part of the team of gardens and Eco maintenance helped to install the table and arches of the stand, and why not? Bring flowers as decoration on the same day of the activity.

We have also begun an enormous construction project – the rebuilding of Geoff’s! The project, led by our fantastic builder/neighbour Graham (who you may remember did the renovation of the office several years ago) is once again in charge.

The roof is now completely off and the floors of the free shop and upstairs bedrooms are all being replaced. The work should go until February, and we cannot wait to see the final outcome! 

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Audio and Video, Drylands Management, Sunseed Stories

“Can I See Through You”: An Audio-Visual Concept by Anouk from the Drylands

By on

February 4, 2025

- Category : Audio and Video, Drylands Management, Sunseed Stories

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

In this article, we want to share with you the artwork of Anouk, a former drylands assistant, that she made during her stay on the project and how, from her perspective of living in a community, the activities she did daily and the knowledge gave her more tools to make us more aware of nature and the importance of the poza (natural pond) that has so much meaning for Sunseed.

Here is what she wrote about the concept of the video and her thoughts:

The video that I made is an experimental audio-visual piece that explores the ways in which we are in conversation with our environment. By experimenting with alternative filmmaking methods, I aim to capture the more-than-human experience of the surrounding drylands of Sunseed in order to expand and disorient our human gaze. The name of the piece, ‘Can I See Through You’, signifies the question that guided me through this process. The ‘You’ in the title is referring to all the nonhuman elements in the environment you can imagine, think of the ants, the gypsum, the clouds (or the lack of them), the trees and even the spirits.

You might wonder why putting all this effort in empathizing with rocks and insects and trying to capture their perspective is of any value. In the end the video that I made consists of vague images and dubious sounds without a clear message to take away from it. Nevertheless, I think there is real value in expanding and disorienting our human perspective. One of the root causes of why we are facing a multifaced climate crisis, is fundamentally that at some point in history we have come to see ourselves as something separate from and even superior to the rest of nature. Most filmmaking methods represent this anthropocentric approach. When the climate crisis is portrayed in film, it is often done with the use of dramatic storylines, a narrator whom we can sympathize with and some experts who present some factual information. Moving away from this human perspective and using other filmmaking methods that focus on imagining what life must be like from the more-than-human perspective, gives us the chance to attune to nonhuman lifeworld’s. This opens up our understanding to the rather slow form of violence that is induced by destructive human activities. The damage that is being done to our planet is a slow kind of violence because much of it occurs indirectly, gradually and out of sight.

The video is meant to be projected on the rocks next to the poza, partially in order to connect the recorded footage with the present moment, but especially for the purpose of enhancing the sense of disorientation of our human perspective on this world. It might bother you to not exactly understand what you are seeing, or you might get curious about what the video actually looks like, but this confusion or discomfort is entirely the purpose of the experience. I believe that film is capable of producing knowledge, not just representing it. So with this video I’m not so much putting forward a certain vision or idea. The aim is to create an experience, in which you can make your own interpretations, come up with your own questions and draw your own conclusions.

This part I recommend you to read only after you’ve seen the video, so you can watch it unbiased and make your own interpretations.

There are two main ideas I worked with in this video. The first part of the video is inspired by a talk I heard in which someone explained how in pre-literate times, we saw the human mind not as anything different than a streaming river or the changing weather. Constant change, appearing and disappearing. I very much liked this idea, to realize that also the thoughts we have are natural phenomena. The gibberish whispers represent thoughts, of which rather often the content is quite unimportant, yet they can be overwhelmingly loud. But then the whispers quiet down. After our minds have wandered in all directions, finally it becomes silent and that is the moment that we can tune into our environment. The breathing, the sounds of the environment and the visuals are harmonized. I came to this idea mostly because I had a ridiculous amount of zooming footage and I was trying to figure out what to do with this. At some point I made the connection between the zooming and the breathing. Then I realized that breathing together with the environment, sonically and visually, was very much in line with this idea of attuning with the nonhuman experience.

This short video was made in a very short time-span and is just one experimentation of how you might capture the more-than-human experience. But the entire process of making the video might actually be the most interesting part. So I would encourage anyone to pick up a camara, you’re phone will do perfectly too, make some sound recordings, try to attune to your environment and see what you come up with.

If you’re interested in experimental filmmaking methods that aim to capture the more-than-human experiences, you can check out Isabelle M. Carbonell’s PhD dissertation. It’s a long read which I still by far haven’t finished, but has fascinated and inspired me completely. You can find it on the internet when you look for: Isabelle M. Carbonell Attuning to the Pluriverse.

We hope you enjoyed the reading. Leave us your comments on what you think about the video.

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Courses and Events

Sunseed Hosts Permaculture Design Course Autumn 2024

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November 21, 2024

- Category : Courses and Events

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

pdc sunseed
From October 4-19 2024 Sunseed hosted our first Permaculture Design Course in more than 4 years! For just over two weeks, 10 permaculture enthusiasts from around Europe joined the Sunseed community to learn about the various aspects of permaculture design, focusing on how to design sustainable communities and regenerative ecosystems in the desert.

making tables pdc sunseed

Permaculture ethics, principles, and design techniques were first used to develop sustainable agricultural systems as an alternative to the growth of agro-industry and the consumer economy. From these beginnings, the concept of Permaculture has expanded and diversified to cover nearly all types of human-based systems.

sunseed permaculture design course 2024

permaculture design course spain almeria

Permaculture design courses have been developed as an introduction to this way of thinking, teaching the tools and techniques needed for participants to design their sustainable systems. These courses are taught through both theory and practice and weave in both ancestral knowledge and recent discoveries.  At Sunseed we showcase many examples of Permaculture in practice, so it was a joy to bring another PDC to life this autumn.

drylands nursery sunseed permaculture design course
making tables pdc sunseed

In this two-week PDC, the instructors taught  the basic curriculum as set out by the UK Permaculture Association and supported by the Southeastern Spanish Permaculture Network (REPESEI).

permaculture course spain

The course took place in a real context, in which participants had the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of how, in Los Molinos, we harvest water, regenerate soil, plant trees and grow vegetables in a desert environment following Permaculture principles. During the course,they also addressed aspects of social permaculture, focusing on care of the self, community living, equitable participation, and effective decision-making models. 

cob making sunseed course 2024

The course came to a close with presentations from all the students on their group designs, followed by a delicious meal with the Sunseed community in our chill out garden space, newly kitted out with creations from the PDC students, including newly made benches and tables from recycled materials, and a refurbished hut made of cob. After the final closing space and certification ceremony, the students said goodbye to their time here at Sunseed with a communal swim in the poza!



sunseed pdc 2024
It was a beautiful experience hosting this amazing group of permaculture students, and we look forward to hosting more courses here at Sunseed soon! 


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Communication and Education

Sunseed Hosts Bulgarian Students for Second Year in a Row

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November 13, 2024

- Category : Communication and Education

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

For the second year in a row Sunseed happily welcomed a group of 10 schoolchildren from Bulgaria to our community, along with two of their chaperones, for a shared weekend of learning about sustainability in our beautiful off-grid village. This four-day stay was made possible by the “Knowledge through Adventure” project of “Bulgarsko shkolo,” co-funded by the ERASMUS+ program.
This also marked another collaboration with our neighbours at Miraposa, with the children staying in the eco-guest house next door to Sunseed’s main house. A great arrangement considering we have 18 members of the Sunseed community at the moment and we are very full!

During the four day stay, the students had workshops on various topics connected to our life here in this desert oasis.



Since the group arrived in the afternoon of October 31st, they started with a workshop from Elisa and the sustainable living team centred around pumpkin carving and discussing all the uses of this seasonal vegetable that we have in abundance in this region! They talked about all the uses for the plant, including baking seeds and eating the delicious insides. After an afternoon of discussion and carving, the students (and the Sunseed community) enjoyed a delicious dinner of pumpkin soup. 

 The following morning they were given the full Sunseed tour by Ashley, our Education Coordinator, followed by a morning of planting new trees in the domo area with Juanma and the Organic Gardens Team. In the afternoon they ventured into the drylands with Ecostystem Restoration Interns Luna and Emilia to identify and categorise plants, finally making a nature mandala from found plant life in the area. 

 Saturday was another busy day for the students, with a trip to Sorbas to visit the geological phenomenon that is the Cuevas de Sorbas, followed by a traditional paella lunch and then a trip to the visitors centre in Sorbas, finally attending a workshop centred on carving using the miraculous pita plant at the Pita Escuela (formerly located in Los Molinos del Rio Aguas with us, but now headquartered in Sorbas).

For their last full day with us (which was incredibly rainy thanks to heavy storms that flooded the area), the students learned about how to process the leaves of the pita plant to access the fibers, then learned how to braid them and make them into cordage, eventually turning them into their own bracelets, all courtesy of a workshop from Marco, another artisan neighbour in the village. Finally the children were taken through a gentle yoga and meditation practice in the afternoon with Luis, our Ecosystem Restoration Coordinator. 

 Hosting groups is a wonderful part of our life at Sunseed as a non-formal education project, and this return visit from our Bulgarian friends was no different. We hope to see a new group of them next year! There is something extra magical about being able to introduce our low-impact way of life to young people. 

If you are also interested in bringing a group of students of any age to Sunseed please get in touch with us at education@sunseed.org.uk.

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Courses and Events

Festival en Defensa del Agua 2024

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June 4, 2024

- Category : Courses and Events

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

El pasado 27 de abril, celebramos en Los Molinos del Río Aguas la quinta edición del Festival en Defensa del Agua para poder dar a conocer y educar sobre la explotación del acuífero que alimenta el Río Aguas que mantiene con vida al pueblo de Los Molinos y toda la naturaleza alrededor. 


El proyecto Sunseed estuvo organizando el festival desde enero con la colaboración de todos los vecinos del pueblo y colaboración de otras organizaciones ambientales: Ecocidio del Río Aguas, Acuíferos Vivos, Ecologistas en Acción, el Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores y más. Poco a poco fuimos juntando un programa lleno de actividades educativas, artísticas y lúdicas. Y así nos fuimos preparando para el gran día. 

El 27 de abril comenzamos el día pronto con una charla que ofreció David Dene, de la organización Ecocidio del Río Aguas, explicando la situación que más amenaza a nuesto río, una nueva explotación olivera con un sondeo que saca agua del acuífero a escasos metros del Nacimiento. Durante la charla, David nos contó las acciones que están tomando desde su organización para evitar que nuestro ecosistema se seque por completo. 



Siguiendo a la explicación de David, tuvimos una mesa redonda con diferentes expertos. Manuel Pérez Sola, un referente ecologista en Almería y presidente de Acuíferos Vivos, Luis Villodres de la Universidad de Granada y Rafael Alonso, dueño de la olivarera orgánica en Tabernas Oro del Desierto. Tuvimos una conversación muy interesante en la que se presentó la situación actual con la explotación de los cultivos de olivo, el impacto en la región y las posibles formas de una mejor gestión del agua. Rafael nos presentó cómo en su finca se hace un buen uso del agua, consumiendo un 40% menos de agua que el resto de cultivos de alrededor y generando un aceite de muy buena calidad, haciendo ver que las alternativas son posibles. También se comentó el plan de acción de la CUMA (comunidad de usuarios de masas de agua subterranea del Río Aguas) para traer agua de la desaladora de Carboneras con diferentes opiniones sobre la posibilidad o cercanía de que este plan se lleve a cabo y el impacto que puede tener en la zona. En resumen, pudimos observar la necesidad de tomar acción pronto para salvar este ecosistema, ya son muchos años que no se presta la suficiente atención por parte de las autoridades a esta área y somos los habitantes y las personas que disfrutan del agua del acuífero que debemos preocuparnos y traer la atención para una mejor gestión del agua. 


Además de las charlas más educativas, también pudimos disfrutar de rutas guiadas por el ecosistema semiárido que nos rodea, un paseo al Nacimiento con Andrés Pérez y una visita guiada al proyecto Sunseed.



Las actividades artísticas tampoco faltaron, con una performance de nuestros amigos de Salvemos el Salar de los Canos, una obra de teatro del grupo de Teatro Majaraca y ¡mucha música! 


Todos pudimos disfrutar mucho de este gran día compartido con los vecinos de la zona y de Almería que dieron su atención y cariño a nuestro pueblo y su lucha por salvar el Río Aguas. Desde Sunseed estamos muy agradecidas a todo el apoyo, la colaboración y la ayuda que hemos recibido de las personas que nos rodean para poder llevar a cabo este Festival lleno de actividades y diversión. Esperamos poder seguir realizando diferentes acciones para salvar nuestro ecosistema y seguir disfrutando como lo hacemos por mucho tiempo más.

Os esperamos el año que viene, con suerte para celebrar las mejoras que han ocurrido hasta entonces
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Communication and Education

Riding the Waves: Navigating Conflict in Community

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April 9, 2024

- Category : Communication and Education

- Tags : 30th Anniversary, african fridge, Agrosyntropic, Aguilas

By Bobbi, European Solidarity Corps member in the Drylands Department.

==

Last week, during our weekly “educational activity”, I invited the community to a presentation on the world of community conflicts. To kick things off, I asked my fellow Sunseeders what comes to mind for them when they hear the word “conflict”. Most of their responses were associations with anger, hiding, avoiding, violence. In other words, it’s not exactly something people feel like picking up in their free time. Quite the opposite, a deep fear of conflict is beneath the surface of many individuals of our community. And since community and individuals are inherently intertwined, this fear of conflict influences how we handle disagreements in community.


Because at the source of conflict is usually exactly that, a disagreement. And, according to Seeds for Change´s definition, conflict is what happens when two or more people have seemingly incompatible opinions, values or needs [1]. Given this, I argue that conflict is inevitable. So instead of tiptoeing around it, why not turn it into something we can welcome, something regenerative? How can we transform conflict from a destructive force into a catalyst for growth, both personally and as a community?


To tackle this puzzle, I would like to untangle conflict resilience, conflict resolution and accountability procedures.


First up, conflict resilience is about being pro-active, like weeding your beds so that your veg can grow big and strong. Just because conflict can be a gift, does not mean that conflict is something to seek out. Conflicts tend to grow when they are not dealt with when still small, with high emotional and sometimes even structural consequences for those involved. The art of a healthy conflict culture thus partially lies in prevention: formal and informal practices to address disagreements before they snowball into full-blown battles. Practices which can help us nip conflict in the bud include regularly sharing appreciation for each other, committing to handling frictions when still fresh and having an openness to giving and receiving constructive feedback. This way, differences in opinions, values or needs can be constructively worked through without tensions running high in the relationships. All this work contributes to our conflict resilience, our ability to handle conflicts on an individual and collective level without being thrown out of equilibrium.


But what about those conflicts that escalate nonetheless? That is where conflict resolution comes into play. This way, you do not need to scramble for solutions on the spot, but you can follow the predetermined steps of a conflict resolution procedure. Often when conflicts occur, thinking clearly and calmly is inhibited by difficult emotions taking the foreground, so coming to an agreement, or meeting in the middle, can seem impossible. Conflict resolution can be mediated or non-mediated. Importantly, it focuses on both parties hearing and being heard, underlying needs being put on the table and the relieving of emotional charges. Non-violent communication can be a valuable tool in these settings. These processes work best when people are committed to also doing their inner work; to understand why they might be triggered, what unmet needs they have, to take responsibility for their own emotions and be willing to receive the perspective of the other party.


And then there are times when harm or violence occurs, when trust is seriously shaken and a dialogue is no longer an appropriate response. That is where accountability procedures come in. Unlike the punitive legal system, this response is ideally in line with Transformative Justice principles. Priority lies both in care for the victim and providing learning opportunities for the perpetrator and the community. The accountability procedure seeks to find solutions which prevent recurrence of the harm taken place and usually entails various levels of intervention.


But how do we put all this theory into practice here at Sunseed? A place which welcomes a diversity of people with a high member turnover. Individual practices can be encouraged, but cannot and should not be enforced. Collective activities can be implemented and require a lot of trust. Furthermore, learning how to engage with conflict constructively is not something you learn overnight, but more like learning how to ride a bicycle. At first, it will feel awkward, you will probably fall a few times and scrape your knee. However, after a while, you might even be able to ride hands-free. And maybe, once you can ride hands-free, your (short) stay at Sunseed is already coming to an end again. 


Unfortunately I do not have a magic solution I can present to you about how to become the perfect we-love-to-manage-conflict-community. However, I do have a few ideas that I would like to explore and develop. And, because I believe Sunseed is not the only place struggling with building trust and continuity while continuously rotating its group members, I would like to share these ideas with the wider world of communities, collectives and movements as food for thought. 


Healthy conflict culture can be manifested both on an informal, (inter)personal level, as well as on a more structural level. On the informal level, community members can encourage each other and themselves to hold curiosity to experiences, to invest in relationships, and to embrace a culture of giving and receiving constructive and appreciative feedback. When individuals take responsibility for keeping healthy relationships and helping each other grow, a lot of powerful transformation can already occur.


This individual work ideally goes hand in hand with community practices. These practices can serve as learning spaces for becoming a better community member, as well as designated places for talking about tensions, to lower the threshold for sharing these tensions and invite everyone to participate in these processes. Weekly or monthly rounds of celebrating failings, addressing small tensions, or sharing appreciation are ideas that can be experimented with. Alternatively, you could facilitate spaces where people (one to one or in a small group) can more thoroughly explore feedback for each other, deepen their relationship or talk about community practices for collective growth. Lastly, drafting a collective agreement about conflict and feedback culture, as well as implementing a conflict resolution procedure can help with fostering collective commitment and function as tools for navigating conflict. After all, conflict is easy to talk about when it is far away, but gets a lot more tense once you are in the midst of one.


While I stand by these suggestions, there are a few unanswered questions to have awareness of. A main one for Sunseed is how this process of building trust and establishing conflict culture can take place while people are only staying for a short period of time. Another one is how we can also involve those who are conflict avoidant or perhaps do not see conflict engagement as a priority, though they might very well be actors in conflict.Lastly, how can we balance feedback and conflict engagement with having room to be, breathe, play and work? At what point is there too much conflict and feedback engagement? 


In the end, there is probably not a one size fits all solution for managing conflict in communities. The important starting point is a collective commitment to start unpacking this topic, with all its intricacies. Keeping an open mind and willingness to experiment is vital for this. At Sunseed, we are taking steps in this process now and will probably keep having to re-evaluate (and fail! and celebrate!), as we go on. 



[1] Working with Conflict in our Groups; a guide for grassroots activists – Seeds for Change 



Resource list 

  • Constellating Change training by the School of System Change 
  • Conflict is Inevitable event (Global Grassroots Support network, Alternative Justice, RadHR, Gastivists Collective)
  • Folks at Transformative Governance network 
  • Nonviolent Resistance in the Face of Hostility: Walking towards Conflict with Care for All – Miki Kashtan
  • DPACE Initiative – Foundations for Building Conflict Literacy 
  • Victorian Public Sector Commission – Building onflict resilient workspaces 
  • Loomio Cooperative Handbook 
  • DSFL – AWG Accountability Handbok 
  • Transition Network Conflict Resilience Resources 
  • Effective Collective – Dealing with Conflict
  • EAFB 2020 – Critic and Self Critic: What, Why and How.

Are you interested in joining our community? Do your internship at Sunseed, join us via European Solidarity Corps, check out our vacancies, or come as a volunteer.
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