#summerinspiration #mop15 @sawriterscentre

Starting my 2015 by participating in SA Writer’s Centre ‘Summer Inspiration’ Program and Month of Poetry. Because I can. Because I promised myself more fun and more ‘me’ time this year.

 

Image Credit and source unknown. Found saved in an old folder on my computer…

 

This particular piece is tackling both Summer Inspiration and #mop15 at once – a poem inspired by the first Summer Inspiration prompt:

 

Remember the last time you refused to do something that somebody suggested. Imagine you didn’t refuse. Write the outcome.

 

Untitled

 

I say no a lot.

It’s true.

It angries it’s way out of me

On sharp teeth and tongues

And inside, outside dreams.

 

We load that great hulking beast

Together. With fucks that burst from my fingerprints

Staining our day

Training you not to suggest things anymore

Training me not to trust you. To give in. To bend.

 

We arrive and I bounce. From foot to foot. Tense. Ready. Fight or flight. Such a ridiculous response for returning a broken item. There is no shame in asking to get what you paid for. This is why I wait at the door when you do things I’m not ready for. This is why I like to learn things and ask questions privately, one on one. So it doesn’t catch me in its claws. With its shiny metal teeth.

 

Embarrassment. Hot. Itchy. Temperamental.

I told you so.

 

*

Get a REAL job #artslife

 

This life. These creative pursuits.

They are not my hobbies.

They are not something I enjoy doing and so choose to ‘find’ time for in my life.

 

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This is my life.

My career.

My journey.

Sometimes, my obsession.

And absolutely my ‘real’ job.

 

And it’s evolving all the time.

 

I’ve spent a lot of time this year trying to articulate what and why I do. Trying to pin the words to paper. Trying to find words that make sense and ring true. For me and for everyone else.

 

The other YSPers and I have given time at every residency trying to articulate our missions over the last 12months. The ‘why’ driving what we each do. We’ve brainstormed together and solo. We’ve written and spoken draft after draft after draft. And I’ve struggled. Really struggled to pin to paper what it is I do and why.

 

For anyone who lives a creative life or a life that’s ‘offbeat’ in any other way, you know why you do it and what it is. And you know how hard it is to explain to everyone else what it is and why you do it. It’s something that has no words because it needs no words for you. It just makes sense (you think). It’s what you do and who you are. So when someone asks you to put it into words, it’s pretty darn difficult.

 

This year I’ve played with and explored various mission and vision statement iterations, including:

 

• I want to be the kind of person that offers something meaningful to the world. The kind of person who experiences life as frightening, confusing and painful but as deeply, deeply precious and worth my effort.

 

• Our mission is to create systematic change in how people think about failure. For us that means making quiet trouble with everyone we meet by interrogating and responding to rage inducing situations through an artistic lens.

 

• My personal mission is to continue striving for opportunities for myself and others to claim our sorrows as a journey to joy and to create space in our lives to sing our heartsongs with passion, hope and courage.

 

• We empower and enable regional communities to reshape and claim personal and civic narratives using an artistic lens.

 

• We challenge communities and individuals to reclaim failure as a crucial ingredient in resilience and joy.

 

• Our mission is to challenge and inspire young people in regional communities to use to arts as a mechanism for social change and empowerment. As part of this mission we also support regional communities to support and foster the skills and aspirations of their young people.

 

• My mission is to use the arts to be an agent of change – to inspire, support and provoke individuals and communities to actively shape the world around them for the better.

 

• I bring together professional artists, doers, thinkers and change makers to work with young people as mentors and provocateurs on community arts projects to unlock their possibility.

 

All of these things are partly or wholly true, but still none of them quite sit right. They feel too full of jargon or they rest on old ideas about myself (and how I work) so don’t capture the space I’m really in RIGHT NOW.

 

At ATF last year OK Radio asked why Theatre?

“Theatre people are all very nice people […] And I wonder if that is our problem,” asked Liska. “We choose an art form where we can sit next to each other and touch each other and we’re very good people.”

“Revolutions are not often caused by polite people, or good people,” said Cooper. “Sometimes we wonder if we have to stop making art to get something done. I really like art but I have a lot of questions about what it’s good for and if it’s needed.”

–        Kelly Cooper and Pavol Liska (OK Radio, Nature Theater of Oklahoma)

 

Last month during Future Present, surrounded by a bunch of socially aware artists, again this idea. Why art? Is that the best use of your time, does it actually achieve your mission? Or would you be better off using your time as an activist, a social worker, a teacher, a farmer?

 

And going deeper throughout YSP, talking about ‘impact’ – how do you measure it? What impact does your work actually have (and is it the impact you want to have)? How can you have the greatest impact with the limited hours in your life?

 

I care about many things. I believe in changing the world. As more than just rhetoric. I believe I have a responsibility to leave the world better than I found it. To use whatever small skills and talents I have to help. I love teaching and advocating and activating and making and creating. I am driven to do many things. I am also a parent, a lover, a daughter, a sister, a friend. My time is limited and precious.

 

And so, I toss these questions around. Over and over. In my head. In my mouth. On paper. I spin myself around in circles. The questioning is hard, partly because there is no one answer. And there is no clear answer. And mostly because no one can answer for me, what it means for ME, only I can discover that.

 

Last night I stumbled across a free ebook titled “Making Your Life As An Artist” and though I didn’t relate to every single word, the book as a whole REALLY resonated with me.

 

There were moments when I read a paragraph and realised I was holding my breath, caught in these words someone else had pinned to paper and how they so neatly echo words I’ve circled around and around and come back to in my own heart.

 

“Just like scientists, we begin with a question, something we don’t know.

We go into our studio and research that question.

(…)

Just as in science, a negative result is as important as a positive result.

Finding that a certain drug does not cure cancer is a crucial discovery. And an artistic experiment that fails produces important information.

When you are working beyond what is known, when you are questioning assumptions that haven’t been questioned, you generate a lot of useful failure.

Failure in science and art is a sign that the process is working.

(….)

…diverse ecosystems
 are more resilient, more able to respond to disturbance. The same is true of culture. Diversity of thought and imagination makes us more culturally resilient, more able to thrive in times of great change.

– Andrew Simonet (Making Life As an Artist, ebook)

 

Many things that had me nodding along. Catching my breath. Gripping the edge of the computer. But perhaps most of all this:

 

Artists have a lot of effects on the world: our work impacts education, citizenship, multiculturalism, urban renewal. But those are effects of our role; they are not the role.

Our role is to ask rigorous and reckless cultural questions, do our research, and share the results. When we do our role well, all kinds of other things happen.

– Andrew Simonet (Making Life As an Artist, ebook)

 

And so last night I sat and I wrote exactly in the moment who I am and what I’m doing (or trying to do). The last seven or so years of thinking, dreaming and doing coalescing and coming together to pin some words to paper.

 

It’s not finished, because it’ll never be finished. I’m evolving and growing all the time. And that’s okay. It’s G.E. for right now.

 

Transparency and sharing the journey publicly (to be of benefit to others) is important to me. So, you can read the words I finally pinned to paper last night where they’ve become my new ‘about’ section here.

 

I’m feeling good. It’s nice.

 

Moving #writeme30

This week’s #writeme30 photo has been supplied by the beautiful and super talented Lynden Nicholls. Lynden was our movement teacher every Wednesday during 1^st year Acting at the Ballarat Academy of Performing Arts back in 2006.

I loved movement class – I’d easily say it was my favourite class that year – and Lynden was a fabulous teacher who really suited my learning style. And I love that through the power of facebook we’ve stayed connected and I get to see little updates from Lynden popping up in my newsfeed every now and again.

I have really bittersweet feelings about my year at BAPA,

I loved it.

I loved the classes, the community and the learnings I was having but I was also personally (and with family) going through a really difficult time, which led to me leaving at the end of first year. I continue to feel that my performance studies are an unfinished business – and yet leaving led me to some amazing opportunities and experiences in the Riverland (not to mention meeting the beautiful man who is now my husband) so I certainly don’t regret leaving, but it was difficult and I do feel like I lost a fantastic learning opportunity and community by not completing my studies.

*bittersweet *still trying to articulate what it means to me *sigh

With all of those connections and memories these are the words that spring to mind when looking at the photo Lynden sent me for this week’s post:

• Ripples
• Movement
• Life
• Moving on
• Transparent
• Vulnerable
• Skin
• Flowing
• Earth
• Connection
• River
• Home
• Hope
• Promise

The Photo:

                              Photo supplied by Lynden Nicholls

The Response – Moving:

These ripples behind eyes,

the sting.

The shift.

Into,

weighted skin,

waiting dreams,

The hall is too large for the small group that waits there fidgeting. Some familiar. Some new. The walls catch our words and bounce them into smallness as we greet the familiar. The new shift self-consciously on the edges of our smaller group within a group. Jessica, our facilitator arrives in a wave of sound and energy, pulling us into the comfort of a workshop circle. We play a name game. We laugh at ourselves. We twist our bodies into shapes. And then.

A new exercise. A movement moment. Find a space by yourself. Feel the music. Respond. Don’t censor. If you find yourself in close proximity to another person, allow yourself to be changed by them. Move with your whole self.

Jessica dims the lights.

Fingers, dig in. Deep into this skin I wait in. My head bowed. Breaths shallow, but ready. Ready. I’ve always been ready. The sound opens beneath my feet. Welcomes my limbs to unfold. My feet to spring into empty space. Tied to a beat I cannot hear. A fear I cannot reveal.

Bodies move beside me. Around me. In the darkness between our beating hearts. We are lost. We are found.

The lights blast on again. The music ends. Chests heave. A woman’s voice speaks. Jessica. I do not hear her. I hear only the sound of the hairs on my arms reaching towards HIM.

The group comes together again into that safe circle. Still huffing. Not unfit, but so terribly, deeply, painfully open. None of us can look at each other. We are too open. Instead we focus our energy onto the floor, in the centre of the circle and fill it with our fears. Jessica’s voice is subdued. She feels our energy and how fragile it is.

“I’ll see you all next week. You’re all beautiful. Be kind to yourself.”

We all exit out into the cold night air. The other bodies drift off. To their own spaces. Homes lit ready for them.

HE lingers.

We stand awkwardly by the bumper of my car, words tumbling easily into each other’s hands. Our bodies are awkward. Our words are perfect. We skin history. We skim the future. Weave possibilities unknowingly. Lose hours. Eventually fallen silent in the face of what we find.

HIS fingertip brushes my arm as he turns away to head home. Deliberate, but gently.

My arm stings all the way home.

I lay in bed.

Thoughts.

Floating. Stinging. Moving.

 

*This particular piece is entirely fictional though it was inspired by some real life experiences. *cough* Nic Tubb…

** I will be a few weeks short of photos so if you would like to submit a photo for me to respond to, you would be very welcome to. Email it to me at: pressurelandsATmeDOTcome

** Note – #writeme30 posts are published ‘as is’ without any editing or curating as the project is about exploring my responses to the photographs supplied. Some posts may plant the seeds for future writing projects but each post itself should be considered a raw and unfinished piece.

 

 

 

 

 

Writing Myself to 30 – A very personal project #writeme30

So tomorrow (or today really by the time I publish this or you happen to be reading it) is my birthday. I’m turning 29. And I’ve been thinking lately about how very far I’ve come and all the beautiful, inspiring, frustrating and wonderful people who’ve touched my life in a variety of ways.

2014 also happens to be a really big year of personal transition for our family – Nic and I have both taken on new jobs, Mr Z is at a new school, we’ve moved from my regional heartland to the smelly city (Adelaide actually is quite a beautiful city but I’m still struggling with this transition) and in approximately six weeks we’ll have a new baby in our lives. There’s also a lot going on in our professional worlds – including my participation with the Foundation for Young Australian’s ‘Young Social Pioneers‘ Program and all the learning, dreaming and strategising this program is further inspiring.

Life is both terrifying and exciting right now and the tension between the two is making me ask myself all sorts of glorious questions about my creative practice. What it has been, what is is and what it could be. And most importantly what I want it to be.

And so.

I’m embarking on a year long project to explore and deepen my writing practice through the relationships that have shaped me – I’m writing myself towards my 30th Birthday, 18th March 2015.

Over the last week and a bit I’ve asked selected people in my world – some constants, some visitors, some past moments, some new additions – to provide me with a photograph.  I said the photographs could be anything, a streetscape, their smiling face, a rubbish bin in an alley. They might have special meaning. Or they might not.

With each of those photographs I’ll be writing a creative response. It might be a poem, a short story, a piece of personal memoir, a scene in a play or a general blog post. I’ll be publishing a photograph and it’s personal response every week starting tomorrow (18th March 2014) until I turn 30 (18th March 2015).

I expect that the way I engage with and respond to the photos will change a LOT over the year and it might start out pretty rough. But you know, I’m all about the being vulnerable thing and sharing my process as I go. So welcome to this journey with me. Wish me luck!

*If you want to follow along with this project #writeme30, subscribing to this blog (from the sidebar) will send you an email update every time I publish a new post so you don’t need to remember to keep checking back. 🙂

Crack to Kevin with #singsorrow

So last month the Paper Ensemble team packed up the car and headed off on the 15 hour drive to Newcastle for 4 days.

Paper Ensemble is made up of 4 young and emerging artists (in various disciplines) from the Riverland in South Australia and we were taking a new project called Sing Me Your Sorrow to the Crack Theatre Festival.

Sing Me Your Sorrow is a participatory installation/space exploration. Inspired by the PostSecret community and The Obliteration Room by artist Yayoi Kusama and the need we all have to share our hurts with someone who will listen.

Sing Me Your Sorrow invites the audience to write/draw their story of sorrow into the space our artistic team claims. Over the course of an afternoon/day/month, the artistic team then responds to those stories with a series of short films and a unique song of sorrow. We took Sing Me Your Sorrow to Crack Theatre Festival (as part of This Is Not Art)  to test the concept and define the boundaries before pitching Sing Me Your Sorrow across regional South Australia in 2014/2015.

You can read more about the impetus behind the work on ‘Inside Crack’ with a lovely article written by Cass Ramsay here.

The heart of the project is asking people to share their stories and then responding back to those stories musically and through film/photography. Fabulous young musician Jess Weidenhofer and I worked together on crafting a musical response which we presented in a casual share back on the Saturday of Crack alongside photographic response from Nic Tubb and Brianna Obst. We’re still in the process of capturing the footage and collating the digital responses from the weekend to share online but in the meantime, we bring you ‘Ode to Kevin’.

The Ode to Kevin was created on Sunday night at the conclusion of Crack before our team fell into bed for the 15 hour drive home. During the Sing Me Your Sorrow installation someone had written ‘Kevin is awesome’ on the table and we thought this was a fitting way to finish the weekend.

We had a fabulous time and learned a lot about ourselves as artists and the future of the project, which we are keen to develop for presentation across regional SA. If you’d like to support future presentation get in touch paperensemble AT gmail DOT com, we’d love to hear from you. We’re looking for spaces, local support to engage audiences, financial support to pay artists, accommodation and installation materials.

You can also see some photos from the project on the Paper Ensemble facebook here.

The Hunger #willieverbegoodenough?

 

Psstt…..I put in an entry to SOYA this year.

Loads of other way more qualified and talented people have as well, so please go over and take a peek and support my entry so I don’t feel so small and alone….

 

Take a look here – http://www.soya.com.au/entrant/alysha-herrmann/

 

 

PS – Also don’t forget you can buy a copy of The Voices Project (here).

Late Night Poetry – #reallyshouldbesleeping

I don’t want to live in a world like this

A world with no sorry. No goodbye.

Just slipping and tripping and saying like this

A world with fences

Bubbles

Soft, smooth toys

I don’t want to live in a world like this

A world with boundaries

And risks too terrifying to face.

I want to live in a world

With breath

Freedom

Courage

Smiling children

And

This

This thing we call responsibility

No one else is going to take it away from you

Rise for you

Be you

Just you

 

 

I want to slip

Slip

Into

And

Out of

This

This aching, sweeping, needing hunger

I want to turn it off

And turn in

Tune myself to another station

And not see

What I see

What you put before me

I want to sweep all the joy in

The laughter

And leave behind

Those

Those

Things

Strings

Toys

Made of Men

Made of sorrow

 

 

 

Lost in Abundance Panel – #watershedACT

It’s quite tricky to write a blog while sitting on a panel. I tried.

Lost in Abundance put me in some rather intimidating company. Joining me on the panel were:

• Michelle Ryan, the new Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre Company (Adelaide) Just wow by the way (can’t wait to see what comes out of the company under Michelle’s hand).
• Baba Israel, from his website – Artist. Producer. Educator. Consultant. Basically fabulous. Also the Watershed keynote.
• Kirsty Hillhouse, Artistic Director of Western Australian Youth Theatre Company
• Me. How did I get here? Eek.
• David Finnigan, Independent Artist, writer, theatre maker and festival producer (most recently of You Are Here as part of the Canberra Centenary) and member of science theatre collective Boho Interactive.

Our panel was facilitated by the gentle Chris Brain, who was both a member of the Watershed Steering Committee and Implementation Committee. We were kicked off by Chris asking “What under-used resource would you like to see young and emerging theatre artists connect with better?”

Obvious one. Working with people with a disability. People are worried about saying and doing the wrong thing so they just avoid it. Diversity strengthens our practice. – Michelle Ryan

I want to reaffirm what Michelle said. Diversity enriches the process. Diversity in every way (deliberately). It’s a huge resource. Also, be open to the possibility of people you meet being a collaborator in the future.  – Baba Israel

Faith in yourself. It’s really broad and you won’t get a lot out of it initially. – Kirsty Hillhouse

Kirsty touched on how this faith in yourself means something to those who fund you (or invest in you in other ways). Everyone is looking for people with bright ideas – not necessarily with capacity or skill yet, there is a willingness to support and grow from the ideas. Make the most of that and don’t wait until you’re a proven product. Asking inspires people, they want to be part of your awesomeness.

I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I reiterated what the previous panelists had said and touched on the power of our networks with each other and the industry – in particular harnessing the power of tools like social media.

Being a regional artist, I can’t practically pop to and from events to make networks or collect flyers to see what’s on as regularly as I’d like. But what I can do is follow companies/individuals within the industry through their social media profiles and through this have real time access to a wide range of announcements and insights into the industry and work happening across the country (and internationally). I can research and open up a dialogue with companies and people that excite me so that my travel to urban areas can be targeted and well utilized. I can overcome *some* of the isolation I feel through the connections I maintain. Social media has been a fantastic resource for me and has led to offers of paid work and other opportunity’s that I otherwise would not have accessed. Definitely a resource I would encourage other artists from all walks of life to tap into.

David was lucky last and rather than picking just one thing, he reaffirmed everything everyone else had said and shared the following list:

• Using the internet. Accessing opportunities. Heaps of websites. Google opps for young artists. Research.
• Travel. Being out of your space and seeing other work.
• Older artists. Mentors. Asking questions. People whose work you like.
• DIY. Don’t wait for the offer. Ger in there. The benefit is you start making the mistakes early.
• Mistakes. They are a resource. Make them early.
• Seeing more/other work. It’s easy to become a bit insular. See everything you can. Sometimes thing you hate really inspire you to be productive.
• Playing out of your depth. You SHOULD feel scared, and like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You shouldn’t feel like that every day of course, that’s no good for you. But if it’s been more than a year or two since you felt terrified, go and do it now. Bite off more than you think you can handle.
• Find inspiration from outside your field.
• Networking and collaborating. Provoke people around you to be creative. Even if it’s something small and stupid.
• Talk with funding bodies. Ask questions. They are waiting to talk to you.

I love David. 🙂

The floor was then open to questions. This is where it just got ridiculously tricky to write everything down as I was listening and responding to questions and the other panelists and just couldn’t manage to type at the same type. So sadly I can’t give you a run down of the Q and A in detail.

Many of the questions (though not all) were asked by what I’d consider ‘youth participants’ or ‘aspiring artists’ rather than young/emerging artists. What I mean by this is people actively engaging with the arts through youth theatre and school who in the future want to consider or pursue an arts career but aren’t actually participating in the industry themselves (at present).

I found this a little frustrating, not because they weren’t valid questions, but because the vision for the summit was to be a space for young and emerging artists either completely in or well on their way to transitioning into professional practice. These questions (and the people asking them) were coming from a completely different place, and a place that is valid and important but wasn’t (from the steering committee perspective) a place that was designed to be addressed as part of Watershed. It meant that we were using time (both in this panel and Watershed as a whole) to answer questions that would have been best answered in some cases by Google searches and by attending workshops at school and with their youth theatre company.

Young people engaged with youth theatre, school and other arts as participants is a really important conversation. And one as a result of my personal practise that I am incredibly passionate about, but it is a different conversation to that of young and emerging artists as professional practitioners in the wider industry. Sadly so many people/companies just lump it all in together if you’re under 30 (or 26) which I find really ridiculous. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you want to make work with or for other young people. And just because you love engaging with the arts through youth theatre and school doesn’t mean you’ll move into professional practice.

This issue of specificity was a concern to me across the spectrum of Watershed but I have gone a little off topic from the Abundance Panel, so I will aim to visit this structural issue in a separate blog and take the time to really tease out why it was an issue and why myself and other Steering Committee members felt unsatisfied in certain areas.

Before moving on though, I do just want to make it very clear that the issues I’m talking about are not in any way a criticism of the very hard work of the Implementation Committee. They delivered the content they decided upon very well, it just happened to be content that didn’t necessarily answer the required questions for a National Theatre Summit for Young and Emerging Artists (as opposed to a National Youth Theatre Summit). I’ll delve into this properly when I get to that other blog.

Going back to the panel, there was some great discussion in response to audience questions and I was super impressed (and super intimidated) by the responses of the other panelists. What really stood out to me is the repeated motif of ‘Just ask. Just do. Just start.’

I was also struck by how the fact of being on the panel, somehow made people assume I was further in my own career than I actually am. It’s an interesting observation in terms of how the frame we put around someone shapes how we perceive and engage with them.

I am still figuring out who I am, both as a person and as an artist and I ALWAYS will be, because I see myself as ongoing project and I have a deep hunger to learn, learn, learn. I want to be better each day than I was the day before.

Also.

I have NO idea what I’m doing.

At least that’s how it often feels.

Until I remember that my journey is mine and mine alone. I bring my life experiences and professional experiences and the unique combination of the two. I’m not finished. I’m not an expert.

And that’s okay.

I still have something valuable to say.

#justsaying?

Watershed – Keynote – Baba Israel

Today (April 11th 2013) is the opening day of Watershed, the second National Theatre Summit for Young and Emerging Artists happening over the next few days in Canberra.  Coinciding with both National Youth Week and Centenary of Canberra Celebrations and in the lead up to the Australian Theatre Forum, Watershed has brought togther 50+ young artists (under 30) to connect/inspire/challenge/interrogate/consider/share.

After a very brief registration period and welcome from the implementation committee here in Canberra we launched straight into Baba Israel’s keynote.

A google search for Baba Israel reveals all kinds of interesting things. Links to various youtube videos (many well worth checking out) and various articles and profiles about his life and work.

None of them are as interesting as the man himself in the flesh. Baba fills the space and his interactions with an openness of spirit, a deeply caring masculinity that is refreshing and very special me thinks. Right down to his endearing orange tee and cap and improvised spoken word response to our desires for Watershed (#watershedACT on twitter in case you’re wondering).

At the heart of it, Baba is a storyteller and his keynote shared the story of his artistic life starting from his earliest years as the child of deeply artistic parents (raised by parents who were core members of The Living Theatre), Baba was present in the rehearsal room as a baby, being held by Directors and other creatives in room as his parents worked. Like many young people, he had a period of rebellion,  attending a science high school – that didn’t work out – but the arts remained an integral part of his life and way of engaging with the world.

Baba touched on the value of this early exposure to the arts, which I really agree with, although my own road into the arts was quite different, much later in life and more accidental. I wonder how much this early exposure and immersion in an artistic life/community shapes the confidence to explore/experiment/fail that I often struggle with. Thought for another day perhaps

Anywho – Baba honed his skills as a street performer with a lens on creating and reclaiming space (a nice link to my recent adventures at Creating Spaces). Baba spoke a lot about the power of improvisation in this early days and as his career continued to develop. The importance of enjoying and being present in that moment – responding to what is actually happening around you. Again this repeats themes from Creating Spaces and leads into a deeper discussion about having a willingness to try and fail and try again. Yes, universe I know. I know.

I don’t need lights and a stage. I can explore and express anywhere – Baba Israel

Through travel, accidental discovery and connections with others Baba discovered hip hop and hip hop through theatre as a tool for community development and education and from what I can find on the interwebs, this is *some* of what he’s best known for now (as a hip hop and spoken word artist).

Baba also spoke at length about play back theatre, which dovetails quite closely with fourm theatre/theatre of the oppressed and I am interested to learn more about play back theatre myself over the next little while.

There was so much shared actually that my notes are a little bit of a mess. I will curate this blog post a little better tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep but in the meantime…..

Some of the key questions/ideas I took away:

• Creating spaces where people have agency is where the youth sector shines
• As an artists you are constantly ’emerging’ and rediscovering yourself
• We are all resources for each other. How can we best connect and tap into those resources. #tapthat
• I (Alysha) really do love spoken word.
• What are the reasons that a particular community doesn’t or can’t connect with theatre/performing arts
• Professional doesn’t always involve money. It can be about commitment
• Diversity doesn’t always happen accidentally (in fact it rarely does). Diversity often needs to be deliberate.
• How do you maintain longevity in a company context – the importance of developing a shared language
• Research can deepen one’s practise. It’s okay to have a break from ‘making’
• A lot of theatre spaces usher young people in and then usher then out. How do we create spaces that young people can own?
• Local. International. National. Instead of Local. National. International.
• I should learn more about tele presence

You can find Baba here and here.

Also – YES, YES and YES to Contact’s board hearing the veto of their youth panel on choosing the next Artistic Director. If it’s a youth theatre company, all the major decision should absolutely be informed by and made with the young people of the company. So glad to finally find someone else that gets this and can articulate it the way it feels to me.

The beginnings of renewal…

Creating Spaces Conference, Newcastle March 12-14

The opening keynote from Marcus Westbury (Founder of Renew Newcastle and all around trouble maker/over achiever) and the first two panel sessions today covered very similar themes so I’m actually going to lump them into the one blog post so I can actually get some sleep tonight and hopefully not just make it by the skin of my teeth tomorrow after sleeping through my alarm (true story).

So, how do make a city work for people who have ideas but no money?

Renew Newcastle and it’s spin offs including umbrella Renew Australia (Newcastle came first) are essentially permanent structures for enabling temporary things. Operating on the idea that initiative and experimentation (not just capital) are the key to revitalisation, Renew projects broker an agreement with creative projects and land owners to occupy what would be otherwise empty real estate. Occupation is of a temporary nature with the view to projects testing their ideas and activating the space to encourage commercial tenants (including the projects themselves if they discover they are viable). On the surface, it’s a win-win situation for all parties involved. However there are of course barriers, the largest of which seems to be as always, fear (sigh). The morning’s sessions touched on addressing these issues and working proactively with owners and other stakeholders to address the reality that things can and do fail – and that failure can even be a desirable part of the process.

In Marcus’ opening keynote he touched on the growing popularity of DIY and the spike in home based creative businesses and use of online tools such as etsy. It’s worth noting that 70% of Australian etsy sales are to international buyers. Marcus also managed to slip in that he started the This Is Not Art (TINA) festival, as if we weren’t impressed enough.

The keynote also covered off on some of Newcastle’s history to provide deeper context, although the experience of shopping malls killing the main street and the decline of past industry is something I think almost anyone from a regional place in Australia can relate to.

For those who need a good cry, you can also visit ‘Deadmalls’ which Marcus described as ‘ruin porn’ of shopping centres that are empty or never finished. I had a peek and the content is US, but still worth a wander.

(note: Dan Thompson in his key note also referred to ‘ruin porn’ and mentioned Detroit as the pinnacle. You can google further info but it really is devastating. Libraries and schools have been completely abandoned – intact and including all their books!)

Invest in hope.

Some of my take away thoughts from the keynote:

• Creation is growing much faster than consumption.
• Demands for places of creativity, creation and interaction are growing but are not well served.
• Create a dynamic of starting things – not of preserving them. There is power in doing.
• If you tell people to come back with their idea – you just failed initiative (my note – this is where I think existing funding models fail creative projects)
• It’s about software of the place not the hardware
• The transformative process, rather than the art or the capital
• Risk doesn’t exist in a vacuum, don’t believe the people who try and tell you it does. Risk should be measured against the actual likelihood
• A sense of things happening can be self perpetuating (in the same way a sense of nothing happening creates a negative feedback loop)

The first panel of the day was then very much a follow on and digging down into all of these things with Tim Horton (Architect and other super impressive things like this) and Marcus again. Tim kicked things off by running through the work and findings of the Integrated Design Commission set up in 2010, including handing out the report summary. Which I will read and then comment on like the good girl I am. The key information to take away according to Tim though is the idea of a 10:1 return on investment, which is pretty darn impressive especially when you compare that to dollar figures invested in the range of events brought to places like Adelaide.

Tim also gave a nod the Adelaide Thinkers in Residence Program, which I am a rather fan of. I was lucky enough to work with previous Thinker in Residence Dr Genevieve Bell as part of an Office for Youth Action Team exploring ICT use in connecting regional communities – read our report here and Genevieve’s report here if you’re interested, you can see the min clip we shared when we presented the report by clicking the ‘Riverland’ tab at the top of this blog.

All of these conversations are about more than just how we activate space though, they’re about how do cities (or regional areas) transition to what they were to what they are? This is something I’m particularly interested in when thinking about the Riverland, we so often here the nostalgia and catch cries of ‘the place is dying/a hole’ etc, but the comparisons we’re using to the functions of these places in the 80’s and 90’s just aren’t relevant. Places are different now (across the nation) and traditional retail in particular is undergoing a HUGE shift.

So where does that leave us?

Grappling with the idea of trying. Of failing. Of risking. Of possibly tipping me over the edge into being a professional trouble maker. Thanks guys.

I was particularly interested in some of the points Marcus and Tim made in regards to how the creative enterprises which have been part of the Renew movement don’t neatly fit into business development paradigms or the arts. Which naturally led me to think about Fifth Quarter and how I’m shaping my creative/business future. For those outside South Australia, Fifth Quarter is a new initiative supporting emerging South Australian Artists  to develop sustainable arts business and step off the funding treadmill. It’s only just launched this year and I’ve been invited on the journey as an inaugural participant with the disjointed mess of things I’m doing. Fifth Quarter is so new, that even those running it and funding it don’t really know what it is or how it will function but that’s part of what’s exciting and the outcomes may well feed into this discussion around business/arts and where creative enterprise fits.

Online, the barriers to entry are low. When you step into the ‘real’ world, the barriers to entry become a cliff – Marcus Westbury.

I’ve just realised I was wrong. I can’t fit everything from 3 sessions into one blog and it’s already 12.45am. I will return to untangle some of the mess I’ve made tomorrow……(including photos to save you from these ugly blocks of text). Hang tight.