[Reader-list] The Free Tree Commune

[Bangalore Film Society ,]

*To be a garden without walls
a vineyard without a guardian
a treasure house forever open to passers by *

*About Us*

Since its beginnings in 1976, CIEDS Collective has been a group that has
never hesitated to walk the critical edge of new thinking or in exploring
new ways of working and living together. While much of our work is activist
in nature, as with women, with rural, urban and tribal communities and
through the numerous campaigns that we have initiated and been part of, it
is rooted essentially in a more reflective praxis that is able to integrate
the aesthetic and the analytical. For it has grown around a vision which has
always sought the alternative paradigms in knowledge politics, in art and
all other dimensions of life, exploring many visions that nurture and
sustain lives, livelihoods and lifeworlds . In this context, CIEDS
Collective has given birth to many dreams, ideas, institutions and
organizations while working on a range

Angala, the women’s counseling centre, Kuteera, a shelter for abused women
who have no place to live, World Courts of Women, which seeks alternative
notions and forms of justice, investigating dowry deaths, caring for the
women in the burns ward of Victoria hospital Bangalore, Streelekha, a
Women’s Book Place providing books and documentation on women’s writings and
alternatives, Appa ke Adalath where the women elders providing justice
within communities, working with rural and urban communities and tribals,
Bangalore Film Society exploring the poetics of moving images through film
festivals on many themes such as Voices from the Waters traveling film
festivals highlighting water issues in schools, colleges and in communities,
Cinema of Resistance which highlights the people resistance to oppression
across the world, livelihood rights, violence against women, and Deep Focus
Film Quarterly which provides insightful literature on films, working on
environmental issues, art and culture, housing and building crafts, evening
lectures, meetings and round tables on various current and critical issues
of our times.

*The Free Tree Conference and Training Centre*

*The Free Tree* Conference and Training Centre is serenely nestled among the
hills of Vemgal, Kolar just  sixty kms away from Bangalore. Facilities
offered include a conference hall, workshop spaces and clean and simple
residential accommodation for thirty people all of this finds a natural home
in the rock sculpted landscape and vast open spaces that is our space in
Kolar.

The peace and serenity that greets you at the *Free Tree* is a pleasant
change from the hustle and bustle of the city. The surrounding hills are
ideal for long casual treks and the view from the top offers you a vision
from here to the horizon that just about sums up your experience at the
Centre- calming, vitalizing, quaint and altogether- simply breathtaking,
even spiritual.

* *

*The Meaning and the Metaphor*

*The Free Tree**, *inspired by the Persian name*, Azad Darakth* for the Neem
Tree, an important ecological source of meaning and healing in India and the
Asian continent, which was sought to be patented and rendered the private
property of a few multinational corporations, is our metaphor for a new way
to learn, to know.

The Free Tree therefore conjures up many images: of a nurturing space, a
nourishing place, a place of shade, of shelter; the tree protects, it
connects, to other cosmologies, to other world views; sitting under a tree
is very non-hierarchical, even non-patriarchal; it speaks to community, to
conviviality; it reminds us of an ethic of care and concern. Almost every
culture as we all know has its Tree of Life, its Tree of Knowledge.

*The Free Tree is our tree of knowledge.*

We welcome you to the tree of knowledge for organizing your seminars,
conferences and workshops or if you need to take some peaceful time off for
research, writing or just simply because you need to.

For details contact:

Georgekutty

CIEDS Collective, No.33/1-9, Thygaraja Layout, Jaibharath Nagar, M.S Nagar
P.O, Bangalore 560 033

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4dD-MxXO1E

e-mail; freetreecommune at gmail.com

91-80-25493705/91-9448064513/91-9886213516