Scouting for Stares

Any comments on why this title is not appropriate are truly welcome! – I couldn’t escape from the alliteration. Anyway, moving swiftly on Squeeze Box process has begun brilliantly. Naturally it would with the all star cast of local creatives but confirming it feels good. We have been ‘confined’ to Zoom, our offices, backrooms and bedrooms yet the energy and creativity has flowed!

As expected from the last blog, this process has discarded any slowing down anchor of imagination. We are still at a very healthy stage of dreaming and that is really cool to be part of. We all bring uniqueness to the sessions with our expertise, skills and experience and minds but also a commonality to use applied practice to challenge societal thinking.

Some of the all-inspiring ideas that have come out already:

·        Drowning in bureaucracy – how do we use imagery to demonstrate just how much paperwork disabled families have to go through every day. Form filling and endless assessments sees us imagine giants questionnaires and sounds of shredders

·        Boobie-trapped wheelchairs that block people view and alarm when touched

·        Return of the anti-rhythm from Still Suspended

·        A fascination with stairs – what narrative do they tell about accessibility and denying and how can we use projection techniques to overcome these barriers

·        Fascinating ways of brining the virtual world into the municipal sphere

·        ‘Russian Doll’ effect on witnessing what has already been witnessed and participating in the participated

·        Literal imagery of words being fed into the disabled body’s mouth

·        A conversation between shredders

·        Lungs, breath and breathing – especially in time when we are all restricted

Now we are at a crossroads – well we are at many actually, but this particular crossroads is interesting. It is also one we need to travel down both paths and find where they intersect. One such direction is continuing to devise. Squeeze Box, supported by ACE, is about playing and experimenting, but that play still needs to find focus. Choosing the other alleyway has us zoom right into what the R&D wants to achieve and furthermore what we want the creative content to achieve. How we make this happen for a future project and propping that up with funding is also found down this way. However, it is important not to zoom too far and constrict ourselves. Do you see? We need not to lose the element of play and not play too far and lose the element of focus.  

Therefore, maybe it is more like a roundabout of multiple dimensions and possibilities – a room with mirrors and doorways at the same time which is actually an idea that should be within the bullet points!

Adding another space terminal to this junction of creativity is CEDA and at last live theatre workshops… well, live sort of! Basically, they were all in room together which was amazing and a real privilege to experience. CEDA, an organisation established to support independence, diversity and individuality amongst a community which has been totally overlooked and underappreciated during this pandemic and beyond, support learning disabled individuals to just be. Within their offer, CEDA has partnered with Exeter Northcott to create a creative space for this community to make, create and discover platforms to challenge ableism. All values and aims which Squeeze Box share so it was very much a vital element to the R&D process; to facilitate workshops to have a variety of diverse voices within the content creation phases.

We ran our workshops during the same time CEDA was opening their doors to live group sessions. As welcome guests, Jen and I were termed ‘big brother’, running our activities from the comfort of my office. We thankfully had the technology and even though we weren’t sharing their space, we could still feel the energy, connection and creativity.  Within vital playtime and a lot of fantastic dance moves, the CEDA participants didn’t hold back on what they thought worked and what they know doesn’t work.

Loads of ideas and connections sparked from this workshop with CEDA and I hope we can continue to collaborate as Squeeze Box develops

I could not have foreseen how a true R&D like Squeeze Box would have evolved and my need for strict scheduling and endless plans are waning. Going with the flow is definitely a helpful moto – and this one is shaping up to be explosive!