I write, I give talks, I make connections between ideas and between people, I tell stories, I bring together conversations and, once in a while, these practices give rise to projects, events and organisations.
As a writer, I’m best known for the Dark Mountain manifesto which Paul Kingsnorth and I published in 2009. That led me deep into conversations about the converging crises of our time and how they are calling our ways of living and seeing the world into question. My latest book, At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies, is the fruit of those encounters.
To read my recent essays and follow my work, sign up for my Substack newsletter. I also host a podcast, The Great Humbling, with the ‘recovering sustainability consultant’ Ed Gillespie.
This site includes an archive of my earlier writing – including essays, reviews and dialogues originally published in Dark Mountain and elsewhere – and a bit about my role in founding the Dark Mountain Project, Spacemakers and School of Everything.
I grew up in the North East of England, but these days I am settled in the small Swedish town of Östervåla, where Anna, Alfie and I are slowly creating a school called HOME in a pair of old wooden buildings.
Author & Speaker Bio
Publicity photos can be downloaded here.
ONE-Line version
Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer, speaker and the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins (2023) and he publishes new essays on his Substack, Writing Home.
One-PARAGRAPH VERSION
Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer and speaker. After an early career as a BBC journalist, he co-founded organisations including the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. He has collaborated with scientists, artists and activists, serving as a leader of artistic development at Riksteatern (Sweden’s national theatre) and as an associate of the Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies (2023). He co-hosts The Great Humbling podcast and publishes a Substack called Writing Home.
Long Version
Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer and speaker. After an early career as a BBC journalist, he has gone on to co-found a series of organisations including the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME.
Together with Paul Kingsnorth, he is the author of Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto (2009). His latest book, At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies is published by Chelsea Green in February 2023.
He has given keynotes and talks on numerous platforms – from the European Commission and TEDx events to the back rooms of pubs and squatted social centres – and is a regular guest lecturer at universities, art and architecture schools across Europe. In 2012, Google invited him to São Paulo and Buenos Aires to speak at its Think Infinite! events, his work was featured as a case study in the EU’s Team Culture report on ‘the role of culture in a time of crisis’ and he was named by NESTA/The Observer in their inaugural list of ‘Britain’s 50 New Radicals’.
In 2015-16 he served as leader of artistic development at Riksteatern, Sweden’s national theatre, bringing together a year-long artistic workshop on ‘the role(s) of art under the shadow of climate change’. In collaboration with three Swedish playwrights, he wrote Medan klockan tickar (‘While the Clock is Ticking’), a play commissioned by the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, based on interviews with climate scientists about ‘what it’s like when the Anthropocene is your day job’. He is an associate of the Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University and sits on the advisory board for the Penn State University Press series, Ivan Illich: 21st-Century Perspectives.
Many of his books have been collaborations with visual artists, ranging from COMMONSense (2009) with Anne-Marie Culhane and Access Space to The Crossing of Two Lines (2013) with the Stockholm-based artist duo Performing Pictures. For Walking in the Void (2021), a collaboration with the glass artists Baldwin & Guggisberg, he contributed an essay in twelve parts, ’THE ASTEROID: An Anthropocene Whodunnit’.
After ten years as a director of the Dark Mountain Project, he handed on his responsibilities in 2019. His recent projects include Notes From Underground, a ten-part essay series for Bella Caledonia exploring the deep roots of the new climate movements, and The Great Humbling, a podcast which he presents with the futurist and ‘recovering sustainability consultant’ Ed Gillespie.
Originally from the northeast of England, Dougald is now settled in the small Swedish town of Östervåla where he and Anna Björkman are creating a school called HOME, ‘a gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture’.
His latest writing is published on his Substack, Writing Home.