Qultura came into being at the end of November 2009 at The Duchess pub in Battersea, developing out of a small Fringe theatre which gave performances at the pub. Qultura was created by Stella Baker, then a Fringe dramatist and stage director, and Ian 'Fibbo' Fibbens, at the time who was a guitarist and musician. From the start Fibbo, ass he preferred to be called, worked to develop the Qultura community while Stella, with her mystical background and training, focused on developing the methodology.
Fibbo's vision for the Qultura community was that it was to be an empathy-based community for 'outsiders' - artists, musicians, actors, writers, mystics, dreamers, healers, as well as the poor, the homeless, the destitute, and anyone who felt alienated by the values of what we regard as 'mainstream society'. His theory was that mainstream conformists in society needed the non-conformists, the artists and the poor and socially marginalized essentially to define each other and promote social cohesion and social progress. Therefore the Qultura community has always been about seeking and finding affinity and a sense of community between people however which way they defined themselves.
Stella Baker's journey is a bit more complex. Early in life she entered into training under an elderly Bangladeshi mystic called Rashid Babu in eastern cosmology and Therevada Buddhism. Babu sought to train her as a Buddhist shaman and healer according to the 'sramana' tradition and encouraged her to study the Kabbalah, the occult, magic as well as eastern cosmology. She spent nearly four years in training under Babu until his death. She later emigrated to Poland, becoming established in the performing arts and theatre, and also spent some time studying lama Buddhism in the Diamond Buddhist community run by Danish lama Ole Nyadal.
As part of her training Stella Baker also spent two years doing 'the Forest Tradition' which is essentially living alone with nature completely isolated from society spending much time in meditation and 'mauna' the practice of not speaking for long periods of time. This is an esential part of shamanist tradition to learn the differences between actual reality and conceptual or cultural reality.
However during her time working in the performing arts as a stage director she ran hundreds of drama workshops for people who were disadvantaged and later ran drama workshops for such people as the homeless, people with mental health issues, struggling with addictions, ex-offenders, and so on. Discovering that the workshops proved beneficial to people struggling with addiction and mental health issues she began to question whether meditation was beneficial and whether there was a way which was simpler, far more natural and effective, and that is when she decided to explore dream weaving and develop a new system based on dream weaving.
This system became Qultura. When Fibbo died unexpectedly around Christmas 2013 from heart failure and complications from diabetes Stella sought to try to develop the Qultura community as much as possible according to Fibbo's vision as he had wanted this to be his legacy.
Qultura today
Qultura today - despite many changes and almost being wiped out completely during the COVID lockdowns remains as it was in it's orignal pattern from mid-2010. The Qultura community is built around Qultura Core, which is the community volunteering and activist hub for the wider Qultura community. Qultura Core is headed by Stella Baker, the Core Facilitator, mystic, shaman and dream weaver assisted by a small number of trustees and other community volunteers and activists. These trustees are:
- David Fisher
- former teacher, singer, and cultural activist
- Charmaine Bourton
- retired librarian, professional actor, community librarian
- M, The Awakened
- artist and mystic
- Patricia Charlesworth
- mystic, disabled rights activist
Qultura Core periodically holds trustee meetings to discuss community development and matters.
