At Home with the Farmers of Enlightenment

With Lee Stickells

Bodhi Farm was part of a wave of intentional communities that emerged in north-eastern NSW during the 1970s. As with many of those settlements, the attempt by Bodhi Farm’s members to live communally and lightly on the earth was controversial. Drawing on the diverse resources of the Library’s Rainbow Archives, this talk will revisit the moment in the early 1980s when Bodhi Farm became pivotal in a struggle to reshape state planning and building regulation. As the sustainable technologies adopted by communities such as Bodhi Farm increasingly go mainstream (e.g. solar PVs and battery storage, composting toilets), the lessons of that period hold increasing relevance.

Lee Stickells is an Associate Professor in Architecture at the University of Sydney. His research is characterised by an interest in the potential for architecture to shape other ways of living, particularly its projection as a means to reconsider the terms of social life – of how we live together.

Image: Rainbow Cafe, 1975, Roger Marchant, Call number: Slides 61-1-433