A Thank-you Letter/A Love Letter – Addressed to Many
Dear Squeezy Team (for that is what we are called now courtesy of Care Centred brilliant Shelley – the work producer)The most amazing week has flown by, in fact, the most joyful and perfect project has zoomed past…. From the excitement we all shared through the build-up, to the magical making process and each emotional performance. Coming together the care we have for each other allowed our creativity to flow so beautifully. Over many reflection sessions, I question how we can figure out just how the Squeeze Box journey has been so joyful, full of laughter and happiness, and yet super productive – the epitome of process! One of many fond memories I have is walking into MakeTank on performance day and being astounded as to how this team has transformed an empty space into colour, depth, engagement, excitement, quality and so much more, in just a couple of days… then thanking my lucky stars I have another whole day in the company of you all.
Another Plug from Me
I suppose if this is the least enjoyable element of the Squeeze Box creative process, then I am very very lucky to be part of this bold, colourful, caring collaborative project! The awkwardness of sending people what is essentially an advert, the stressfulness of making sure I’m sending all the comms to the right people, anxious waiting for a response, to joyful moments of hearing from people I haven’t heard from in ages… Well, in that case, I think this element of platforming speaks to Squeeze Box in multiple ways. And that’s the thing about making work about the disabled experience – the understanding of this identity is a mirror and a lens into wider society, performance in the everyday and cultural embodiment.
We Workshopped
As part of the epic adventure which is Squeeze Box 23, I have been so fortunate to work with an amazing applied creative team to deliver conversation-based workshops in Manchester. After seeing on social media that Dr Tony Gee's (with co-author Warren Linds) Workshop: The Art of Creative Inquiry has been released, their book on the magic of workshops, it feels apt to share with you my reflections and learning from time spent in an extraordinary creative space with brilliant creators. These workshops were designed to be a devising/research mechanism to share practise and to learn from the disabled community – to add weight to the voice amplification in Squeeze Box and to learn from the lived experience of disabled people living in a city, feeding their experiences back to the wider communication. The weekend however totally transcended this; a reminding (if one ever needed to be reminded) that the art of workshop is a unique and powerful process in itself, not an add-on, nor a parallel process. It is rather a performance/journey/creative expression that probably can’t be matched by any individual artform or platform. Thank you so much to Longsight art space, Chi and Chris, the artistic team, and of course the participants.
In My Opinion, They Are Lying to Us
This is a reflection on performance/process and practise blog. I hope the posts are useful for fellow artists to rethink and discover, and to demystify what artist like me do, to wider readers. Or for former teachers to tut at my bad grammar and even worser jokes! It also helps me to reflect, spend time celebrating joyful members and the people along the way. To help me contextualise what I do I dip into the theory of performance and disabled politics. That in turn allows me to slip in the occasional political view, opinion and political commentary. I think I hide it well, I haven’t had any backlash yet … not that I can boast a readership that would encourage such scrutiny … however, after watching an interview by Politics Joe with Carol Vorderman (yep, spun me out a bit too, this quite random allyship), saying how the blatant corruption that is happening throughout our society is so rife, it kind of feels impossible just to stick to your area of expertise or the thing you are most passionate about. There needs to be more voices added, and reflecting on my train journey to and from Manchester, I just felt impelled to say something … however, do please feel free to skip to the sub-title below, Can We Talk About Practise now, to not give my ranty side more airtime than it deserves.
There is a Distinct Possibility that We Were not All Going to Come Back – Lab 3, Belgium Bound Part 1: Ghent
Déjà vu – that is not quite the phrase I need but all through lab 3, I had the same kind of feeling. Maybe more like stepping into a mirror and looking back, or a shiver I couldn’t shake. Like the society you left behind (in this case, for 4 days) seemed to have everything backwards or upside down – we spend so much time working out which way is up, everything seems to continue to look down, (or more importantly) there is so little left to support the community who need it the most. ‘The grass is always greener’ effect was strong and I am totally aware of it, Belgium has significant social and political turmoil, but culture and community is robust and well invested in, the discord seems to bring individuals and community with it…
And Just Like That, We are Back
That was so joyful! We zoomed together, marking the first creative activity of Squeeze Box 23 and it was worth everything. The agonising character cutting, the squeezing Squeeze Box into ACE guidelines and sometime frustrating questions, the ‘thanks for a strong application but we are not able to fund your project at this time’ from Jerwood, the to-ing and fro-ing from partners and the general head scratching over budgets. Not like some of that wasn’t exciting, meaningful and engaging (and the process and feed-back from Jerwood was immensely useful from an eventual ACE yes!), it is just difficult to compare the application process with the nourishing and energy-boost of that one Zoom!
Nourishment for The Mind – Destination Cairo
If Lab 1 at Hawkwood was soul filling, this experience was more about fuelling energy for critical thinking and reflection! Very much a roller-coaster of emotion, but held and happy, sometimes feeling excited and energised and sometimes like a 10-year-old being presented with Disney Land tickets. There were some significant bumps and interesting moments along the way to do with accessibility and tiredness, but I did have the most epic time and massive thanks to my creative enabler team Jen and Dilys. Shout out needed to Dan and Nene for being the amazing organisers, the wider supporting network and my fellow fellowshipers.