Sweet…!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahoooooo! Yaaayyyyyy! Good times never felt this good! Yippeeeee! Didn’t I say, get the ball to Kelly! We did it amaazzzzinnnggggg! Never in doubt! Saaaaaaaaaveee! Come out from behind the sofa – it wouldn’t be the same without extra time – so pleased! What a relief…GGOOOOOOOOAAALLLL!.. Beth Mead’s on fire, England can testify, Beth Mead’s on fire! Dancing galore. Nailed it! We are on top of the wooooorrrrrldddddddddddddddd!!
Oh yeah, and we might have just nailed another ACE grant – repeat above!!!
What a journey winning the Euro’s is, for this resilient, high skilled, professional and loveable group of players and coaches! Being defending champions makes a hard challenge even steeper to climb. They had to find something extra, whilst sticking to what they know works. Some arm chair managers (embarrassingly, I was one of them – I’m half thinking I need to repent by getting a tattoo saying ‘In Wiegman we trust’) screamed at the T.V that the team needed to be bolder, refresh the starting 11, stop relying on one key player so much… others even went as far to say the team were lacklustre/been done before and will fall short now. And there were still voices warning that they needed to be more solid, defensive minded, were too ambitious and needed to stick to stability and a clear path where everyone knew their roles – and including a 19 year old in the squad, given the lack of football she has had, let alone giving her vital minutes on the pitch was beyond stupid.
I think there are parallels to our ACE journey (as we know now) to success with our legendary team. During applying, there were similar questions and critiques (although many of those voices were in my head) of keeping hold of the essence of Squeeze Box whilst expanding our attacking play/demonstrating to ACE of new direction and ambition for the work. The playing team Bibi, Jen and the magician in the middle of the park (and in the middle of most things culturally successful in Torbay) Nat, was the same starting line-up – with me at left back…in the changing rooms (sorry had to be done). We were terrific on how we played with words, tackled ambition with stability, painted patterns of engagement and took many penalties – oh no that last one was the Lionesses!
So here we are, two incredible achievements to celebrate!
To help me peel off the ceiling, but keep the excitement bubbling away, I got my head down into planning documents. There was so much learning from Squeeze Box 24, both creatively but also logistically – how to hold a multi-dimensional, bursting at the seams project – how to co-produce with care and intent. In amateur endurance cycling, there’s a phrase ‘old person legs’: sort of meaning, when you built up experience and the right kind of muscles, memory and all-round skill, it’s there for life. You definitely need to go on one or two cycles to find it all again, but the body doesn’t start all over again, the experience is there. Kind of like being a goal down in the dying minutes of knockout in an international football tournament, you find a way….right?
Anyway, the knowledge and confidence to know that Jen and gang have my back is my resilience. I’m really looking forward to sitting down with our new producer, Sophia Knox-Miller, who has worked with the world-renowned Extraordinary Bodies and is dynamic with access informed process. With all this, and in the real spirit of openness with public funded projects, I thought I would share with you some of the things we are doing in the background to prepare for this epic project! Also allowing anyone reading this to bring us to account…
First of all, we with so much joy, messaged the genius and gentle giant Tim, amazing Emma, FarFlung’s Jade and Clair, Nat and Bibi of course, and our partners of the funding coming through. And then told everyone and anyone
Next, we celebrated/had an early night with grins on our faces
What I’m supposed to say here is we took a couple days to rest and gather our energy, but what I actually did was plough into the ACE grant (now successful, can you believe it, I still can’t). We pulled out all the activities/things we would say we would do to Ace, but maybe more meaningful, all the creativity and engagement we want to do. As learnt over a few applications now, an ACE grant isn’t about ticking the right boxes or trying to say the right words – and on the flip side, it mustn’t be about trying to stick rigidly to every detail of your grant – ACE is flexible, understanding and approachable. They are of course tie downs of targets and responsibility of the public purse, which is very restrictive hoop jumping, but creativity is the art of finding work around and the spark which puts people at the heart of their own story. That being said, these are the aims we are striving towards:
A new, fully realised immersive installation about the disabled experience and oppressive assessment processes versus empathy and humanity. This is the heartbeat of the project and will be open to the public in January 2025! We therefore created a dedicated set of aims for this beast of an ambition – making sure we have foundations to be ready for our Barnfield takeover. This is also learning from previous projects and will allow us to make sure all the other wrap around activities feed into this main narrative. When we nail this, lots of things will fall into place
Disabled artists call-out – building on the success and magic of having creatives share our space with their own work, which both compliments and creatively challenges Squeeze Box’s process and platforming. This time, we have chosen to support one maker, allowing us to dedicate more time and energy to nurture their vision. Sustained support and mentorship is what a lot of us artists call out for, and with The Northcott partnership, hopefully we can play our part in this. The Northcott are key partners throughout this project and are so supportive, ambitious and just lovely, as well as being world class at what they do.
Talking about being supportive, ambitious, lovely and world class, this next aim is about embedding the Pelican project voice in realising the installation. A group of learning-disabled artists, the Pelicans create in such an inspiring and collective way, that we can’t wait for Squeeze Box to be yet another platform for their voices to break through. On top of three workshops with the Pelicans, we aim to support one-to-three participants to be present throughout the creative process and to feed into the language of Squeeze Box in a deeper and more rich way.
Partnering up with Exeter Uni Applied Drama and South Devon College’s Contemporary Art students will be realised with workshops and opportunities to test out their research and practise with us
Deepening conversation with Dr. Ellen Richardson and Dr. Michael J. Flexer, our external evaluators, will produce a critical and meaningful evaluation document. This will hopefully not only reflect on the project but also create a resource that would be housed in the vital Live Arts Development Agency’s library. Moreover this research will consider how to gain feedback in a variety of accessible ways. A form for thoughts can really only get feedback from a small percentage of those we reach and this vital partnership will enable a fuller response from all.
If you are reading this, we are well on the way to reaching this aim: four creative reflective blogs on the hughmalyon.live website
And lastly… to create an interactive, ambitious digital archive, showcasing 4-yrs development, engagement & refinement; championed by sustained ACE funding & partner support
On top of the Aims Document, we have created a spreadsheet which tracks all the collaborators and how much time we have budgeted for. From that we can begin to look at the calendar and plot sessions, devising play and refining time. It still feels a little way off from making, but having these support structures in place early will take the pressure off later on; a really good lead in where each knows when, where & why – so when we are together, we can get stuck in
Wow! I guess that is it – the whole project – but obviously not the whole project. The juicy, playful, sometimes risky, a lot of the time magical, tangible essence of what it means to be in a creative space with likeminded people - Squeeze Box and the creative journey. It is basically the thing! Difficult to describe or prove or to put your finger on it. It isn’t the shiny output of a performance or artwork or roundtable discussions (or the intriguing hinterland between, which Squeeze Box has sat in). It isn’t the reflection sessions post rehearsal or the planning phase pre. These are all vital elements for process, yet still not quite the soul of the thing I’m trying to get to here. It isn’t even the moment in devising that you remember which led to something genius or when the risk doesn’t quite pay off. The project, for me are those moments that you can’t quite remember, when time didn’t exist because all was so invested and lost in the moment. Not the highlights, or difficult moments, but simply being together – the thing is, being human, in the moment and together… this is everything…
After all that information and reflection, can I leave you with this tale of happy tears. I just won 4 games on the bounce on chess.com (don’t worry, recently status quo has been restored, I only have won once out of the last 6). An email popped up from Ace, stating that the Squeeze Box 2025/26 decision letter was ready on the ACE portal. A feeling of absolute dread came over me. Oh no – it’s 2 weeks early and it must mean…There would be so many people to apologise to, I let so many people down! ‘Jen, are you free?’ I sent on messenger…and then the 3 letters ‘Ace’. It’s bad luck to open it without a fellow collaborator, apparently! Jen rang almost instantly and I forfeited the chess game – a heroic gesture of my king falling on his sword in repents…on the phone I was muttering, apologising and cursing. Jen later said she couldn’t understand a word! “It is to early…6 weeks…must be a no…oh well…8 weeks…I knew I should have…” – or something like that. In my head, if you receive the decision letter that early, it is normally a ‘thanks for applying but unfortunately, it’s a no this time’. Turns out that is absolute bollocks and in the infinite wisdom (sometimes infinite wisdom can be a positive thing) I read the word congratulations and broke down in tears, shaking and then laughing (and Jen tells me screaming with an intelligible ramble of words).
To echo the opening paragraph – “So good, so good, so good!”
Bibliography
Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline (1960 odd) unofficial Lioness anthem
BBC/ITV terrestrial TV (2022 and 2025) incredible coverage of the women’s Euros
Art Council England Project Grants (2021, 2023, 2024 and now brilliantly 2025) could not be prouder and even though there ongoing barriers and things to work on, I am proud that there is state funded arts and culture in the UK
Amazing and supportive project partners (2025/26, some have been with us on this extraordinary process from the start, and even before that in terms of nurturing and empowering my creative voice) Positive Lights, Exeter (aka the pelican); FarFlung (FF); CEDA, MakeTank, Diverse City, CRIPtic Arts (audience development/allowing Squeeze Box to reach as many as possible); Doorstep Arts (funding support and around human connection for us artists and audience); Quarantine (creative mentorship); Live Arts Development Agency/LADA, University Centre South Devon (as mentioned above); The Media Workshop and QED (supplying the mighty projection equipment)… the biggest thank you to all them