Who We Are

Steve Brett

Steve is the co-founder of 3rd Space and Executive Director of Emergence Foundation, a London-based charity supporting diverse, creatively emergent projects in the UK and Europe. Travelling through Asia and later living and working in India for seven years shaped lifelong values, and a passion for human and cultural transformation. A social worker, counsellor and psychotherapist by training, he has lived in and been part of the creation and evolution of several intentional communities over the last forty years, focussed on the evolution of consciousness and culture, and spiritual practice.

He has an MA in South Asian Area Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and has taught eastern philosophy and history, and human and cultural development in the US, UK, Europe and India. He sees himself as part of the movement to transform global culture at this time of climate, ecological and existential crisis, through writing, understanding the impact of colonialism in the global north and south, intercultural dialogue, and participating in civil disobedience movements. 

photo © Sophie Lindsay for Realisation Festival 

Mary Adams

Mary is co-founder of 3rd- Space, Executive Director & Trustee of Emergence Foundation supporting innovative social and environmental projects across the UK and Europe.   

Pursuing deeper answers to the contradictions and existential challenges of modernity, Mary has spent decades exploring consciousness and the core drivers of culture. Graduating in South Asian Philosophy and Language from the Australian National University, she  engaged in both eastern and western, academic and non-academic settings. This included years in India where, under various spiritual teachers ie Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, J. Krishnamurti, & Vimala Tharkar, she explored the foundations of human consciousness through intensive training, dialogue, and solitary retreats, 

Trained in psychotherapy, a founding member of Gaia House International Meditation Centre, Mary has co-founded and taught in centres for human development in the UK, Europe, & USA. Working in the field of collective intelligence, she lived in an intentional community co-pioneering and facilitating inter-subjective dialogue practices, meditation retreats, & educational programs, including women’s development & leadership. The dramatic demise of this  organisation proved a profound learning experience.

Currently based in London, through writing, intercultural dialogue, and non-violent civil disobedience, she works within a global network to transform the paradigm underpinning the metacrisis we face today.

Our Contributors

Adrian Wagner

Doctoral candidate of Thomas Hübel’s AIS Graduate Programm, Social Worker, Political Scientist and co-founder of Teal Wave Consulting. In his dissertation

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Alnoor Ladha

Alnoor is a founding member and the executive director of  /The Rules, a global network of activists, organizers, designers, coders,

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Anthea Lawson

Anthea Lawson is an activist, writer and author of The Entangled Activist: Learning to recognise the master’s tools. She has

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Chris Parish

Chris Parish is a writer and organic gardener with an abiding passion for nature and our ecological selves. With an

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Debora Nunes

Graduate and Master of Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidade Federal da Bahia – UFBa, Brasil, (1987 & 1993). PhD

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Esther Stanford-Xosei

Esther Stanford-Xosei is a Motherist, and decolonial Pan-Afrikanist Jurisconsult, Community Advocate and Reparationist. As a ‘new abolitionist’ emphasizing the need to

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Faheem Nusrat

Faheem has followed an interest in Eastern spiritual practice for over 30 years. With lived experience in community he has

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Gabriel Meyer Halevy

Gabriel is a musician, storyteller, writer, and radical creative. Born in Cordoba, Argentina. Three album collaborations – Merkavah, SpiritIsreal, and

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Gerard Senehi

Co-Founder & President of Open Future Institute, Gerard is inspired by a sense of possibilities and the potential of bringing

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Jamie Bristow

Jamie Bristow is Director of The Mindfulness Initiative, a policy institute about mindfulness and compassion training that grew out of a programme

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Katrin Karneth

Katrin Karneth is a creative educator, cultural trainer and German language teacher. From a very young age onwards she was

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Kavita Byrd

Kavita Byrd works to bring together holistic consciousness and whole-systems change, with an emphasis on evolutionary spirituality and sacred activism.

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Khin Tye

Khin Tye is a Human-Becoming-in-Process and 3rd Space social media co-creator. Born and raised in S.E. Asia, she pursued a materialistic

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Kirstie Simson

Kirstie Simson is renowned as a legendary teacher, and award-winning performer of Dance Improvisation with training in Contact Improvisation, Akaido,

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Lionel Yang

Lionel Yang is the founder of the School of Human Ecology. He is a trans-disciplinary business professional with a successful

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Lukas Herrmann

Lukas Herrmann is an action researcher and PhD student with Heidelberg University, Germany. He worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Neuroscience,

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Martin Kirk

Martin is Co-founder and Director of Strategy for /The Rules, a global collective of writers, thinkers, coders, farmers, artists and

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Padma Rigzin

Padma Rigzin is from Hemisshukpachan village in Ladakh, India. After completing his school education in Ladakh, he moved to mainland India to pursue

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Pawan Gupta

A little more than 30 years of experience in areas of education. Inspired by Buddhism, traditional Hinduism and Gandhi.

Tries to

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Peter Sutoris

Peter Sutoris is an anthropologist of education and the environment, concerned with how different societies imagine the future differently. He

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Renate Keller

Renata Keller is a filmmaker and dialogue facilitator based in Berlin and Switzerland. She has worked in visual arts for

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Tempe Adams

Having completed her Ph.D. in 2016, Dr Tempe Adams is currently the Coexistence & Education Manager in Botswana for the

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Tomiwa Owolade

Tomiwa Owolade writes about social, cultural and literary issues for the New Statesman, The Times, the Sunday Times, the Observer,

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Xiaolu Guo

Xiaolu Guo is a British-Chinese novelist, filmmaker and essayist. Born in China in 1973, She was raised in a village

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