Outside-in and Inside-Out
New Narratives for A World in Crisis
17th to 21st December 2025
Clos de Gaye, South West France
How do we honor each individual’s needs for affirmation of who they are whilst transcending the boundaries that keep us locked away from a healthier relationship from the other? Together, we will reimagine belonging in our divided world.
Using artistic methodologies, we will discover how to welcome multiplicity, forge genuine emotional connections, and build the satisfying relationships our fractured world desperately needs. This extraordinary experience challenges you to lead beyond boundaries—honoring who we are while creating the belonging we all seek.
The Challenge
Conversations on identity and belonging too often stay confined to division: what separates us, how we differ, where we don’t fit.
To move forward, we must go further. We need a deeper understanding of belonging that transcends narrow definitions of identity—how it is formed, performed, and lived.
We must build societies that honor difference while also cultivating the shared humanity that unites us. Belonging must mean more than inclusion; it must mean creating spaces where every person’s identity is valued, and where collective bonds are strengthened, not fractured, by diversity.
What We Will Create
We will build initiatives that harness the richness and diversity of our world—not as token gestures, but as the essential foundation for solving humanity’s greatest challenges.
Core Mandate:
Beyond Virtue Signaling: Develop real systems that move past symbolic inclusion toward measurable impact.
Transcend the Nation-State: Craft approaches to belonging and identity that are rooted in humanity, not confined by borders.
Protect Progress: Confront the threats that undermine advances already made in equality and inclusion, and safeguard frameworks that secure a future of shared belonging.
Deliverables:
Global Belonging Framework: A set of guiding principles and policies that ensure diversity is leveraged as a strategic asset in governance and society.
Policy Innovation Toolkit: Practical models governments and institutions can adopt to maximize the contributions of all people.
Accountability Metrics: Systems to track progress, ensure commitments are honored, and measure how belonging strengthens resilience, creativity, and collective well-being.
Execution:
We will transform these principles into action through cross-sector initiatives, policy reform, and global networks carried out by the Clos de Gaye impact hub.
Following the retreat, we will transform what we discuss into concrete action with measurable impact. Over 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, we’ll work alongside you to bring your vision to life, leveraging a world-class network to ensure your experience creates real change in the world. You’ll also have access to bi-monthly networking sessions with your cohort to deepen learning, share progress, and integrate transformation into daily life—along with lifelong membership in our Higher Order Leadership community, offering ongoing support, connection, and opportunities well into the future.
Outside-In and Inside-Out is part of The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership’s annual ‘action summit’ programme that aims to address core issues facing our world right now with bold and imaginative thinking about both the personal leadership necessary and the larger systemic and structural issues that need to change to allow humanity to flourish
Outside-In and Inside-Out is 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 and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Caroline is the owner of Clos de Gaye and a masterful hostess and creator of extraordinary experiences.
Read Caroline’s manifesto and her vision for Outside-In and Inside-Out
Caroline will be joined by two award-winning performers, Guy Mendilow and Regie Gibson, who will co-facilitate workshops and performances during the summit
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Guy Mendilow
Guy Mendilow was raised in an academic immigrant family devoted to increasing belonging and dignity, especially for those society tacitly deems it permissible to dismiss.
Mendilow has a long record with the use of moving artistic experiences and processes to cultivate belonging. It stretches from childhood participation in one of Johannesburg’s only integrated churches at the height of Apartheid to masters-level research and workshop development for Arab, Israeli, Pakistani and Indian educators using improvisation to set the stage for mediation.
Since 1996, Mendilow has designed and facilitated residencies in communities ranging from the Navajo Reservation and rural Midwest to business schools (e.g. Babson College). Mendilow’s productions have received multiple funding awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Boston Foundation and the New England Foundation for the Arts on the basis of artistry, cultural preservation and the strengthening of communities through the arts.
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Regie Gibson
Regie Gibson has lectured and performed widely in the US, Cuba, and Europe. In Italy, representing the US, Regie received both the Absolute Poetry Award (Monfalcone) and the Europa en Versi Award (LaGuardia di Como). He has been honored with fellowships with Mass Cultural Council and YMCA and served as poet-in-residence at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Lexington MA’s Cary Memorial Library. A widely anthologized poet, author and playwright, Gibson has also performed with, and composed texts for, the Boston City Singers, the Mystic Chorale, and Handel+Haydn Society.
Gibson’s thought-partnership has informed 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. 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 Clark University in Worcester. Gibson now lives in Lexington, MA, USA.