Friends of AUBIN

Ollie Feather & OctAVIA CALTHORPE

Octavia has been a breath-work therapist for the last 5 years, using the breath to explore supressed trauma and anxiety in the body. She found her way into it through her friends, Nova Ayrton Wright and Stuart Sandeman. Nova and Stuart both run Breathpod. After having a session with Stuart, the positive effect it had upon her own mental health was life changing. She wanted to show others how powerful this simple, intuitive therapy could be, how to "reconnect to the power of their breath, to help relieve emotional issues, improve physical health and connect more deeply to their inner wisdom". Living in New York at the time, she began her training there.

"What I experienced about myself in one week of breathwork training was more than I'd felt for a whole year, it was really intense and really transformative"

As well as her regular open breathwork classes and workshops which she teaches both virtually and at studios around London and the surrounding area, she also provides some very important group therapy sessions at Mind in Bexley. A branch of the national mental health charity, Mind in Bexley is a non-profit organisation who help people within the local area. For the last two years octavia has been running weekly 30-minute online sessions specifically for unpaid carers. As caregivers she has found that they often get forgotten about and suffer from mental health issues as a result, octavia finds these sessions particularly rewarding and important.

"That kind of work I find the most fulfilling, connecting with people and connecting them to each other. Too often I find these wonderful people are lonely, so I really love getting them together".

"More recently I'm less interested in performing and more interested in the written word. You get more time to sit with it. I think i'm getting old".

Recently Ollie's main focus has been on his music consultancy and events agency, Future Sound which he founded with his friend Zak Day in 2019. Last year they were joined by another friend, Pablo Wansbrough, who left top events agency Marble LDN as Head of Music to consolidate the partnership. Future Sound work with brands and businesses to curate musical experiences and event strategies.They are London based but as Zak grew up in Ibiza and Pablo in Madrid there's lots of connections around the world. There are two arms to the business, the sports and entertainment side, where they work with global sporting events and tournaments. These are businesses looking to use music and entertainment to engage new audiences and specifically the younger generation, such as the Dubai Rugby 7's. They conceptualise engaging 360 music, entertainment and marketing strategies creating a festival-like atmosphere, bringing sporting events to life. This is really where they specialise. Then there's their domestic arm, which is more centred around corporate clients and private events in the U.K. They work with private members club group, Pavillion, for example designing all of their music and events programming and strategy across the board.

Poetry will always be a big part of Ollie's life, it's a cathartic release providing a much-needed outlet from the stresses of travel, structures and settings of his work with Future Sound. He performed one of his poems for Aubin called Milton Grove, inspired by a much loved area in London where he lived with Octavia and artist Kesewa Aboah and the relationships between people and the interwoven cultures he has experienced in the city. To have found these guys and to collaborate with them has been inspiring. Like the interlinking of human experiences Ollie explores in his poems and Octavia through her therapy, working with our friends and finding that shared passion for simply doing things really well brings renewed purpose to Aubin as a brand, and a lifestyle.

If you would like to learn more or access one of Octavia's classes, you can find all the information you need on her instagram page- @octaviacalthorpe or her website www.octaviacalthorpe.com

To find out more about Ollie's poetry go to his website- www.olliefeather.com and for Future Sound it's www.future-sound.co.uk