A World in Crisis:
Building New Narratives For The Future
Sunday 19th May to Saturday 25th May 2026
The most extraordinary experience of your life
Five days in the foothills of the Pyrénées, with some of the most forward thinking artists, thought leaders and entrepreneurs, participating in an immersive and experiential learning journey that will bring healing to our world
At a time of huge global crisis, Building New Narratives For The Future, is an extraordinary leadership learning experience that will challenge you to think differently about your leadership in the world and how we can solve the crises of our times.
Going beyond traditional leadership training methods, we draw on artistic processes, on pedagogies of listening, learning and simulations, to implement environments in which people feel welcomed, more understood, and emotionally connected.
We create spaces in which participants have the safety to express a multiplicity of perspectives, experiences and sides of themselves, creating relationships that are truly satisfying.
Building New Narratives For The Future is an exclusive retreat led by three award-winning artist-leaders, actor and social entrepreneur Caroline Watson, musician Guy Mendilow and spoken word poet Regie Gibson
Building New Narratives For The Future is not just a workshop; it's an investment in your personal and professional growth as a leader. It's an opportunity to cultivate the skills and qualities that drive success in today's complex world.
Setting the Scene
The past few years have been brutal for our sense of community and cohesion, torn apart by rampant division within our societies and local communities, as well as larger geopolitical conflicts across the world. Despite the huge progress we are making technologically, our world is crying out for a more evolved understanding of our individual and shared humanity, our capacity to not just listen but to hear ‘the other’, and to feel empowered in our own sense of agency to build back a better world.
We need to re-engage with our capacity for compassion, creativity, a way in which we can all collaborate with a sense of dignity and purpose which crosses superficial divides and elevates our ‘humanness’ and sense of contribution.
There has never been a more important time to invest in our capacity for empathetic listening, to really see and hear ‘the other’, to dig deep into the personal skills we will need to become more evolved leaders and feel a greater sense of belonging, not just in our local communities but with our fellow brother and sisters across the world.
Together, these extraordinary artists blend their experiences of global leadership, the search for identity and belonging, and their multi-cultural identities to forge new ways of thinking about the challenges and opportunities of our time
The time is now. Are you ready?
Clos de Gaye
Extraordinary experiences where the world comes together for impact
Welcome to Clos de Gaye!
Clos de Gaye (pronounced ‘guy’) means ‘Place of Joy’ and it is at once a private home, a residential retreat, a creative and artistic workspace, organic farm, community kitchen, restaurant and tea house, and a convening ground for global leaders, artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and all those charged with the care and governance of our planet. Think of it as the meeting point between the Bloomsbury set’s Charleston and Camp David. It is a place to stay, to play, to share and to transform our world.
The spirit of Clos de Gaye is one of contribution, generosity and accountability. Those that have a seat of the table have arrived there through hard work and a genuine desire to be of service to the world. Time spent here is for you to reflect on what has been achieved so far and to be a springboard into future leadership and the continued desire to be a force for good in the world.
Deep in the heart of the French countryside, embedded in the ‘old world’ rises a new way of thinking about the future. The best of European heritage, beauty and aesthetic, with interiors from all over the world, reflecting our founder’s upbringing in Asia, and bringing energy, dynamism and a sense of inclusion of the new world.
An opportunity to reclaim the very best of European culture and values, with a renewed way of thinking about its relationship with the rest of the world, restoring humanity to everyone.
All retreats and high-impact summits are lead by Caroline Watson, visionary founder of The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership, and the Global Arts Impact Agenda. An award-winning entrepreneur, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (Davos) and a talented performer herself, using the arts to effect large-scale social change across the world, Caroline is the owner of Clos de Gaye and a masterful hostess and creator of extraordinary experiences.
Caroline Watson, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Harvard, Yale, INSEAD, Oxford
Coach and leadership development expert to global heads of state, corporate executives and world leaders.
Unfolding your leadership potential
“Caroline is a wonderful events organizer, Her multifaceted skill sets, combining her talents as an actor and leadership expert, shines through in every detail she orchestrates. Caroline’s passion, strong sense of inclusion, impeccable organizational skills, and innate flair for hospitality ensure that every event is a seamless and rewarding experience……Caroline's events are expertly curated adventures that leave a lasting impact.”
— Shirley Liu, L’Oréal Paris
Caroline is joined by two special guests
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Guy Mendilow
Guy Mendilow comes from a close, academic immigrant family devoted to crafting environments where those societies deemed ‘permissibly excludable’ would be respected as insiders worthy of full regard. For example, Guy’s maternal grandparents smuggled Jews out of WWII Hungary and founded a humanist home for “at-risk” youth premised on full societal integration, defying norms of dependence on charities. Likewise, when Jerusalem dismissed elders as irrelevant, Guy’s paternal grandmother formed Yad LaKashish (Lifeline for the Old) striving for Jewish and Arab elders’ dignity since 1962, led by convictions that a sense of purpose and contribution is vital for wellbeing, and that societies cannot be whole without both elders and youth. Daily dinner conversations revolved around Guy’s father’s research on authoritarianism, democracy and corruption (published in some 85 articles/chapters and 14 books), his mother’s wonder about children’s insights in her Montessori classroom, Guy’s compositions, or cats.
Alongside a family emphasis on belonging, Guy has also played the part of outsider since childhood. For example, by fourth grade he had attended seven schools across three continents. Awareness of the costs and benefits of being a partial outsider increased in a public, suburban NJ high school: In addition to being an immigrant, Guy had come from the American Boychoir, a tiny middle school where students rehearsed 4 hours daily, held classes on a tour bus on frequent domestic and international tours, and performed some 200 concerts annually including regular Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center engagements. Outsider patterns continued across adulthood, including amidst societal values often dismissing artists’ contributions as disposable entertainment. Such experiences cultivated intimacy with belonging uncertainty and the resulting psychological tolls of vigilantly scanning fur cues about one’s fit with others. Together with a granular emotional awareness expressed in musicianship, such experiences also honed keen sensitivities to disregard, dignity, and the extents to which one feels valued, can influence decision-making with others, and senses safety to voice perspectives without punitive repercussions.
Such awareness and family values reflect in nationally touring original productions Guy writes/directs/performs since 1998 (e.g., Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center, Celebrity Series of Boston). These explore people’s real-world stories through live riveting scores, narration blending memoir and poetry, and theatrically projected sand animation. Guy’s productions have received multiple funding awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Boston Foundation and New England Foundation for the Arts on the basis of artistry, cultural preservation and the strengthening of communities through the arts. Guy’s use of the arts for social change in civic spaces led to selection as a 2024 National Arts Strategies Community Creative Fellow (New England), and to a funding award from Boston’s Center for Combating Antisemitism to harness moving artistic experience, informed by social psychology, to advance connection and collaboration across differences.
Guy’s record with artistic experiences that strengthen dimensions similarly stretches to childhood (e.g., joining one of Johannesburg’s only integrated churches at Apartheid’s height, where singing together was key). Perspectives grew through undergraduate focus on belonging, leadership and sustainability (Oberlin College; Jerome Davis Research Award) and master’s research on movement improvisation as psychological precursor for political mediation with Arab/Israeli educators (Longy School of Music).
Synthesizing three generations of family principles and social psychology research with artistic and pedagogical acumen also informs residency design/facilitation from the Navajo Reservation and rural Midwest to universities across the US since 1996. Guy is an Israel, UK and USA national and is a proud citizen of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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Regie Gibson
Regie Gibson has lectured and performed widely in the US, Cuba, and Europe. A former National Poetry Slam Champion and inaugural Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, events in Regie’s life were portrayed in New Line Cinema’s film Love Jones. In Italy, representing the US, Regie received both the Absolute Poetry Award (Monfalcone) and the Europa En Versi Award (LaGuardia di Como).
He has also received the Walker Scholarship, a Mass Cultural Council Award, a YMCA Writer’s Fellowship, the Brother Thomas Fellowship from the Boston Foundation and two Live Arts Boston (LAB) grants for the production of his first musical, The Juke: A Blues Bacchae. (In The Juke, he uses Euripides’ tragedy to explore African American music and spirituality.)
Regie has served as a consultant for the NEA’s “How Art Works” initiative and the “Mere Distinction of Colour” — a permanent exhibit examining the legacy of slavery and the U.S. Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier home in Virginia. He is the author of Storms Beneath the Skin, and the creator of the Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy — a theatrical, literary-musical performance focusing on William Shakespeare. Regie has performed with, and composed texts for, the Boston City Singers, the Mystic Chorale, and Handel+Haydn Society. He was a poet-in-residence at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and is poet-in-residence at Lexington’s Cary Memorial Library.
Regie is currently the creative lead on a team of scientists and members of the Red Cross-Red Crescent Climate Center (Hague, Netherlands), helping to craft language regarding issues of climate change. He teaches at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and Clark University in Worcester.
“Regie sings and chants for all of us. Nobody gets left out.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Guy and Regie will be sharing elements of their Arts for Social Cohesion programme during the retreat
Listening Lab
The Listening Lab draws on the science of connection but is more than academic: The Lab is a place of action, where participants test tools by doing, and gather data through experience.
Through a series of fun, easy and safe experiments, participants explore ways to listen, models of conversation, techniques to cool the heat that often leads to interruption, tell moving stories, offer feedback that encourages more connection, and maintain joy and psychological safety.
Crowd sourced poem
A crowdsourced poem is made from community members' reflections and words. Community members write responses to prompts, tailored according to relationships developed over site visits. Those responses shape a spoken word poem reflecting the community's feelings, beliefs, values, inspirations, trepidations and aspirations. Anonymous participation encourages candor.
The poem is scored with original music and shared back live with the community. The poem is like a survey, revealing both what’s in common as well as unspoken tensions and disagreements within the group.
Ponder to Page
This powerful workshop process is a personal narrative awakening. All of us have stories inside of us — experiences begging to travel the path from our minds to written lines. But how to do this? In this workshop, literary performer Regie Gibson will take you through his fun, easy, creative, step-by-step process of making small, meaningful written texts out of small, meaningful moments.
To Those Who Shape Us: A Ten-Toasts Dinner
Each of us contains a world of stories about those people who have shaped us. The risks they took, their choices and chances and even the mistakes they may have made make us who we are today. In this special dinner, we will regale each other with meaningful conversation and stories in the form of toasts reflecting a theme drawn from our time together: To Those Who Shape Us.
Each retreat takes place against the backdrop of some of the most beautiful corners of south west France and includes sightseeing, fine dining and excellent hospitality in the Béarn, Basque and Pyrénée region.
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The Pic du Midi d’Ossau
Stunning views from Clos de Gaye
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Soothing effect of the ocean
Dramatic waves
Award-winning cuisine
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Culture
Heritage
History
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Elegance
Sophistication
Refinement
Accommodation will be provided on the Clos de Gaye estate or at another local provider. Priority for the Manor House and Rose Cottage will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.
All meals are prepared using fresh, local, and often organic ingredients, sourced either from our cottage garden or from local providers in the Béarn and Basque regions. Halal, kosher or other dietary needs can be catered for on request.
Clos de Gaye is situated in the Jurancon wine region and there will be thoughtful pairings of wine and other non-alcoholic drinks with each meal.
Our spaces are unique, artistic and soulful.
Each retreat can be offered as part of a year-long learning journey lead by Caroline herself that comes with an individual, one-to-one personal development leadership programme, as well as a group coaching Masterclass development programme, ‘The Art of Leadership’ , based on her own experience as an award-winning leader and entrepreneur.
Caroline is no ordinary coach. Departing from a very technical approach, that focuses on externally-driven directives, Caroline works at a deeper level with her coachees to support their spiritual growth and the emergence of much more refined thought about their leadership. Sought after by corporate executives, heads of state and leaders from across the world, a coaching experience with Caroline will uncover layers of beauty, authenticity and substance in both your personal and professional journey, to help you emerge as the transformational leader our world really needs
“The first step is awareness …. to be aware of the power of the words …. the power of communication. I feel, I notice now, how people notice and express their ideas. If I go to meetings, I notice how people tell their stories. The power of presence. I am now more aware of how I sit, my breathing .... How to make leading ..... practical, it’s being rather than doing. I now understand my boss differently. I now lead as a queen”
Senior Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, UAE
When the show ends, what begins?
These retreats ask the big questions. They are part of a series of high-level retreats held on the Clos de Gaye estate each spring and autumn, lead by the founder of The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership, Caroline Watson,
They re-imagine our world.
Transformational experiences, they are an exploration into our deeper humanity.
They form the basis of our ground-breaking work in reimagining our systems and empowering the next generation of ‘higher order’ leaders.
We use the arts to unlock a deeper level of discussion, and then explore how the arts can also be applied to solving the greatest challenges of our time.
These retreats are also the prelude for our ‘action summits’, held on the Clos de Gaye estate over the winter period, that invite deeper-level engagement from members of our community into solving the very real challenges we are facing in our world, through tangible projects incubated and executed through our impact lab, The Foundry.
Outcomes
We work in three main contexts:
Expanding — helping members of already strong, collaborative groups see more of one another. Further deepening bonds strengthens trust, psychological safety and dignity that, in turn, increase a sense of wellbeing and collaboration.
Cultivating — helping communities strengthen relationships proactively, preventing inevitable tensions from erupting into crisis. The stronger this relational foundation is, the greater the group’s the greater the group’s capacities to collaborate through friction, channeling disagreement into productive adaptation together.
Reimagining — helping those so exhausted from the stuckness of us vs. them that they become willing to try something bold: pause, step back from “the issue” and complicate the narrative — beyond the monster masks pinned on each other. What have “they” been through that brings them to see, believe and choose as they do? What matters to them in their lives? What are their hopes and fears? While necessitating neither agreement nor endorsement, understanding more of each other’s complex humanity and underlying values opens possibilities for perceptions about disconnect to loosen, making paths forward together at least conceivable
The same mechanism — that the more under-represented a person is in one's actual life, the more over-represented they tend to be in one's imagination — also plays out in already strong, collaborative groups, though in nuanced, more benign ways. This is all the more so in groups where membership is based on a relatively narrow common denominator, such as members of a work team, board, academic department, or community of faith. Members of such cohesive groups often share histories as colleagues, board-members, co-congregants and neighbors, and often work well together in these roles. Yet, beyond meetings, services or neighborhood functions, there may be few opportunities to understand what has brought a fellow member to know what they know, see what they see, choose what they choose.
Knowing one another in relatively limited contexts is a subtle type of under-representation in one’s actual life that makes it easy to fix a mask onto that person. The mask may be benevolent, beautiful, even angelic. Yet it nevertheless obscures the person underneath. ASC processes help crack these masks by expanding the ways a person is understood.
Getting Here
From your home to Clos de Gaye
Clos de Gaye is situated less than 20 minutes away from both Pau airport and train station in south west France. We are also 50 minutes away from Tarbes/Lourdes airport. Biarritz, Bordeaux and Toulouse are all between 1 - 2 hours drive or train ride.
In keeping with our vision to have a positive impact on the world, all retreats start and end at Gare Montparnasse in Paris, so you can use train travel to ‘set the scene’ on your extraordinary journey and reduce your carbon footprint. We also kindly ask all international visitors to offset the carbon from their plane travel to Paris through a reputable carbon-offsetting scheme.
We suggest that you aim for a plane or train to arrive in Paris on the morning of the retreat date, and to take the 2pm train from Montparnasse to arrive in time for dinner. Transfers from the train station to Clos de Gaye can be arranged ahead of time and the transfer time takes less than 20 minutes.
Monday 20th to Friday 24th May
(arrival Sunday 19th, departure Saturday 25th May)
Dates
Come together with some of the world’s foremost leaders to take part in transformative workshops, discussions, performances and experiences that will change the world.
We run open-enrollment retreats for individuals in the spring and autumn and are also able to offer bespoke retreats for companies and organisations wishing to do this as an offsite at a time to suit them.
25000 euros per person for 5-day retreat (arrival Sunday evening to Saturday morning departure)
50,000 euros per person for the year-long programme, to include one-to-one coaching and leadership development course and membership of the ‘higher order’ leadership community
20% sales tax applies
Each retreat is specially curated and takes no more than 5 - 10 participants per cohort. This ensures that we get the right mixture of participants to ensure a satisfying experience for all.
Investment
Included:
Retreat
All workshops, talks, dinners, and performances at the retreat in May
Your Accommodation on the Clos de Gaye estate or a similar property nearby
All your meals, including eating out
Your day trips to the Pyrénées and the Basque coast
Year-long personal development programme
All the above plus:
Year-long one-to-one, tailored, leadership development programme for each individual
Group coaching and networking with rest of your cohort for the 12 month period
Additional learning content for the 12 months surrounding the retreat experience through a micro-learning app (Gnowbe)
As a socially-entrepreneurial for-profit company, choosing to work with The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership creates employment opportunities for artists and creatives, supports low-income and marginalised communities to also take part in extraordinary experiences at Clos de Gaye and elsewhere in the world, so your participation in this retreat also enables others to benefit from the life-transforming effects of our programmes.
This year, we are committing to using the profits of our three main retreats for the building of infrastructure to support a residency programme for migrant and refugee artists. We invite all participants to consider matching this commitment with a philanthropic donation to support the programmatic elements of the residency.
Terms and Conditions
The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership reserves the right to change guest artists and facilitators should circumstances dictate.
All retreat fees are non-refundable. In the event of an unexpected event that is out of the Centre’s control, we will offer you a replacement offer of similar value.
The time is now. Are you ready?
