Jessica Flor Angel, Founder of Feÿtopia
Details
- Interviewee: Jessica Flor Angel
- Role: Founder
- Community: Feÿtopia
- Location: chateau du fey
- Language: English
Summary
Jessica Flor Angel, trained as an architect, purchased Château de Fey in 2017 after spending time at The Embassy in San Francisco and working on an educational project called Gecko. The community season was catalyzed by Covid. She traces her founding motivations to four threads: the cosmopolitan-rural divide accelerated by Trump's election; the loneliness crisis; the climate emergency; and her architectural sense of agency through space. She describes governance as paradoxical: 99% of survey respondents name collective democracy, yet almost all practical admin rests with Jess. She deliberately chose a seasonal model rather than a permanent commune, believing the château is too grand for full-time habitation and that the temporal container is part of what makes it work. She also describes the Galaxy, a network of local projects across the Joigny territory, as her effort to stay grounded in rural realities while holding the international breath of Feytopia. The interview closes on the open question of whether temporary zones like Feytopia become catalysts or commodities.
Key quotes
For hippies we look too bling bling, and for bling bling people we look too hippie. That is the story of my life.
When I ask what is the governance of Feytopia, about 99 percent of people write democracy, collective governance. On paper I think, it is not really like that.
Creating a working community felt like a very distant dream. When we realized we had made it, full of love and without conflict, I thought, wow, that came much faster than we expected.
I believe in liminal spaces that disconnect you enough to give you a space where you can see life from afar, leave your old identity and feel open to a new one.
The open question is whether these temporary zones become catalysts for new ways to live together, or simply a new way to travel.
Transcript
---
interviewee: Jess (Jessica Flor Angel)
community: Feytopia
location: Château de Fey, Burgundy, France
interviewer: Sharon Avraham
featured_in_posts: none
transcript_format: clean (merged from three sessions)
related_files:
- interview_jessica_feytopia.md (Session 1 source)
- interview_jessica_feytopia_part2.md (Session 2 source)
- interview_jessica_feytopia_fundraising.md (Session 3 source)
themes:
- Values
- Governance
- Connection
- Conflict
- Change
- Community
- Founding vision
- Infrastructure
- Affordability and access
- Risk and agency
- Compromise as methodology
- Conflict resolution
- Refusal and rare no
- Curation and who gets in
- Bio-regional thinking
- Crypto-tech reputation risk
- Fundraising philosophy
- Freedom vs capacity of action
- Ownership and decentralization
- Fey Institute vs Feytopia framing
- Gendered aspect of asking for money
- Burning Man 10 principles precedent
notes: |
This is a merged record of three separate conversations with Jess (Jessica Flor Angel),
founder of Feytopia at Château de Fey, Burgundy, France. The three sessions cover
origin and governance philosophy (Session 1), affordability, infrastructure, risk,
and compromise (Session 2 follow-up), and fundraising and the next phase of the
project (Session 3 focused conversation).
All three sessions preserved as separate sub-sections below. Each was previously
cleaned from auto-transcribed source. Note: the fundraising session source file
had Jess's name rendered as "Jessica Ulrich Kasparian" in its frontmatter , this
is an ASR error. Her full legal name is Jessica Flor Angel ("Jess").
---
# Interview Transcript: Jess (Jessica Flor Angel)
**Community:** Château de Fey / Feytopia
**Full name:** Jessica Flor Angel (called "Jess"); founder and château owner
**Interviewer:** Sharon Avraham
**Setting:** Three field recordings at Château de Fey, Spring 2026 season
---
## Session 1: Origin, Vision, and Governance Philosophy
---
**Sharon:** Can you start with your name and where we are sitting right now?
**Jessica:** My name is Jessica Flor Angel, that is my full name, but people call me Jess. We are sitting at Château de Fey, in Burgundy.
---
**Sharon:** For how long have you been working on this project?
**Jessica:** I started this project in 2017, that is when we purchased the place. So it is going to be ten years in a year, almost a decade.
I spent time rationalizing this adventure afterwards. When you meet people who take on such a project, a big project in general, I think there is something a bit bigger than just one intention. It is not really the rational mind that decides to do a project like this one.
There were a few triggers. I spent a lot of time researching places, places for communities. I was trained as an architect, and at some point I landed in California, where I decided to live in a house with 15 housemates. It was incredible. I thought, one day I would love to support my own creative place.
The second catalyst was that when I was in California, I was working for a project called Gecko, which was an educational project with people from all over the world. The founder, Kent, was looking for a place to do the project, and I was looking for a place for him. One story leading to another, I realized it made no sense for a Japanese funder based in the US to get a château, and I ended up doing the project myself.
---
**Sharon:** From that moment of wanting a community, what were you imagining? Buying land with people, an eco village, a château... what was the idea of taking on this place and running the project yourself?
**Jessica:** From this place of wanting to have a community, you go into all kinds of adventures, like buying a piece of land with a group of people, or creating an eco village.
With this château, I think it was almost two separate dreams. On one side there was this abandoned château for sale. I mean, "abandoned" in the sense that it was completely in ruins, and it had been for sale for ten years. As a young architect you see potential everywhere. I had been renovating physical projects before, so it was about seeing the potential of the place. It drew a lot of creativity, seeing what it could become.
On the other side I had the thought that one day I would start my own community, my own commune. For the longest time with this project, I thought, right now we do weddings and events. My mom at the time wanted to do cooking schools and cooking classes. It was almost like a bootstrap mentality of "we do whatever we can to restore it," and maybe one day, ten years later, it would be a community.
Then the project that runs in the winter season got catalyzed by Covid. Before that, I was doing a lot of projects that tried to bring in that community aspect. One that we actually hosted here was for Gecko, but also for Arts, which was the art festival. From the beginning of the project I tried to find people who were aligned, events that were more aligned with the vision and connected to a longer term vision.
---
**Sharon:** What were the values that guided you in the first stages here?
**Jessica:** When I was 25, in 2016, I finished grad school. I had spent a lot of time working on communal spaces, being super into it. That led me to California and to this wiki project that was called Gecko, and the place in California was called The Embassy.
There was a big shift in 2016 because Trump got elected. All of a sudden I felt I was in the epicenter of the America that does not work and does not vote for Trump. I was thinking, what am I doing here? Where are the people who vote for Trump? How did we reach this crazy divide between some sort of cosmopolitan elites and rural territories? The same thing was happening in France.
I joined a political project called Let's Vote, which tried to create incentives for expats to vote, because we knew they were not necessarily going to vote for the far right. At the time my goal was not necessarily to just fight and be like, I am in this camp and there is this other camp. It was a very different approach. I just wanted to understand: how is it possible that I live in such a small bubble? I did not understand why people were not thinking, voting or having the same vision of the world.
I was tired of having a hundred "enemies" and "friends." I did not want another meeting in a salon with intellectuals trying to explain things without being on the ground. That would be one of my motivations for moving to rural France.
At that time I was living in a place where everybody was asking me, in this kind of community called The Embassy, "What is it that you are doing for the world?" So I was really asking myself, what am I doing for the world?
One deep belief, and I think we have that very much in common, is that every human is the same in a way. For some reason we just add layers of notice, belief systems and stories that create a divide. I want to find what really brings us together. That became a bit of an obsession, and I am still searching, to be honest. With two psychiatrist parents, I know we all have mother and father traumas. That is one track.
The second track is the loneliness crisis. We have never been so connected, but we have never felt so lonely. There is this absurd situation where we have Facebook and social media, yet we live with a certain emotional void. That is why I became interested in communal living and other ways of being and dwelling with others.
The third one is the climate crisis. For me, the big wake-up call was in 2013. A few years later, the more I was in America, the more I felt I did not really connect to it. I felt I lived in the old world. I remember joining a course at Yale on carbon, and we were four people in the seminar. I thought, why am I in a place where no one cares about climate and the environment?
Coming here and learning how to work a vegetable garden, put my hands in the dirt, care for trees, was a big shift that motivated the move to France.
The last track, the glitter in all this, is my way of feeling I have some agency through spaces, because I was trained as an architect. At that time there was a campaign where you saw a lot of Italian villas and châteaux that got famous, campaigns like "get a château in Italy for €0." That created some kind of interest. Obviously this château was not zero, but there was an imagination that was kindled by seeing these ads.
---
**Sharon:** When you first got the place and stood here for the first time knowing it was yours, what was the big dream then? What was the farthest you could imagine?
**Jessica:** That is an interesting question, because I am dreaming much bigger now than I dreamt at the beginning. It is almost paradoxical.
At first I had a lot of architectural dreams, because that is really where I come from. This space could be this, that space could be that. I still have that, it has gone even bigger. But for some reason, creating a working community felt like a very distant dream.
When we realized that, in a way, we had made it, that it was there and it was working, full of love and without conflict, I thought, wow, that came much faster than we expected.
It was the same with the business plan. It was very timid. Maybe we could do a bit of this, have two employees, one for the garden, one for something else. Now I have a team of about 18 people. I never imagined that. A lot of that came by surprise.
It has been a project that grew very organically, always with the idea of people first. I am more interested in creating community, not only with the people who stay here, but also with the people who work for events, with the team. I want this place to be a place through which people thrive, where people feel a sense of belonging without wearing a mask. That is a very core intention.
As a result, with the people, we craft the dream. It is a movement. We put a vision that we can craft with the people who have the energy to invest in the place. Then we try to follow it, then we regret some things, and we react and adjust every year.
It is like a personal inner compass at the scale of a place. When I look at Ed, my life partner, his way is more like "this is the thing" and then you embark everybody onto the project. My work has been more like, we have this thing, this blank canvas, and it could be many things. What do we want to do?
It is more like guiding clay, organic, intuitive. Each time you are surprised by your own capacity and by what the place can hold, and therefore you dream bigger as you become more confident.
---
**Sharon:** For people who look for community today, we see a lot of models. Decentralized villages, a group of people co-owning land, and the criticism of a "white man with land" inviting people in and sending them away when they want. People do not feel agency or empowerment in that. In my own project I felt I could not really give anyone power either.
Here we talk about community, but this is also a business. You have a lot of projects happening, with Feytopia as the most communal one, even if it is still quite small. It gives people something that is missing.
From what you see evolving here, how do you imagine the future? Could there be residences or co-living that allow people to feel at home here long term, or inspire them to get other properties around? Where do you think this can go in terms of community over time?
**Jessica:** I love this question, and I want to invite you to ask me a lot of these questions, because I think they are very interesting. They bring challenges, and they also bring in the criticism. It is important for us to put potential criticism in the middle.
It is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. At the beginning of the project, for three years I was hiding this program. Maybe not exactly three years, but it took me a long time to even talk about the project, because I felt guilty that it was not collective ownership from the start. I felt, this is not good enough, it is not collective ownership, so I should not talk about it.
That has changed over the years. I am still trying to understand it, but I think we have something very special. Obviously it is not for me to say, and you should interview other people, but I am always surprised by the surveys. When I ask, "According to you, what is the governance of Feytopia?" about 99 percent of people write "democracy, collective governance."
On paper I think, it is not really like that. I do all the admin. There are a lot of things running in the background that people do not have any say in, or are not even involved in. But it is mostly the annoying parts, which is interesting.
After living here for a year and a half during Covid, when we really thought about whether we wanted this place to be a permanent community, I think we decided to say no, because it is almost too grandiose for a commune. It is a beautiful château. People get a bit too comfortable. If you stay in a beautiful château bedroom for eight months, you do not want to go back to living in your van or a normal apartment. You become entitled.
There is something really beautiful in having it as something a bit rare and exceptional that you cherish. It is cyclical and kept in time, like an escape in time.
When we realized that, we saw that there might be a world in which we do Feytopia together, but it would still be three or four months maximum. I think that rotation is something the place calls for. In general, one quality of a place is also its drawback. We are really far from the village. That has advantages and drawbacks. We should listen to that.
For me it was important to work at two levels. The château is one project in itself, almost like a hotel, with a strong creative flavor. It runs a lot of projects, including nonprofit projects, and strongly supports community.
Maybe one day we will be able to tokenize it, or give people shares, so everybody who does repairs contributes to the project. I would love that. At the moment it feels legally heavy, and nobody is really asking for it.
That is an interesting observation. Nobody is asking for more collective governance at that level. People want very collective governance for the community side, like when we do the commune meeting every Friday to decide what activities we are doing. But nobody wants to take the responsibility of renting a space.
As long as people feel they have power and agency over the community, they are happy to delegate "the ship part," the finances and the heavy stuff. I think there is trust. It probably helps that I am a woman, especially after so many bad stories with male founders having all the power.
I try to protect this trust. We are very transparent. We talk about the prices of everything. I find it curious and interesting that people have not asked for more.
Maybe it has been a problem or misdirection for many communities to spend so much time focusing on governance. It can lead to inefficiency when everybody is in endless meetings and circles so everybody can feel involved in every decision. You can become too horizontal and ineffective.
There is something people cherish here, the simple fact that it runs well. They realize what they need is acknowledgment and feeling valued, but maybe not collective decisions about how to repaint the middle salon.
I think it would be interesting for you to interview people around this, because for me it is also a story about governance in a larger sense.
---
**Sharon:** I am trying to understand the place of these co-living projects in the wider ecosystem. Feytopia is the first project I document in this way. I have more experience with calling myself than creating communities.
What is the place of these co-living projects in the landscape of communities and alternative living?
**Jessica:** The château, as I was saying, is a bit of an entity, and it is a private one. Then we have the territory. I work between the château and the territory. For a long time I did a lot of work locally.
We started a nonprofit that gathered different nonprofits. That was infinite collective governance. For me, an initiative on top of the hill with no foot in the territory is a lost project. It is not interesting at all.
What has been interesting in the past years, and something I am extremely proud of, is that Joigny, when I arrived, was a beautiful town with little life. All the young people had left. When you are smart and want to study, you leave and never come back.
My friend Laura convinced the mayor to give a big building almost for free for a local community. A lot of eco activists moved to Joigny. Now Joigny has many people of my age, and different ages, who moved because they were interested in creating something different.
We have been thinking a lot about the concept of third place at the scale of a territory, not just one building.
What I cherish now is that we have a big map that covers the whole territory with all the cafés and third spaces. Fey is very much a kind of cosmopolitan elite château. It feels a bit more bling bling. For bling bling people we look too "hippie," and for hippies we look too bling bling. That is the story of my life.
I love that Fey is a bit hard to place and full of paradoxes. We want to play with those paradoxes.
When we started there were none of these projects, or they existed but were not identified. One of my dreams is that every town has not only a tourist office but also a welcoming community office that, when you arrive, tells you: you want to do this project, here is the person doing something similar, here is another one.
Right now nobody's job is to do that. That is why we started this nonprofit, which now plays that role, although it could do it ten times better.
One goal was to identify existing cool projects, like a mesh-free internet network, a cooperative internet where, toward internet collapse, we still have internet in Joigny. Very cool initiative. Then people working in permaculture, solidarity cafés... some we mapped, some we created.
As people started moving to Joigny, they added their projects. It is called the Galaxy now, the galaxy of the area.
For me the goal has been to navigate between these worlds. The world of this crazy bubble here, which I love for all the ideas and intellectual creative stimulation and global outlook, and the world of Joigny and all the local projects that care for daily life and the everyday fabric of friendship, very connected to the land.
If I stay too much in Joigny, I miss the international breath. If I stay too much in the "lala land" of Fey, I miss the grounded connection. Fey has been a bridge between these worlds that are hard to reconcile.
There is also another world, the Joigny that votes far right. I have been hanging out with people who have that political tendency as well.
---
**Sharon:** Many border projects and intentional spaces are perceived as disconnected. They use all the buzzwords but hide away in a château or on a farm. What drives you to actually make an effort and connect, and how can projects like this benefit the local environment?
**Jessica:** I am proud of the disconnection in one way. I think it needs both connection and disconnection. That is also why I like the temporal nature of things here. Feytopia lasts five months. People have to go home. Events usually last from two days to a week. People come to the farm for a short time and then go back to their normal lives.
I am very comfortable with temporal disconnection. That is why we also had an art festival. I believe in liminal spaces that disconnect you enough to give you a space where you can see life from afar, leave your old identity and feel open to a new one.
Many people land here during a phase of transition: a big break-up, a death in their family. We had a chef who came from Lebanon, and many other stories. People need to heal or reconnect or cut from something that was heavy.
We provide a space full of love, imagination and creativity. It feeds the heart, because it does not feel like that everywhere. I think it is completely fine to recharge your batteries here and then go back and reconnect and do some of the work elsewhere.
We both have a similar background of being inspired by Burning Man. Burning Man lasts one week, and you think, I want to do something longer. You go and create something where people stay one week, five months. Then there is the intentional community world, where people build a life together.
I also hear that little voice you mention that says, this is capitalism. A benevolent entrepreneur creates a beautiful space and holds it with love and care. In the end people again "buy" community and see it as a commodity, like purchasing a yoga class or a retreat.
People might feel they do not need to do much more than lighting the fire or doing a kitchen shift. They do not see how hard it is to hold a place like this. Maybe they receive very few tools to take this back to the real world, and they can say, "I lived in community," but they paid someone to have a 2026 hospitality experience that feels a bit different.
At the same time, these temporary zones are very needed, exactly for the reasons you mention. In some ways they are more accessible. You cannot just join Tamera and check it out. You go through three boxes, and maybe they accept you. Here you can just check out community in this way.
The open question is whether these temporary zones become catalysts for new ways to live together, or simply a new way to travel.
## Session 2: Affordability, Infrastructure, Risk, and Compromise (Follow-up)
---
**Sharon:** I'm generally feeling, you know, thank you for the invitation, thank you for coming. I'd love to collaborate more, families, or just come as a guest. Like, after doing with you the Thinking Garden, and then coming here, I see what you're trying to do. I see how important it is, the basics working so well. It's so much easier to see.
And you're here, and you imagine all the people, the people who have no money and don't have a job. They say, "I don't have any job, I don't have any money, but I can work in the kitchen now. I can help. I took someone to the airport and she paid me a little bit of money, so I have a little bit in the bank account." And then there are people who, money is not an issue for them at all. And they're all here right now. So the judgements that can come from looking at this beautiful place, it's not really what's happening. Anyone motivated, who has a bit of creativity, has found a way to stay here.
**Jess:** It's not perfect, you know. But it's always important that the dorm is very cheap. You can come for €1,000 included, to stay in the dorm. That's minimum wage in France. Or you can come and work. So there are always two options. Obviously there are always more affordable places. But at some point things don't come for free. I think, the infrastructure is heavy.
There is a world in which I'd love to try a project like this one in a place that costs less money. I think that would be really interesting to do. Does it have to be a chateau? It's quite fun, it's in the centre, it's quite grandiose, but I don't think, I think there are tons of versions that could happen in a place that takes less maintenance.
The other thing that can happen in places like this that couldn't otherwise, I think actually, you can have quite surprising diversity here. Because maybe the wealthy wouldn't come if the place was not a chateau. We talked last time about the cosmopolitan world and rural territories. The chateau has that. It's beautiful, and it creates a space where you can get people from a lot of different places and actually create a creativity collision that would be hard to do in other places.
That being said, I think we could still do ten times better. Socioeconomic backgrounds and so on. It's always a balance, because diversity cannot be your main driver, otherwise you're just optimising for diversity at the cost sometimes of common culture. But as much as possible, it should be an important factor to consider.
That comes back to our discussion on Burning Man, or other places. I think it's always a question of expectation. If people describe Burning Man as the most incredible thing that exists in life, I think it's an overstatement. Is it the best festival I've been to? It's probably the best festival I've been to. So it's always a question of, what is the reality compared to the expectation? People get angry or a bit judgmental if the branding is a bit higher than the reality, but it doesn't mean the project's not good.
**Sharon:** One thing I used to do, I know a bunch of philanthropists or foundations that would just give some money so I could bring one of the Global South people. I did this festival in Portugal, and a donor was like, here, there's 20 grand, bring the artists that you really want to play. I think of it for Feytopia, 100%.
**Jess:** That would be, we used to do more artist residencies because we managed to get money through the arts. But now the main nonprofit has been redesigned for Commons, which is a bit more centred around sustainability. But there are people, say, Alex, we've been talking about refugees. I mean, there could be a way that, we managed to finance two bedrooms every two weeks. So it could be like sixteen people over the season, something like that. I think that could be really life changing for these people.
The more I think about it, yeah, two every two weeks. I think it could be really beautiful both ways. I'm not also, you know, close-minded on a lot of people here. Yeah. Definitely.
**Sharon:** I have a nice list of people I could tell to apply to something like this.
**Jess:** I think in a way, we haven't been able to set up a real, proper scholarship system, really, because of the organisation and operation. We'd just be short on time. You need a board, people to read the applications. So that was a bit of a, but I think we would be interested in doing that.
**Sharon:** If you need any support for that, I'd love to help with something like this. And also, motivate the people with a bit more money to pitch in to something meaningful.
**Jess:** It's kind of happening anyway in some ways. Yeah. Anyway, I have a meeting at four, but it's a short meeting. It's sixteen minutes, so I could leave at four and come back.
Okay, let's leave off with, you like, we want to do more. You can also be quite charming. It was quite insightful to speak with, those that were. It's nice. It's nice.
Also, the on-camera and off-camera, not the same people. Other people coming in, you told me to go interview this guy. I think he has a bit, who's this guy with the kids? Some of the more critical review of them, I think. So, who appear to owe you anything? No one said, they could go talk to the staff, but if we took the staff, that's just an exam. There's not, sometimes two people. A lot of people were talking about the container, and how you're holding this as well.
**Sharon:** How do you think, whether somebody would continue to have in shaping the daily life here, but we took the. So, I'm blocked on your previous comments because I want to dove into the criticism.
**Jess:** We'll get there. It's good. If there's criticism, it means you're doing something.
**Sharon:** Container. What makes a good container? That's the question. What do you think makes a good container? Like, what's your action in holding? I mean, at the end of the day, let me give you another framing. I think many people would want to have conversations with you, but not many people know exactly, maybe, what the best questions to ask. Ideally, after having all of these kinds of interviews, people can talk to the AI in the website, and then it's not just us that can learn from that.
**Jess:** Maybe, but to be honest, I don't think I spend a lot of time holding space anymore. I think what's working is that we all hold space for each other. Some people hold more space than me these days, when it comes to all the physical content.
That's right. And the administrative container, I think I'm also a bit responsible for the vibe container. I think I run a lot of things by intuition. If things feel off. Yeah. I think we make sure there's always joy and love and care, and people feel welcome and seen. I'm very tuned to how people get welcomed. When I sense that when people come in, we say hi, we introduce ourselves, etc., I relax. I'm like, okay, it's working, they don't have to do anything. But I always have eyes and ears everywhere. I can also leave for two months and I trust. It's different when I'm not around, but I know that if I'm not around, then Mathieu starts to, like, keeps the ears, you know, just kind of always having a bit, an eye on the vibe.
There was one day where my friend Tomasz was actually running a workshop. It was something around pain and dopamine and serotonin. People were doing the chair pose, you know, and one group was holding each other's hands and singing together, and the other group, you're alone and you're doing the chair pose. The conclusion basically is, if you're holding hands and singing together, you can last longer in the chair pose. But one person in the workshop got really triggered by seeing that scene, of, I don't know, performance or pushing through challenges. I was the only person looking at the participants, not looking at the people doing the chair pose. And that was at the very beginning of the workshop. That's the moment where I realised, I could never be a pure participant. To me, that's fine.
What has been tough, I think it's tough if you really want to be participating and all of a sudden you're given a role of holding space. Then it's tough, because people only see you as the space holder. But for me, it's fine to be the space holder. So I think at some point it's picking or deciding what you want. If I want to be a participant and really relax and enjoy, I just don't do it here. I just go somewhere else.
**Sharon:** I think you're the only one to speak about, the versus, and the physical aspects of the space. Because no one really knows what even to say about it. So from the fate of your team.
**Jess:** It's all very invisible. I mean it's heavy, especially in the chateau. We have a heritage architect, there's always repair and things to fix. We have four people on the maintenance team. So it's a lot of infrastructure work.
I guess it's always the same thing as an entrepreneur. I'm not irritated by challenges that come with the place. Like any entrepreneurial project, there's always going to be challenges. The question is, what type of challenges are you willing to handle? Maybe having a community in the chateau is a double whammy. The chateau setup is already hard to maintain. Everybody loses the totality of their money. Community, in general, it's like a well. For finances, a well that doesn't have an end. And then the community is already hard. So combining both is a bit silly, in the sense that I'm making things harder than they could be.
I've learned over years not to just be, you know, yet another challenge, okay, that's another challenge, and that's another challenge. I'm doing a lot these days. But the building is constantly something that needs love and care. I think the situation, we understand the limits. For instance, we're always saying, lift objects, otherwise it's not good for the parquet floor. So that's very much in the culture. People care for the place as much as, again, not everybody has the same understanding of what care is. Some people are messier than others. But there have been people that have been very excited to participate in the building stewardship, and that's been quite fun.
Someone built a zone, something else was built. Ryan has been fixing the entire internet. So we're thinking with Ryan, how can we implement more volunteer programmes with people that are a bit technical but want to help? But for that, we really need someone who has a double skill, which is to be very good at fixing things, but also being very good at framing volunteers. And it's two different skills. It's been the same with the kitchen. There's not a chef that is a community-kitchen chef, which means it's not only knowing how to cook, it's knowing how to cook and framing volunteers, teaching them, giving them a brief. And you've got to want to do that job.
Right now we're investigating having more people being excited and working on the building side of things. I think the chateau is a constraint as well. If it was a big barn, a bit more fragile and technical, we could have more people doing cool renovation work. The fact that it's classified, a protected historical monument, makes it hard for people to be like, oh, I'll just help and do a bit of paint job. I know for a fact that there are a lot of people who love to get their hands dirty with some building stuff. We can talk about this after the interview. I've been managing volunteers a lot. I just had someone call me like, wow, I just won an award and I want to work with someone that's very good at what they do. If you get one expert here, you can get ten.
**Sharon:** It's interesting, because we were talking about this kind of residency project happening in this really big fancy, hard-to-maintain chateau. In many ways that helped create a lot of beautiful moments here. But what do you think is the minimal infrastructure that needs to exist for a project like this to flourish?
**Jess:** The kitchen. If I was to design from scratch, I think two common spaces, one kitchen. And then depending on the climate, people could stay in tents, people could live in vans. But that really changes potentially the crowd you're getting.
If you were to start in the desert, it would be different. But I always thought that if I really put my mind to it, and I lived in a building in Paris or a tower in New York, maybe I could be good enough that I would create a community within the neighbourhood. So I think it's also the art of creating community, which is, organise the first meeting, buy the drinks for everyone, create a WhatsApp group. We've done a lot with the simple skills of community building.
**Sharon:** What about the legal stuff? You said about the infrastructure and the social. What do you think is, is there tons of ways? You know, we have a nonprofit, the property is owned by people, not by an LLC.
**Jess:** There are tons of legal models that people use. Parents and friends, and then others. I've seen tons of ways to arrange. I think it's often finding the legal model that fits more the project, the intention, and the resources you have.
**Sharon:** But you have 40 people here. People can get hurt. Stuff can happen. How do you make sure that the project, and the person living there, if something like this happens?
**Jess:** Well, that's the risk. You're always responsible. Without risk, there is no product. But not everybody is suited to that level of risk. I think I can handle it. And when it's helpful, like, whether to take the risk or not, I think I have that trust. I don't want to create bad manifestations or decisions. Even in jail I could have fun. That's not what I mean. But, it's a very ontological philosophical question, what's your relationship to risk? What type of risk are you willing to take, and how, and why. I would have to think about it a bit.
I think you take risk when you're not scared of failing. These days, I'm not too scared of failing, because I know that each time I fail, I learn so much, and each time I fail, I get support. So I have that trust. Because I have that trust, I'm able to take some risk. So I'm quite strong. But I think there will be times maybe in my life when I'm weaker and I don't feel like I can take that much risk. So it's almost like a constant feedback loop between, how are you feeling in your life in terms of support, emotional, physical. I'm in good health, I have a partner, I have a kid, I have my parents. I'm quite supported. So, okay, if something happens, I'm not alone. I have sources in the community, I'm quite agile, so I can take that risk. Also because I have the trust that I will find solutions.
The more I do, the more I realise also where the risks are. So in a sense I become a bit more risk averse. And on the other end, another voice is like, yeah, but look, you've managed so far, jump in and let's see, and the leap will appear.
I feel compared to other people in the community, I'm very risk averse. And compared to others, like compared to Ed, Ed is a total risk-averse compared to Mathieu, Mathieu is a complete, you know, crazy person. So I sit somewhere in the middle.
**Sharon:** Just because we're on the topic, how many people are usually here at the same time?
**Jess:** Between 25 and 45. Up to 50. And the seasonal Signal group, which is a bit our metric, always ends up around 250, somewhere between 200 and 300.
**Sharon:** What compromises are necessary between Château de Fey as an institute, and Feytopia as this community experiment?
**Jess:** I don't know. It's a good question. Nothing comes to me as one compromise, like, I had to say no to this because of that. But something I remember from our conversations like years ago, I was looking for some quality. You were saying, maybe I could fix this, I'm going to have, like, a lot of weather in here, so I can find other stuff. We were talking earlier this year, one of the conversations, I remember, maybe it was the Château de Fey all year, maybe with festivals or weddings. You were saying earlier this week, maybe one day people will buy this place.
And I'm guessing there's quite a big turnout. For me, from doing stuff on my farm, renting the farm to an event, would financially make so much more sense than to do a community. Community, you work very hard, you get less money, and there's more risk. Whereas doing an event, if everything is clear, two professionals meeting each other.
What are the tensions between, could you feel free to talk? Yeah, it's hard for me to, someone from the outside could see it more, because I've come to almost enjoy both parts as a nice equilibrium. I could see a world, if there were only the events, so much would be missing. If Feytopia were to stretch for a really long period, I think some stuff would be missing. Because we have some really amazing events. And maybe some new things could happen that right now aren't happening because it's seasonal. And maybe we would lose some stuff. The seasonality, the fact that it has a beginning and an end, creates something a bit special. Some sort of magical time-box capsule.
So I guess it's interesting, because on the other hand there's no compromise, everything works. And there's another voice as you talk, which tells me everything is compromise. It's so integrated. We talked about this in the first interview, what I learned in the US, which was pragmatism. I think Feytopia is deeply rooted in pragmatism versus ideology. The pragmatism of reality, which every day you compromise, every day it's, okay, how do we make this work? The employees need to get paid, it's hard to get a cleanup. So one part is going to be business and infrastructure. And then the other part is going to be community. And these layers, every decision has actually come from a compromise.
So in a way, at first I was like, there's no compromise. Then I realised there were thousands, tens of thousands of compromises, that we had to make. In a way, I'm almost too good at compromising. I would say the beauty of it is, the richness and the aesthetic of something actually made of compromise, which I think is the mission of Feytopia. We talked about people living in echo chambers, in bubbles. So by having to make it work, being in the dirt of the compromise, of having to pay for things and then wanting community and collective governance in some aspects, you know, we just found intuitively. I would say it was, it wasn't very true. It's more like tons of jurisprudence. There's no law. Everything gets adapted. So it's by going one step at a time. It has grown very organically with thousands of compromises.
And then, we don't compromise on fun.
**Sharon:** Who are the OGs? Mostly men now?
**Jess:** It's mostly men now. It's mostly me on the strategic level. There are interactions on the daily basis, like, you know, a plenary, was towards the bedroom stock collision, or the cleaning part, that we call a harmonies in Dutch. We have a WhatsApp group with like ten Tolkiens and ten team members, and the chat is used on a daily basis. So communication flow is very much in the project.
Off-season, when it's more strategic decisions, there's minimal interaction, and also minimal planning. Like, I spend maybe an hour per week talking to Shelby, answering a bit of emails, putting up today the booking system. We have one big briefing with the chateau team on all the things they want. We do a lot of qualitative review from the team. What are the things you liked about this year? Didn't like? What was painful? And we implement. Same with all the Tolkiens. I spend like three to four days reading all the surveys and trying to implement this back.
So it's a mix between community and business. Because it's like using the Tolkiens as clients and at the same time as peers and community members. So trying to conciliate these two things, where sometimes you're in the business, really optimising for client experience, but then you feel a bit like you're the client and you have no agency. There's something missing, like the great spot. So they thought about where I'm going to put my toothbrush. But they haven't thought about my experience as, can I actually take the toothbrush and put it here? Like, it encapsulates me in a well-thought process, or client experience, a route. So here, agency is the most important. We want everybody to feel like it's their home, and they can do whatever they want, that freedom. Everybody's in the decision of how we run life here. And at the same time, it's an experience that we co-create. So we want really good feedback on that co-created experience, to make it even better. Some feedback involves the infrastructure, the smell in the kitchen, or something like that.
**Sharon:** I have to say, as someone going to be critical, it's a bit annoying how enjoyable and well-balanced it is. It can so easily become like a commune, or like a fancy, high-end experience of this habitat. The place that I should not be named, is a communal, it's very visible. It's well thought of in many ways. And I'm like, sitting here, maybe this is a new form of hospitality, and I am enjoying this. So let's. I want to be able to go to the garden. But it's exactly what I want as an individual. And maybe we evolve to this, the hospitality that, the leader that is putting us in the middle so we can actually meet each other and not just have a comfortable room. We go and consume the local restaurants and bars. And that alone is something.
So my next question, when I talk about governance and decision making with people, there's a lot of kind of talk about the ethos of, like, everyone makes this, and is that. But one thing, even deeper than, what's the decision making mechanism that happens? As you were saying, I'm looking at the reviews, and I'm making changes for the next season. Or people are saying, I have an idea, and then bring it to Jess, someone close. I found it beautiful that, if someone is bringing something a bit harsh to you, you said, "how would you solve it?" In a way that informs, you know, you asserting your position, but in a way that's really inviting.
How do you manage all of this, and the different, that you have employees here, and you have volunteers, and staff members, and long term people here? I know people like me who come with a lot of advice. And it's a lot of people, a lot of emotions, and seeing the world sometimes a little differently. Your humour is useful. But surprisingly for a lot of people, a lot of people that are not really, or, I actually, I don't know if we're lucky, or if it's rare.
**Jess:** I have one example, actually, and I feel bad for this one because we haven't found the perfect solution. Mark. It was a climbing wall. And it was an amazing climbing wall. But the problem was, we are in a heritage building, and I always thought, it's a crime to put a climbing wall in one of the beautiful 18th century barns. But it's been like, I feel it's been one of the really rare times where someone actually has an idea, is willing to put the money, is willing to put the time. And I'm kind of using my power. But it also makes me annoyed, because that's not the ideal solution. I think the ideal solution would be, okay, there's the chateau, and then there's another space that's a bit more funky where we can put the climbing wall. So yeah, that's been one time where we didn't manage to find a solution.
But in general, I think that's where there's compromise. I think the thing is, a lot of people are quite creative. We all see in general the constraints, so we can, like, I built a fire pit, and I'm like, put it here. It's good that it's dangerous. And then I remember that we thought, it would be really nice to at some point have a real fire pit, that is not what we call in France, like, a steel container. It almost takes away the magic of the fire pit. A real fire pit has to be connected to the earth, not in the middle. It's like the Ignis fire pit. So that's why we put it in front of the sauna. Okay, the bug becomes a feature. That's the mentality, that's the culture.
So in general, I ask the question so that leads to that type of decision. If you can work in a little bit more intimate way. Because honestly, most places I go, there's one person in charge, and most people are really not happy about it. Then they speak with the person and they're like, I'm just trying my best. And I'm feeling quite lonely, actually, in my position. And then there's a place that's more like, the God, and whoever complains too much just gets replaced or not invited back. But who gets replaced? People get replaced, if it doesn't work.
Here it seems there's quite a balance between being very authoritarian, and, you were speaking to this earlier, saying that you want the people with you. I'm just curious, maybe it comes natural to you, the mechanism of how do you process all of the different wishes and requests and different perspectives here, and then make decisions about it.
Maybe there is a certain maturity of the project where now we've gone through enough seasons that, I don't know, for the most part, we're very aligned. We kind of know what the magic is, so we're doing everything we can to protect it. Then maybe someone gets annoyed, like, there are too many Zen days, and I'm tired of the Zen type. But you're having so much fun, and so it's fine, you know.
To be honest, maybe it's just, I'm thinking, I never fight to the end. A lot of couples are like, how does it work with your partner? I think we also match each other because everybody's quite easygoing. We want easygoing people, and the few people that are a bit conflict-oriented, we don't really keep them. But naturally, in a way, it's funny, I'm brainstorming because, I don't know. Us, refusing someone? That's really rare. If anything, some people would be like, and then they just don't really come back, because it didn't really click. But it's not been like, you are not welcome here anymore. In seven years. Maybe conflict-oriented people tend to have a lot of conflict outside, and there's no space for conflict here. Maybe there's less sex, you know. That's maybe the hospitality.
There's only joy. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe there is an awareness that I'm doing all the work to actually create a place where people have a lot of fun. So I'm getting what I want, which is gratitude for doing a lot of work. And they're having a lot of fun. So I think it works. I think people understand that I'm doing a lot, that maybe I'm making it visible. And I'm very happy to decentralise the fun stuff.
Maybe people sense that there is no need for, I'm trying to do what is useful for people to have the best experience, never it comes from wanting to have control, or I want to have some power. I think that would be completely, I would be completely blind if I said there was not a relationship to power. But for me, power is being able to, it's a bit like relationship to money, right? It's the capacity of action. I want to have the capacity to implement things. So that's the type of power I'm excited by having. But I think there are a lot of people that get that power here. If they want to do something, as long as it goes in the direction of the project.
Actually, my concerns, I'm not really groundbreaking here, I'm sorry. It's okay.
I think I have the answer, can I go on that? Because there's been friction. If it was my leadership, I would love to think that. But I really don't think it's my leadership. Maybe my leadership is not making things worse. I think there are two things that we look for, the magic. One is, well or good organisation of who does what. Like the fact that there is a separation between Fey and the infrastructure, I think that's the smart move. For instance, in the festival world, everybody was on the strategic level, or on the, you know, so then everybody starts fighting, because it's almost too many divisions, too many, too many people doing the finances and the admin. Or the stress is shared by, you know, ten, fifteen people, and it's too much. So I think it's good when you find the right organisation, then you have the right results.
Second, I think the OGs, the core team, is fundamental. The fact that, you know, Primavera and all these people, I think have trust, and people can sense our friendship. It's very fluid. It only takes a weak link, like, an intentional me and my, or me and Ed, that could actually create a lot of tension in the whole community. So healthy personal relationships actually have a huge impact on the general vibe.
Very much both. And that's something I do, I make sure that at any given point, my links are always in good places. I'm never leaving unresolved things on the side. It's almost, like, it's almost crazy in the sense that I'm better at waiting. Sometimes people need time. But I'm kind of like, I want to solve that. So I always prioritise, it's very high priority for me, solving emotional things in general. For some people, admin is going to be more, they're going to put thirty things that are more high priority. At Tesla, I can imagine Elon Musk is not going to put conflict resolution as, not unimportant, but. Here, because it's people first, you always put that at a pretty high priority.
**Sharon:** I was talking about it, about having a conflict when teachers arrive or something, and feeling pissed. And the way you showed up was like, hey, but okay, let's move on.
**Jess:** Yeah. There's confidence in that. You know, I'm 35 now, and I've lived long enough that, unless I decide to end the relationship, in general, I'm very confident in my capacity in resolving conflict. I know the tension, for instance, in the team, I hate when there is tension. It's only because I haven't dedicated time to it. The moment I'm like, okay guys, we all need to go somewhere, let's bring a coach in, and we have a conversation, and everybody expresses what they think, I'm very confident we can resolve things.
So there's a certain confidence in conflict resolution, which comes from loving people, listening to what is really important for them, trying to find compromise, and not being proud. Other stories I hear, people that are proud, I just don't get it. I don't understand people who can't say sorry, apologise. I just have zero of that in me. I think that's one of my main qualities. I have two qualities. One, I don't give up. It's silly, but I show up every day, and sometimes it's harder, it's like an athlete. And the second, I'm never proud. I even don't understand the mechanism in people. Like, you're losing so much, it's never worth it. To you want to hold a gun? Just never. Or, I'm going to teach them a lesson. It's just really hard for me. Even if I tried.
It's so funny, some people have been mad at me. My friend was like, you know, I had a pretty crazy story with my right-hand woman, and a lot of people were like, it's a betrayal, you should be mad. They were almost mad at me for being too nice. But I can get angry for a maximum of a day or two. It's hard for me to just hold. My body doesn't want to hold that emotion, so it just evacuates it.
It's bad, because sometimes I forgive too easily. It's stupid, because you kind of want to make decisions by remembering that someone is not trustworthy. But I have this true conviction, maybe, that people are always trying to do their best. If they did something, it's because, I don't know, they had to do it for their family, or they were in their world and it made sense. So it's like kind of holding different perspectives. I grew up with Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil. So I just don't believe in good and bad. I think we can all do something that for some other people will feel like evil. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? So that's very ingrained in my personal heritage, and also the philosophy of this place.
**Sharon:** That's something we share. We understood at some point that all of our belief systems could just be the stories we were told. There was someone else, we were told other stories with princesses and princes that are different, and the bad guy is a different person.
**Jess:** I mean, I know myself, in a position of power, and the responsibility involved. I see myself now. Putting this in law-like, the tension of anger I have towards, like, the guardian or others, when I was at my family heirloom, I never wanted to know, because I was the one responsible, I was the one holding power. Now I'm trying to be compassionate to myself. And then, if everyone were like, well, I want to be. I would not really, you know, the mechanism was like, well, they probably have their own reflections and stuff, and I get that. I would understand why people would have affection or dislike me because they're jealous or whatever. I wouldn't take it so hard. But if it comes from someone that's quote-unquote above me, I see all of my fighting-against-systems response come up.
It's so funny because I was wondering, I'm enjoying that. When I moved into my position, I started having a lot of compassion for my previous bosses. I was like, oh, actually, I was a bit tough on them, it's not that easy. But I wonder, if tomorrow I was to work for someone, would I be more compassionate than before, because I had been in their shoes? Or actually, because I had been there, would I be quite harsh, because I know what they should do and they're not doing it?
I think in general, anger is when there is helplessness. It's, like, you want things to change, you want things to be a certain way, but you don't have the tools or the ability to act upon things. But I think one should always find themselves in a place where they have agency. So I think my role is to make sure people have agency. Otherwise, it's, like, what would you do? Okay, how do we fix that? Always, can we put a collaborative mindset on the thing, or actually sometimes take responsibility and say, for instance, we're missing data on a few things, and that's been annoying one of the team members. I won't be like, I agree, this is super annoying, and I take full responsibility for this mess, and I'm just trying to fix it. But I need your patience. I understand you.
So the two ways are, whether people have agency to fix the thing, or you need a lot of awareness and a lot of taking responsibility for the fact that, it's just.
**Sharon:** Let's move a little bit more to the culture. What time is it? 3:44. Okay, we'll probably pause and come back.
The question is, do you have to invite people here, and curate? And how explicit?
**Jess:** It's so unintentional that I almost said, "I don't know." No, not to say it's unintentional. It hasn't been really written, or it's not process. We're not doing a good job. Shelby's running the interviews. Did we ever go through a meeting where I'm like, Shelby, when you do the interview, try to look for X, Y, Z? Never. We just have some trust that people have been here and they kind of understand the vibe. When we try to sit down and put some words on something that was kind of emergent.
If there was to be one thing, and all the rest is flows in the background, that matters, it's openness to experience. The people that show up to Feytopia have, how do you call that, huge neuroplasticity. That's the number one skill. The rest is not that important.
**Sharon:** And what have you seen that disrupts the space, versus patterns you've seen that nurture?
**Jess:** It's funny. For instance, there is a person here right now that's a bit authoritative. It's almost funny because there's only one Jess to handle it, and it almost feels like diversity of ways of operating in a community. But you can't just, you can't have too many. So there might be some funny, playful feedback, like, "great, thank you for, you know, we pin sharing this so often." There is enough trust that we can give each other feedback on behaviours that are a bit problematic. I often give feedback, I'm very direct. Sometimes I think I can do it more smoothly. Obviously, feedback, because I think they're my personal intuitions, they're not objective. I'm like, maybe if you do this like this, that would get you further.
The sentence, "the more you give, the more you get," is very true. The more you're going to propose something, the more you're going to get from the experience. Remy gave a talk, and now everybody's like, panache, it's amazing. That created an instant bond. You're sharing the pictures and your project, and therefore you're going to get a lot of people coming to you and interested in what you do. That is something I see constantly. If you've learned or you know what to give, then you get. That's the most important thing, whether you're doing dishwashing or, it's almost like a beautiful organism that you feed, and it feeds back.
Personalities that are a bit more disruptive, or people that have an extractive mentality, for instance, we had a very famous friend who came in the hope of finding a wife. It wasn't extractive, it was more like chatting to all the girls to see which one would be the right partner, and not for the space of the community. That's not a good, hopefully they don't stay.
I'm going to repeat without saying famous. We had a friend who came and wanted a girlfriend. It can feel a bit extractive. Or people, if they come to network, and they're a bit like, what can I find to feed my project, but they're not thinking what do I do in return, you feel that right away. Actually, it's almost hard not to network. Like, I just want to chill and I hear people's, oh wow, but that's not networking for me, that's collaboration. Obviously there's a lot of networking and work stuff that emerges, great collaboration, that's awesome. But it arrives because people come with their passion, and they're sharing. If you're just like, I'm trying to take the stuff and bring it home, then at some point, it might be good for the three people that get chosen, but in general the vibe doesn't really last.
But the worst is, if people are not doing dishwashing, that's when we reject them.
**Sharon:** I have quite a bit to go with, let's talk about the scale, the groups.
Okay, so you were talking about scale. And I think a way to think about scale is like, scale through ideas and inspiration, people doing similar projects. Then scale is like we build mini setups. But then, one, for me, that has always been very important is the scale of the territory, not seeing the setup as an isolated project. Why I've always been saying Burgundy is a new Berlin, kind of, also playing a little bit with that.
**Jess:** The recent years have been pretty busy, and I had a baby. So I haven't spent as much time as I used to. I used to be very, very involved locally. There was a big need at the beginning, and now there are a lot of people doing great work, like people you met here, that are also being involved at the local scale. It would be interesting to think, what if we were to make a wonderful bio-region, so within the same territory, the different community spaces, and different flavours, and maybe here, which is the international one. It's already a bit the case, locally.
**Sharon:** Do you have any big questions that keep you up at this space?
**Jess:** I think the big one is always about impact energy. What should I allocate my time to? Like the Pareto 80/20, where do I put 20% of my effort for 80% of the results, and how do I make sure I'm not putting 80% of the work for 20% of the result. These are often always the questions.
And then, there's always financial stress. The roof collapses, there are tons of risks that exist. Sometimes I'm like, what if this happens? What if this happens? What would we do? But I try not to get overwhelmed by the challenges, and be like, okay, one step at a time. This works. In this. We're doing no. Harm.
**Sharon:** Do you have any kind of practices you'd like to expand on in the next season?
**Jess:** My mind is very, I don't think clearly. What do you think the blind spots are?
**Sharon:** I think they wouldn't be called blind spots if they knew what they were. So my real blind spot, I'm not seeing them potentially. But I'm sure I have tons of blind spots. I know what my drawbacks are, but it's different from blind spots.
One section of the places I want to experiment on is the open questions, to see if there are commonalities between them, and to see if there are any good answers that people come to from their own experience. Let's say, everyone's doing this project, so going to look at your open questions. If you can think about what you want to ask, or to other communities.
**Jess:** What are the three things that are really working well for them? And what are the three things that they wish you could improve on, or where they're struggling? I think it would be nice to map that.
**Sharon:** What are the three things that we're doing well?
**Jess:** I think we're very good at the top. We're very good at optimising boring time to have maximum fun. We really do 20% of the work for 80% of the results. We could, I mean, we could be better at, how do we do marketing, how do we make the website beautiful. We're not perfectionists. But I think it's working to our advantage, because it makes us very resilient. We don't get tired of the project.
Second, I think we're good at, we have pretty disparate people, despite the fact that they're all unique, or proud of their uniqueness. Because the project started with people from different worlds, I think it remained like that. It's been quite nice. Diversity is relative, right? Some people would say everybody's from the same world here. But within that world, I know projects that are way more same type of people. So I think, there is some fun, you know, there's a well between Mathieu and Amy, I mean, they're not really the same crowd. So I think it's quite fun.
Third, I think we do a good job at being, I do think it's a beautiful place. I don't think there are many community events happening in a place of this luxury. To be honest, I would have to think. I'm just giving you an answer off the bat. I think that this part should be asked prior, so the person can really think about it. I might not pick these three things if I actually put my mind to it. This is more like updating the question.
And then three things to improve.
I wish we were even thinner, but I think we need space. There's too much density for where Parker can come in. So, I think in the winter would be nice if we had more common spaces.
Second, the big questions that other places could answer for them. But I think that's an important, the three questions, what are the three things you're good at, and three things that, I think is a very good question, actually. I would love to hear, because they might say something very different from me. And then for me that's interesting, because then I could say, oh, well, I can help them there, because that's very easy for us, and then realise they're struggling on something else. I think that would be very useful, in the ask-can-offer kind of thing.
I think the question on how do you scale is very interesting.
The third one is, what would be your worst, like, what would be the thing that you would hate people to say? Because, for me, people say we're a crypto-tech place in the chateau, I just want to throw myself out the window. It's exactly what they say. I know, but I don't care. Yeah.
People say that, and maybe it's fine, because it forces, like, the caricatures are not the people that live here. So there's always self-selection there, and there's always going to be people, you know, there is a sense that the world is divided into three categories: the sheep, I mean, the French have Tommy, Tommy, and Tom (those terms for the people who complain, and then the people who try to change things, and then those who do things differently). So I would love to have certain types of people more represented, but just not. So it's hard sometimes.
What else? I'm not on top of it. That's it.
---
*Recording ended.*
## Session 3: Fundraising and the Next Phase
---
**Sharon:** Now it's recording. Okay, Jess. So, let's see. What's up? Why do you think it's important? Why are you fundraising right now for Château de Fey?
**Jess:** He's so straightforward. That's your Middle Eastern style. Well, it's quite simple, I think. There are two forces. It's been like two years, for the past two years, I've been asking myself, you know, I can see what more I would do with more money, and at the same time, fearing having external investors that are going to put pressure on the project and what it becomes. So I think I was thinking freedom on the one hand, and on the other hand, more capacity to do, more capacity of action. And so I didn't really know where to go. And I think what I realized in the past two weeks is, I think we know who we are, and there are ways to structure the project in a way that if we were to receive money, it would not be a prison.
**Sharon:** So this place is running for almost ten years now. Yes. And you've made it this far. And this place is amazing, and everyone who visited here or spent some time here can testify for that. And where are the stressing points right now that, going to this new phase, you would need more resources to address?
**Jess:** Yeah, exactly. I only gave like, you know, one third of the previous answer. Why fundraising? So one is seeing that with money, we would do more actions. And the question is, what are these actions? I think right now we're limited when it comes to infrastructure. We don't have a yoga studio, or dojo, or whatever you want to call it, but a place for embodied practices. And I think it's missing. There's so many workshops and beautiful moments that could happen if we were to have such a space. So renovating the barn. Same with the coworking space. It's really hard to do deep work when you're at Feytopia. And I think we're losing some people that only come for a week, because they struggle to find a place where they can really go into focus mode and then reemerge five hours later. Same with the library. So right now there is a question of infrastructure. That's the infrastructure that leads to more potential.
And then there is also infrastructure in terms of risk. Fire codes. Renovating the roof. A chateau is a lot of CapEx. It's a lot of investment when it comes to the infrastructure. And without that money, it's going to be really hard to every year make enough profit to really keep the chateau at the ideal infrastructure level. So that creates risk as well.
**Sharon:** You're also telling me how hard the team works over here and how hard you work over here, and how much energy and time it takes to actually run this place. And you also want to think bigger and act bigger and compensate the team better and bring more team members over here. So I wonder, because for someone like me that comes here, this is kind of the pinnacle of this kind of work. Like, what else can you ask for? I'm interested in how a place that looks like you're running such a tight ship, but we had conversations and I know there's a lot behind the scenes. How does the current financial state affect you and the team, and what will fundraising now and bringing more actors into Feytopia change about that?
**Jess:** And that's where I think we've been smart. There is a business model to Feytopia. I know a lot of communities where it's all volunteer work, everybody is under-resourced. So that's definitely not our case. And I guess you can always maximize lifestyle. If I was to talk to people outside of France, and if I was to tell them that all the team members work thirty-five hours per week, it's a pretty good lifestyle. I think we just have French standards on the ideal work-life balance. So if I was to give an objective stock-taking, it's not too bad already. It's pretty good.
But I think it's still, you could always do better. It's a tight ship. So it's almost like we run the things, but we don't have the abundance that really allows us to go into another modality or experiment with other modalities. We're very dependent on the events. And that's good that there is that layer of sustainability, like something that is sustainable. But if you really want at some point to have the money to develop certain infrastructures or invest in a really amazing CFO that structures the things perfectly, that requires more money than we could make without losing the soul of the project. Obviously, I could increase the price of Feytopia, but that's not the point. Then a lot of people would not be able to come and it would be a different target audience. So it's always trying to find a balance of a project that is sustainable but is not in a maximization of profit mindset. And that, I think, is always the challenge of social entrepreneurship.
And I feel right now, we talk a lot about, you know, the world is so binary, right? Secular, religious, right, left. And it's a bit like for profit versus, as if everything has to be for the greater good. So you just need philanthropists, and then full business. If I talk to my brother, who is a financier, he's like, no, the point is to maximize profit. And I'm like, no, the point is for people to have a transformative moment at Fey. And in order to do that, we want something sustainable that allows for us to do more of it. For me, that's the mission. And behind that, we're trying to find the means in order for this to happen.
So where there is a dance and there is a challenge is, for the longest time, I was like, there's no way I can bring an investor and be like, I'll promise you ten percent of return on investment every year. If that's what you want, just put your money in an S&P five hundred, or, you know, Warren Buffett, put your money in stocks, because you don't do anything, and then the money comes. So you got to believe in the project and its externalities. But it's true that these kinds of hybrid forms, and obviously it's fair, we're always trying to create new forms, are still a bit rare. It's hard, at least in France, it's a bit hard to structure. So we're still thinking on what's the best way, if we were to bring some money, how it would come and land and under what form.
And also bringing more ownership. One possibility is obviously to have people that really believe in the project and become co-founders of the next ten years. But there is also potentially doing something with the community, so the community have shares of the company. And so people have incentives to have people organizing events here, and so co-growing the project. It's finding a way to decentralize a little bit on the ownership side. Whether in a horizontal way, so other people that are doing the journey with me, or through mentors, or people that are a bit older and have walked the walk, or here to support. Because it's been a bit of a, I'm super surrounded, I have a lot of friends, but when it really comes to the nitty-gritty of the work, these days I've been a bit alone.
**Sharon:** I'm interested in the tension between the challenges that you're facing right now with this project and the potential that you see here. Like, where do you see this project or this community stuck right now, stuck because of the lack of resources, the lack of team, the lack of more investors? And what is the potential that you see this project goes through, with an investment in this sort and through more partners being stakeholders here?
**Jess:** I think the project. I think it's been too long that we've been talking about, like, building a fab lab, doing the yoga studio, and not being able to find, to have enough resources, whether it's time or finances, to actually act on them. Obviously things take always more time, but right now, because I also centralize a lot of things, it's almost like I would have to hire more people like me that can actually also lead these projects. So it's complex, right? It's not only money, but with money, I could hire another Jess that can actually steer these projects, and we could also pay for the projects. So I think we're stuck when it comes to the development of infrastructure. That's one. And I think it's a big part.
I think, second, because we also want to grow together. There is that force at Feytopia where every year we want it to be a bit different, and potentially think of how we can make it better and better and better. And we've always done so. For instance, taking the time to actually work on the value proposition of Feytopia. And if really our uniqueness is the how, is really like this emphasis on bringing people into a world of community and collaboration culture, so people see that they can live differently or work differently or do partnership differently, then we need to spend time actually working on that. The book, *The Architecture of Belonging*, the blog post, maybe a podcast. That is work, and it's time. And if we really believe that there is something special here and we want to broadcast this to the world, and thank you, there are people like you that do that, but I think that's not enough. We need a Sharon year-long that actually works on this at Fey, so we do more of it. So that's another potential I see.
If I was to put it in three parts: one is infrastructure. I think the infrastructure and the space would unlock new possibilities and opportunities. Second is more self-understanding of what is it that we do and what is special, so we do more of it. And third is the broadcasting, and therefore how do we communicate this beyond the walls of Fey, so more people can do similar projects in the world.
**Sharon:** It's interesting because I think you talk a lot about the infrastructure and maybe the research part and understanding what we're doing over here. And I'm interested in the vision of when all of these things will be in place. What is your vision of what could happen here? Where can this community evolve when all of these things are in place? There's all the facilities, there's a playbook, the philosophy is clear. Then what do you see? What can possibly happen?
**Jess:** I wish it was something completely, radically different. I don't think that's it. I think we're ready, because I think all the ingredients are here, and the core is very solid. It's just more of it, right? Right now we have workshops, but the workshops don't even have a space to do the workshops. So it's like increasing the quality, increasing, it's like fine-tuning all the stuff we do, so we do it with even more purpose. Bringing really solid intellectuals that would benefit from being in a place like Feytopia that is communal and creative. But also the community benefits, that could benefit from world-class people, experts, and that interaction. And therefore it's also more collective, the possibility for more collective actions and projects in the world.
Because, if we have a fab lab, people can prototype things more, and who knows, you will have an AI person work with an eco-activist, and together they will build something on a Sunday in the fab lab, that then will be a prototype for something that is world-changing. Again, for me, it's innovation. If I knew exactly what the innovation would come out, it's not fun. If we know where we're going, we don't go there. But it's maximizing the setup for collaboration and cooperation.
And the way to do that is through the infrastructure, through people who understand the know-how. For instance, the ten principles of Burning Man were born like eighteen years after the project. I found out this yesterday. I think it's time we write our ten principles. I don't know if it's ten principles, but if we start describing a bit more what we're doing, I think we can help others, the people that are not the founders, actually crystallize and do more of that. Because right now I feel like people really understand that there is something special, but they can't name it. And therefore it's hard for them to, because they don't have the same intuition as the people that are sourced, for them to do the perfect onboarding or frame it, or even know where to go. So I think it's also time we put a bit more direction on what we're doing.
Is that clear? I feel like you're not satisfied.
**Sharon:** I mean, I think we can work on it a little bit. Also, I was especially moved to hear you and Gillian talk in the kitchen the other day about what it means as a woman to ask for money. If you can say something about this.
**Jess:** Yeah. I think also I personally, recently, there is a paradigm shift. I've gone through so much and so many challenges and I feel very strong. I also birthed a human being, so I think that helps in terms of feeling one's own strength.
Maybe the difference is that I don't feel, I've never felt like asking for money unless I knew I would make good use of it, or I would really take it with sacredness. Which according to Gillian, is a very female thing. A lot of people ask for money all the time and they don't really care. So maybe I wanted to feel that the project was worth of money, that we would know what to do with it, that it would be put to good use. And I almost would like one part of the money to be used to that, actually. If I tomorrow get five million, I think at least a hundred K should go in making sure we're doing the best use of that money. And obviously, I'm already working on it right now without the money. But I think the most important investment is to make sure that you're, and that's why Fey's a tight ship, is every decision, we're trying to be reasonable and pragmatic each time.
I'm a bit frivolous. I like to buy, sometimes I see a nice design chair and I buy it. Not all of my spendings are perfect. I'm not a, you know, Protestant maximizer. But I think for the most part, we've been running things with, like a good mother of a household.
**Sharon:** I think maybe our biggest challenge creating a good fundraising video right now will be probably understanding how to frame this place. I definitely see this place as an institute, or how you call it, as an institute. And I think this is quite an interesting framing moving forward. The Fey Institute, or the Fey Commons, or Fey Institute, the Fey X. With this framing, it gives a lot of space for the next level of incubating of things, the next level of workshop.
**Jess:** That really gives, how I see it at least, the institution. I think Feytopia will remain as the community project, that is a bit like the sandbox. We can be a bit wild and put wigs and party, and I think we want to keep some of that vibe at the Institute. But the Institute would be the more institutional arm. The one that has a bit more structured output and a bit more structured workshops, without becoming too boring and boxy. I think we want that flame. But I think it's interesting, we start, just a bit more rigor. It's a bit like at the beginning, you just play, and at some point you're like, oh, I'm onto something. Okay, now we can spend a bit more time institutionalizing and making it a bit more rigorous, crafted, easy to communicate on.
For the fundraising video, at the end of the day, if Feytopia is ultimately something also very emotional, I think I'm also curious to see how it has changed really people's life. So we understand, at least for ourselves, and maybe that's not for the fundraising, that's more for the ten years of Fey, I don't know, but I would be curious to see, and to document, in which ways Fey has been life-changing for people. Because the fundraising is one thing, but the most important part is that we do more of that. And if actually at some point we realize that getting money will be, I don't know, that we do less of that, it's not good, right? So the most important part is already to be able to articulate what has been so meaningful here.
**Sharon:** Cool. Thank you. If anything, we harvested the sounds. Now we can use AI to make any video we want.
---
## Field notes for future use
**Central frame.** "Two forces." Freedom versus capacity of action. The two-year standoff Jess has been sitting with, now unlocked because she believes the project knows itself well enough to structure around the fear.
**Three-part asks menu, in her own words:**
1. *Infrastructure.* Yoga studio or dojo in the barn. Coworking that supports deep focus (she says Feytopia loses week-long guests because they can't find focus mode). Library. Fab lab. Plus infrastructure-as-risk: fire code, roof CapEx.
2. *Self-understanding.* The book (*The Architecture of Belonging*), blog posts, potentially a podcast, a "Sharon year-long" residency that works full-time on articulating what Feytopia is.
3. *Broadcasting.* Communicating the model beyond the walls of Fey so others can replicate.
**The binary she refuses.** For-profit versus philanthropy, with nothing legally clean between them in France. She will not pitch "ten percent return per year" to an investor. She names the S&P five hundred and Warren Buffett as what that investor should do instead if they want that.
**Ownership structure fork.** Small number of aligned co-founders for the next ten years, versus community-as-shareholders model where event organizers have stake. She wants decentralization somewhere on the ownership axis. She says these days she's been "a bit alone" in the nitty-gritty of the work despite being well surrounded socially.
**Fey Institute vs. Feytopia.** Two-tier structure surfaces as they talk. The Institute is the structured arm with crafted outputs and rigorous workshops. Feytopia stays the sandbox where people put on wigs and party. Candidate names: Fey Institute, Fey Commons, Fey X. Both keep the flame.
**Gendered-asking note (picks up kitchen conversation with Gillian).** Sacredness around money. Reluctance to ask until worthy. Careful spending ("good mother of a household"). Gillian's observation that this is female-coded. First spend from hypothetical five-million raise: one hundred thousand dollars on meta-work to ensure the rest is spent well.
**Burning Man precedent.** Ten principles were written eighteen years into Burning Man. Jess learned this the day before. Feytopia at year ten is ready to start articulating its own.
**The brief for the fundraising video (Jess's own closing note).** The video should not be about money. It should document how Feytopia has changed people's lives. Because if taking money ends up reducing that, the money wasn't worth taking.
**Quote cluster for use:**
- *On the fork:* "There are two forces. I can see what more I would do with more money, and at the same time, fearing having external investors that are going to put pressure on the project and what it becomes."
- *On mission vs. return:* "The point is for people to have a transformative moment at Fey. And in order to do that, we want something sustainable that allows for us to do more of it."
- *On investors:* "If that's what you want, just put your money in an S&P five hundred. You don't do anything, and then the money comes."
- *On innovation:* "If I knew exactly what the innovation would come out, it's not fun. If we know where we're going, we don't go there."
- *On the ten principles:* "The ten principles of Burning Man were born like eighteen years after the project. I think it's time we write our ten principles."
- *On the articulation gap:* "People really understand that there is something special, but they can't name it."
- *On the ask:* "I've never felt like asking for money unless I knew I would make good use of it, or I would really take it with sacredness. Which according to Gillian, is a very female thing."
- *On stewardship:* "We've been running things with, like a good mother of a household."
- *On the Institute:* "Feytopia will remain as the community project, a bit like the sandbox. We can be a bit wild and put wigs and party. The Institute would be the more institutional arm."
**Cross-references:**
- The kitchen conversation with Gillian, referenced here, is captured in `conversation_jessica_gillian_breakfast_feytopia.md` (once processed).
- The infrastructure list and tight-ship framing overlap with `interview_jessica_feytopia_part2.md`, where Jess talks about the "thousands of compromises" methodology and the refusal to compromise on fun.
- Jess's articulation of "doing less boring time for max fun" in part 2 is the behavioral flip side of the fundraising case she builds here.
## ASR error note
Automatic transcription rendered "Château de Fey" as "Chateau du film" and rendered "Feytopia" variously as "utopia," "Whitopia," "Photopia," "Ethiopia," and "Fe." Gillian was rendered as "Jillian" and "Julian." "Fey" was rendered as "Fay," "Fe," and "fe." All corrected per the Feytopia ASR glossary established in the rest of this folder. Single-block transcript with no speaker labels; turns reconstructed from content (Jess owns the chateau; Sharon asks the interview-style questions; Jess references her own brother the financier, her birth of a child, and her kitchen conversation with Gillian).