Dreams present us with many pieces of information that we can learn to understand as you would a new language. By tracing through the elements of the dream, and discovering our associations, we can begin to understand how the dream relates to our life. Working in a group setting, we will draw on collective associations to amplify this process.  Allegra Shorto’s approach to Dreamwork involves an amplification of the dream, combined with an experiential exploration using the Waking Dream Process. The latter is a method of revisiting dreams in the waking state by engaging the body and imagination to facilitate psychological integration. This combined approach allows both a cognitive and embodied understanding of the dream. By better understanding our dreams we can come to know ourselves. 

Allegra Shorto is a Dreamwork practitioner and psychotherapist in training (Oxford, DRI, CCPE). She works with private clients and dream groups, helping people explore and understand their dreams. She also works with the Dream Research Institute, a charity and research centre exploring the relationship of dreams and well-being from the spiritual perspective. In 2018, Allegra founded the platform d.REM, to explore the relationship between art and dreams. Through a series of dream interventions at the Freud Museum and an overnight radio programme, artists attempted to penetrate the dream state by curating sleeping environments. Allegra is interested in dreams as integral to the therapeutic process, but also as a universally accessible, standalone practice for personal transformation. Dreams can help us connect our inner and outer lives, unlock creativity and connect to our bodies.

Dreamwork, Exploratory Waking Dreams

Learn a better understanding of our dreams!

In this playshop astrologer Flo will introduce you to the history of astrology and ways of reading charts. You will receive a live-reading on your natal moon of your astrological chart. Having further understood your moon, working from appropriate writing prompts for your specific placement and your abundant creative energy we will practice some writing together.

Open to longtime poets and newbies alike, the practices in this Happy Hour work at tapping us into our deep selves for inspired and meaningful writing.

Florence Devereux is an astrologer and arts practitioner. Both lines of work provide space for Florence to grapple with some of her key concerns: ecological thinking, personal transformation and liberation, and radical ontologies. She has been working with people astrologically on a one-to-one basis for 8 years and blends her training in Jungian psychotherapy (foundation from the SAP,) Evolutionary Astrology (accredited) and Astrological Psychology (The Huber Method) and her life experience as an artist concerned with liberation, to create an astrology service that is at once penetrating and inspiring. Her aim with astrology is to activate healing and creativity in the lives of her clients, to give people permission to be themselves as well as to change and evolve. She teaches and writes about the subject for various publications. 

Moon Juice: An exploration into your emotional nature with astrology & writing

Learn to understand your emotional nature with astrology & writing

Based on the season, you will be gently introduce into the magical world of plants, using our senses to identify around 15 wild edible plants and flowers that provide us with both food and medicine. Packed with vitamins and minerals they are a true superfood, and a magical addition to the stew pot of salad both. We will also be shown any poisonous plants that we encounter, making sure we learn how to recognise and understand them so we can safely avoid them.

This is a mindful foraging walk that will ensure everyone feels confident in naming and identifying each of the plants, along with how best to prepare them. This herbal knowledge has long been our heritage, and reconnecting with the landscape in this way is both very simple and often quite profound. It is a lesson that will last a lifetime!

We will then have tea and cakes on the Heath with some of the plants we've collected together.

Meet our host!

Tamara Colchester is a wild food teacher and writer who guides people in the old ways of foraging as a route to a simpler, more connected way of life. Trained by renowned wild food teacher and author Ffyona Campbell, she now travels the UK reintroducing people to our wild heritage. Incorporating her interest in psychotherapy and healing (she trained at Tavistock & Portman), she specialises in using foraging and tracking techniques as a means of helping those suffering from PTSD, Depression and Anxiety, as well as those who are simply interested in deepening their relationship with their environment and the food we eat.

Mindful Forage & Wild Plant Learning + Homemade tea

Use your senses to identify around 15 wild edible plants and flowers

Bored of patronisingly pretentious sommeliers but keen to know more about wine ?!  Sarah will host a friendly, interactive wine tasting where you will learn how to taste and navigate the nuances of organic & biodynamic wines. Sarah will be joyfully guiding our palettes and telling us about a special selection of delicious European wines, building our confidence and knowledge as we sip.  Because soil health is sexy and environmentally friendly, biodynamic wine drinking is the only way forward! Apéro is a well-known ritual in the Mediterranean, and Sarah's favourite time of day - the perfect way to come together, unwind and socialise before a meal.

Please bring a favourite cheese to share with the group and accompany the wine!!

Meet your host!

Sarah Jones' appreciation of flavours, taste and provenance led her to follow her nose and become one of London’s young female wine specialists focusing on exceptional wines with a sustainable focus. Today Sarah is at the forefront of the best wines that the capital has to offer. Her ability to inform and engage in a friendly and relaxed way makes her the perfect person to teach you about wine in the comfort of your own back yard. Think of a prettier version of Jamie Oliver - the Bish Bash Bosh of wine! 

Apéro: Biodynamic & organic wine tasting

An interactive wine tasting where you will learn how to taste and navigate the nuances of organic & biodynamic wines

A meditative 2 hours of experimentation and fun, helping you gain confidence in how to approach figurative drawing.

For this special in person session we're excited to welcome portrait painter and artist Isabel Douglas-Hamilton who will help you on your way! Isabel's teaching will help you hone your observational skills and establish correct proportions in figure drawing with the use of classical drawing techniques.

The class will start with Isabel demonstrating how to make simple gestural line drawings and we'll also put this to practice, loosening up and getting our eye in with short poses. Isabel will then do a more detailed demonstration to show how she approaches the figures including some useful ways of measuring basic proportions.

Never joined a life drawing session before? Not confident with drawing yet…here is your chance to practice and improve with no judgement!

Everyone is welcome, just pick up your pencil or any material lying around and start exploring!

Meet your hosts

Isabel Douglas Hamilton is a Scottish portrait artist based in London. She trained at the Stieglitz Academy in St. Petersburg, followed by Grand Central Atelier in New York. She currently takes portrait commissions from her studio in Battersea. 

Sasha Galitzine is a curator & producer who specialises in commissioning site-specific art work & performance with and for communities. She has been leading these life drawing sessions since the start of the first lockdown, giving some useful tips and pointers. It's a chance to relax, focus, experiment, practice and be amongst supportive and encouraging community of artists of all abilities. 

 Drawn Chorus: Life Drawing Sessions in Person

From beginners to advanced, this a mediative, encouraging and fun space to practice your life drawing and grow in confidence

The Happy Hour will begin with foraging for materials to then engage with whilst working en plein air. The course encourages imaginative thinking; story-telling, improvisation, co-creating and innovative games to help children explore their imaginations and develop their creativity in fun and engaging ways together.

Over the lessons participants will learn to make their own art materials from nature, practice observational techniques, experiment with mark-making and develop their confidence and ability to communicate about what they're making. They will also learn about other artists' works and techniques. Most importantly they will HAVE FUN, learn to work together and to not to be afraid of experimenting.

Meet your host!

Sasha Galitzine has ten years experience in bringing new forms of art and experiences to new audiences, including children. She curates and produces group exhibitions and events in unusual sites across London, not previously designated for the experience of art. Her projects include plot-holder collaborations across Highgate allotments, an exhibition across ten hair and beauty salons along the number 63 bus route and a campaign to create the first UK museum in social housing. She is driven by working for and with local communities to identify and develop new opportunities for artists and collaborators.

Following lockdown she founded Happy Hour to find new ways of supporting cross-disciplinary performers and visionaries as well as to continue in her mission to empower, excite, and unite people from different backgrounds and interests. Through the creation of joyful, memorable encounters, she aims to bring people closer to the capabilities of their imaginations and creativity.

Kensington Gardens, Kid's nature art sessions 

A way to let your children experiment and expand their imaginations whilst engaging with art outdoors 

Happy Hour Workshops