The Alpine Fellowship is a charitable foundation that supports, commissions and showcases artists, writers, academics and playwrights. It was founded in 2013 by artist Alan J Lawson and Jacob Burda.

The Symposium

The focal point of activities is an annual symposium. The symposium 'draws together participants from academia, the arts and business' and they have been held on the themes of 'home', 'representation', 'the self-portrait', 'ephemera' and 'landscape'. Fellows, "can attend the symposium by competing in one of the different prize categories: drama, writing and visual arts." Previous guests have included philosophers

Simon May Simon May (born 15 August 1944) is a British composer. He has composed many British television theme tunes, including ''EastEnders'' and ''Howards' Way'', and the music for the 1988 film '' The Dawning''. Biography Born in Devizes and a pup ...

and Sir Roger Scruton, the novelist

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of the ...

, the poets,

Ruth Padel Ruth Sophia Padel FRSL FZS (born 8 May 1946) is a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author. Life She studied Greek at Oxford, where she sang in Schola Cantorum of Oxford, wrote a PhD on ancient Greek poetry, and was a Research Fellow at W ...

Gillian Clarke Gillian Clarke (born 8 June 1937) is a Welsh poet and playwright, who also edits, broadcasts, lectures and translates from Welsh into English. She co-founded Tŷ Newydd, a writers' centre in North Wales. Life Gillian Clarke was born on 8 ...

and

John Burnside John Burnside (19 March 1955 – 29 May 2024) was a Scottish writer. He was one of four poets (with Ted Hughes, Sean O'Brien and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for a single book – in th ...

, film maker Luc Jacquet and art historians, including

Andrew Graham-Dixon Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon (born 26 December 1960) is a British art historian, art critic, author and broadcaster. He is chief art critic at ''The Independent'' and ''The Telegraph'' newspapers, and presents art documentaries for the BBC, as w ...

. Symposiums have been held in Switzerland, Scotland, and Italy.

Prizes

The Alpine Fellowship offers prizes in Philosophy, Theatre, Poetry, Music, Writing, and Visual Arts. These are aimed at supporting emerging artists, writers and playwrights from around the world. In addition to this, it also manages the Alpine Fellowship Refugee Scholar Prize, awarded in partnership with

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

Berlin. This prize has been pledged to the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, l ...

as part of the 15by30 Roadmap. Since 2015, the Alpine Fellowship has supported programme at

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a non-denominational all-male institutio ...

ensuring financial support for students pursuing interdisciplinary research at the Graduate Level at NYU. Alpine Fellows 2016 in the Palladian Refectory

Alpine Fellows 2016 in the Palladian Refectory

Past events

In 2024, the theme was Language, speakers included

Esther Perel Esther Perel (; born August 13, 1958) is a Belgian-American psychotherapist, known for her work on human relationships. Perel promoted the concept of "erotic intelligence" in her book ''Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence'' (2006), ...

Es Devlin Esmeralda Devlin (; born 24 September 1971) is an English artist and stage designer who works in a range of media, often mapping light and projected film onto kinetic sculptural forms. She has received several accolades including a Tony Award ...

John McWhorter John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist. He is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches American studies and music history. He has authored a number of books on race ...

and

Martin Puchner Martin Puchner is a literary critic and philosopher who is the Byron and Anita Wien Chair of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the founding director of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Resear ...

. In 2023, the theme was Flourishing, speakers and performers including

Aloe Blacc Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III (born January 7, 1979), known professionally as Aloe Blacc (), is an American singer and rapper. He is known for his guest performance on Avicii's 2013 single "Wake Me Up (Avicii song), Wake Me Up", which peaked on ...

, Diedre d'Albertis and Martin Aylward. In 2022, the theme was '

Freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

' and speakers included

Yuval Harari Yuval Noah Harari ( ; born 1976) is an Israeli medievalist, military historian, public intellectual, and popular science writer. He currently serves as professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first bestse ...

and Clare Chambers (Philosopher) . The 2020 and 2021 symposiums were both cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2019, the theme was '

Identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...

' and the symposium was hosted at Fjällnäs,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. In 2018, the theme was '

Childhood A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

'. In 2017, the Fellowship discussed the theme of '

Landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

'. Amongst other things, virtual reality pioneer Nonny de la Pena gave a talk on 'virtual landscapes' that stirred much debate. In 2016, the Fellowship convened on the topic of ‘Ephemera’ and the nature of time. Philosophers

Luciano Floridi Luciano Floridi (; born 16 November 1964) is an Italian and British philosopher. He is the director of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale University. He is also a Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Bologna ...

and

Mark Wrathall Mark Wrathall (born February 1, 1965) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is considered a leading interpreter of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Wrathall is feat ...

spoke to underline the way our self-understanding is inextricably bound up with our understanding of time. The 2015, symposium convened over the theme 'authorittrato - self-expression in the age of instant communication'. Participants tried to trace the historical developments that occurred since

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

's self-portrait in 1500 to today's 'selfie-culture'. In 2014, the Fellowship discussed the theme of 'representation' with contributions from the realms of academia, music and the visual arts. Philosophers emphasized the difficulties and dangers inherent in the subjectivist approach that regards the world as the 'mere' representation of the subject. The annual symposium was held at the

Fondazione Giorgio Cini The Giorgio Cini Foundation (''Italian: Fondazione Giorgio Cini''), or just the Cini Foundation, is a cultural foundation founded by industrialist and politician Vittorio Cini on 20 April 1951 in memory of Giorgio Cini, his son who died in an air ...

, on the island of San Giorgio, Venice, in the years 2015 through 2018.

Advisory board

The advisory board includes Ayishat Akanbi, Andrew Huddleston,

Nick Blood Nick Blood (born 20 March 1982) is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Kieran in '' Trollied'' (2011-2013), Lance Hunter in '' Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'' (2014-2017), and as Vincent Pyne in '' The Day of the Jackal'' (2024). Early li ...

, Michael Lesslie, Iain Martin and Sukhdev Sandhu.

References

External links

* http://www.alpinefellowship.com * *{{cite web, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKxV8b0LTlc, title=Andrew Graham Dixon. The Spiritual in Art, last=Alpine Fellowship, date=30 October 2016, via=YouTube * https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2019/03/jacob-burda-s-diary-point-la-importance-being-heard-and-victory-over Charities based in London 2013 establishments in England Arts organizations established in 2013 Arts in England