ICSA 2022 Conference
July 14-16, 2022
Co-Creating Community
Evolving Models of Intentional Community
The 14th International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) Conference
Experience Danish Communalism
As the world slowly moves back to health, we were thrilled to experience Danish communalism, whether it was in person or virtually, at our 2022 triennial conference. We gathered from July 14-16, 2022, at the beautiful Audonicon Conference Center in Skanderborg, Denmark, for presentations and workshops on the theme of “Co-Creating Community: Evolving Models of Intentional Community.” The conference itself was fully hybrid, allowing participants to present papers and attend sessions whether they were at the Audonicon or connecting via the internet. Both before and after the conference we had tours of contemporary communities in Denmark, focusing on communities near Skanderborg and Aarhus on July 12, and those in the Copenhagen area on July 17-18.
Our conference theme expresses a core truth — no community is an island.
Communes and intentional communities continually evolve, not only in relationship to the larger society but also through dialogue and encounter with one another. Communities learn from one another, seek to correct one another’s mistakes, and sometimes even try to resurrect long-dormant forms of shared living. The co-founders of ICSA, Yaacov Oved and Don Pitzer, called attention to this aspect of communitarianism both in their scholarship and in their dialogue with one another, and subsequent scholars such as Josh Lockyer have traced trajectories of communal co-evolution right up to the present day. Our conference explored communities that integrate aspects of multiple communal traditions and those that have transformed a single tradition in response to new challenges.
Svanholm Community, Denmark
Ecovillage de Hjortshøj, Denmark
Few places are better suited for exploring communalism than Denmark.
Many of us are familiar with Denmark’s role in birthing the cohousing movement, which has grown to include hundreds of communities, some radically countercultural and others fully mainstream. More than a century before the rise of cohousing, Danish educators created a network of “folk high schools,” which are residential schools that offer immersive learning experiences without formal requirements or examinations. The folk school network, which is still thriving, has inspired many other communal impulses both in Denmark and around the world; in the United States, it provided vital training for activists in the civil rights movement. Denmark also has a lively ecovillage scene, as well as spiritual and therapeutic intentional communities.
Experience Audonicon
in Skanderborg, Denmark
Our conference venue is also a school teaching according to the ideas of Rudolf Steiner.
Click to watch the video above. It’s in Danish, but you can still enjoy seeing the beautiful conference building and school community.
Welcome to your home for the conference days — a building made without straight lines, designed to be in harmony with nature.
Interested in reading the conference papers?
From presentations on historic communities that no longer exist, to sessions exploring the future of contemporary communities, there is content here for everyone.
Click on the link below to explore the abstracts of the conference papers and read the bios of the presenters
Click above to watch the recording of one of our conference sessions.
Most of the sessions are available now for free!
If you missed a session from our recent conference, or missed more than a session, you can view the recordings here
Permatopia, Denmark
Conference Pictures
From the pre-conference tour, through the conference itself, to the post-conference tour, here you’ll find a selection of photographs giving you an idea of what the participants of our recent gathering experienced during July 2022.
The beautiful Audonicon Centre hosted our conference, with visits to no less than 12 eco-village communities on either side of our three-day conference.
Relive the experience by browsing our photo gallery.
