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My initial inspiration came from an old black and white photograph taken in an ayah's home in Aldgate in the 19th century. The picture of a group of Asian women sat around a table sewing and reading, wearing sari s and Victorian dress, intrigued me. What were these women all doing in East London at the turn of the last century?

Research in the British Library led me in many directions and I began to uncover a history that I wasn't fully aware of before. I'd heard of Indian princes being introduced at Court, but wasn't aware of how many other Indians were living and working in Britain. There was Abdul Karim, gifted to Queen Victoria (by the Viceroy of India) to celebrate her Golden Jubilee in 1887 - who became the old monarch's beloved Munshi (teacher) to the end of her life. (Pictured below, Beatie Edney as Queen Victoria and Tony Jayawardena as Abdul Karim.)

And there was Dadabhai Naoroji, the first ever Indian MP, elected in 1892 in Gladstone's Liberal government. There were young men who came as students, particularly to study British law, and of course there were the Indian ayah s who served as nannies and nurse maids to the many colonial families, both in India and Britain.

Meanwhile, all around the London docks were Indian lascars (sailors) who worked on the British steamers which sailed all over the British Empire. They were not slaves (as we all know, William Wilberforce abolished slavery in 1833) but they were often abused, underfed, flogged and made to work in appalling conditions. All these different "birds of passage" ended up in London and many laid down roots two generations or more before the Asian immigration that is more widely known and recorded.

My play The Empress follows characters from all these walks of life, inter-weaving their stories and looking at the personal and the political relationships of India and Britain in the heyday of British colonial rule. I had a wonderful time discovering how Queen Victoria learnt to speak and even read Hindi from Abdul Karim. I became increasingly interested in her double standards - at once championing the rights of her Indian servants, even calling her court "racialists", while also revelling in her title Empress of India and happy to pursue the ruinous exploitation of countries she never visited. The 1890s saw the scramble for African colonies - while in India, the jewel of the colonial crown, there was a growing nationalist consciousness with a rising demand for Indian Home Rule championed in London by Dadabhai Naoroji. Both Gandhi and Mohammad Ali Jinnah were very young men in the early 1890s, studying law: both were mentored by Naoroji and called to the Bar.

Michael Boyd put me together with the inspirational director Emma Rice who has a wonderful track record of devising work through her company Kneehigh. She had not worked with many text-based plays before but we had formed a creative understanding working together on the musical Wah! Wah! Girls in 2012 and her passion for working on The Empress was astonishing. From the start Emma's vision of the world of the play was very modern, which I appreciated. In our early readings, including one at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, the royal home created by Victoria and Albert where the queen spent her holidays with Abdul Karim, the play leapt off the page. (Pictured above left, Ray Panthaki)

Emma has brought a unique flair to visualising these rich stories, seamlessly moving the action from the grimy East End docks to Victoria's glittering palace. In her hands the characters explode to life and every scene buzzes with movement and dynamism. The result is not a stuffy costume drama, but a magical world, at once epic in scale and private in intimate moments - where an unknown history is revealed through songs, music, movement, words and action.

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Ayahs, lascars and munshis: staging The Empress

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It was over four years ago that I was commissioned by Michael Boyd, then artistic director of the RSC, to write a play which I had vaguely pitched to him as "a costume drama set in the nineteenth century with Asians running around in it".

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I saw women and a weapon in this and it drew me back into out most recent conversation

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Milk weed bug art.  I love their color and by helping them I help the monarch butterfly.   The ‘milk weed plant’ is their food.  Alas, are they also a temporary organization?  (They live for one month!). What of the dance of the collective and then also how the outliers play a part.   I think this is what is on my mind as we prepare for the exhibiting season and Woman I Festival.  😊

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The Distance A Kiss with string attached Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain 

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The Distance A Kiss with string attached Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain 

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Just stringing the last two posts on padlet together 🪢

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I have never seen this artists work before but today I went to this phenomenal exhibition at Tate Britain and experienced an overwhelming sense of familiarity and connection with her art and the art that I am exploring on my own DCP journey . I had a sense of “I know you …….” and now I’m wondering a little more if I was saying this to Cornelia in my mind or saying I tot myself ???sometimes it’s hard to capture moments in words but I think this is as close as I can get. I feel a great joy and lightness and at the same time a deep melancholy after experiencing this visit to Tate Britain - curious cocktail 🍸!

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I’ve experimented with using string in my facilitations twice now and both had impacts that surprised me.  My intention was to create some fun and connection and of course you have to throw your string at someone to do that.   And, with hybrid - those online are tasked to command the rules for throwing.   One group said the impact was that all voices matter - admittedly that one really struck me in the heart.  Another group said we started far apart and now we are much closer to each other - and I didn’t get the sense that comment was only about the string.  I’d say the 3rd time I do it (next week!) maybe I get the flow ‘right’, but actually, the improvisation element is what makes it fun.

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This time I took a sheet to Cumbria ……

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How is what we perceive altered when we are able to touch something we also see. Being allowed to touch the displays in this exhibition made me think of the physicality  (or not) of office based and home working

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One of the exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Art in Rouen encourages visitors to wear a mask. Not to cover their mouths, but to cover their eyes. It offered a unique experience of being able to touch the displays. A real novelty for the boys who I am always telling to “look with your eyes!”

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Open studios in my local park today. I was expecting an exhibition of local paintings and was instead treated to artists creating outdoors. Reminded me that art can be anything and anywhere. Oils on salvaged chipboard. Leaves and PVA. Glass. Embroidery.

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I have been fortunate enough to spend many weeks in France in different parts of the country this Summer . I was amazed and delighted at how art seemed to be woven into the fabric of this country - it was all around and just infiltrated ordinary every day life . With this thought in mind we also visited some wonderful art galleries to experience some of the extraordinary art but I was particularly struck at the Picasso museum in Paris by this - the extraordinary in the ordinary . By standing the burner of a gas stove vertically Picasso created a piece of art . I will post the text below in a further photo. This relates closely to much of the work we have been doing in DCP and has further inspired me to create with the wonderful ordinary objects around including what nature offers up

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Social Dreaming Matrix.  Summer Season.  SDM 1.  Thursday 14th July 9.30-10.15

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Social Dreaming Matrix.  Summer Season.  SDM 1.  Thursday 14th July 9.30-10.15

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Dream1:

I had a dream about Miguel sitting on a couch – he has a fresh haircut and is with a woman with medium curled hair. I presume it’s his wife. They are sitting looking out of the window with lace curtains on it. They are happy sitting there.  Next to windows, with lace curtains. It's the home where I grew up.

Association 1:

I am staying with my sister just now and I went back to their home last night and both of my nephews had new haircuts.

Dream 2:

When I woke up this morning I had a strong sense of having dreamed but only had a sense of the first stages of the dream. I tried to pull them down.  A first aid kit. I was getting dressed in the dream -putting on a stripy top -I have a strong memory of stripy pantaloon trousers from when I was in my teens- a strong sense of identity – a flashback to a boyfriend at the time who often recurs in my dreams

Dream 3:

I am going to Leicester Conference -people are gathering . One person then another then another then another. I noticed people that I had worked with in the arts in the past but I was confused how come they were going to Leicester conference at the same time

Association 2:

I have an association with the strong sense of dreaming – I too have woken over past few days with a strong feeling of dreams but I can’t seem to find any visual for them -just a sense of feeling.  A Fluttering on my skin. Interesting to be able to feel a dream without seeing it.

Association 3:

Association with a house -dreams are in the cellar. The cellar is locked, Can't access it – deprived of ones dreams or a refugee from ones dreams? It feels upsetting

Association 4:

Also remembering being on a train -my phone rings and its someone I was really close to at school, an old friend, calling to say they just wanted to call to say I was in their dreams last night . Thought of arriving in someone’s dream

Association 5:

An association with the haircuts in dream 1.Outside Changing and feelings of dreams. Weather changes on the outside on manifestations of changes on the inside. I am connecting with the feeling of myself as a teenager and having a change of hairstyle -it’s a very satisfying feeling after the haircut. Reinforced the way I looked.  I have never experienced this feeling of satisfaction with haircuts as an adult.

Association 6:

Notion of high school, Striped shirt. Third floor bedroom in an old farmhouse. My favourite green and white striped sweatshirt, and the feeling as I gave that away in a box of hand me down clothes.

Association 7:

I have an association to giving things away – I keep making a collection of things to give away and then my sons find it and it returns into our life. The circle keeps going round and round.

Association 8:

I am associating with the theme of history. The past we bring with us. Or leave behind. The session with Leslie. This reminded me of a dress I had as a child that stimulated me to wear the dress I wore yesterday

Association 9:

At Wellcome yesterday, I met someone who is interested in the Tavistock Archive and we discussed the Organisational charts for calico mills.  The textiles theme in the matrix. There was somebody who works in AI and they were very interested in this discussion. I want to explore that further -people working in data and seeing how labour intensive their work is -trying to bring this to the surface.

Association 10:

Associating with the Leicester Conference dream – I am thinking about familiar people And the joy of seeing them again. In the first dream there was somebody called Miguel – I don’t know who he is. How do we work with people we don’t know? How do we become familiar with people?

Association 11:

I am thinking about textiles – about a jumper on the back of the sofa I didn't recognise – one of my children picked it up and said I know it belongs to Thomas -it smells of his family and their washing powder

Association 12:

Childhood smells, Bring me back to childhood homes -smelling Ivory soap and being in the shower outside. I am looking up at the sky I'm smelling ivory soap.

Association 13:

I am associating with cleanliness -wanting to be clean and am wondering about the dirty bits. What the unconscious wants us to alert us to and acknowledge about the dirty bits. How can it be useful.

End of session.

Review:

This matrix had a dream like quality to it -sometimes I couldn’t hear some of the things that were spoken.  Trying to find the zoom link. Noise outside so I couldn't hear so clearly. Distortions. Going in and coming out of sleep. Being awake and going out of a dream

the sensation of dreaming. I too had a dreamlike experience. Curious sensory, smells I feel like it woke up some of my senses.

It felt sensuous and full of texture . I felt myself wanting to talk a lot. Restraint. Feeling I could just talk.  a sense of restraint around performance, that I'm in space we take up. Am thinking about how do we model and shape -what are the nuances of being part of a group -the subtlety and the difficulty.

The haircutting theme reminded me of my L’Oreal days -the smell of the hairdressers and this seems connected to endings.

It felt like there were Columbo moments “just 1 more thing/thought or question” -the last thing mentioned seems important. Aspects coming towards the end that take time to emerge perhaps they are difficult to speak about.

How to stop time and acknowledge -time to emerge with the dirty question .

A slow start and then a crescendo.

There was lots of nostalgia there cutting away the old and how that links again with textual work.  what to do with the old feeling good about the new

There were lost of associations but where were the dreams?  perhaps more sense of people sensing dreams, trying to grasp them but unable to do it. A dream or association?

The instructions didn't fit my need. I couldn't verbalise it.  I didn’t know how to bring my experience to the matrix – it was a very sensory experience – it didn’t feel as if it met the dream format or the thinking association -it was just lots of sensory experience -feelings.  I wanted to say touch me.

Thinking of exhibiting season in and out- what's explored, what's left behind because it doesn't fit with what's being created.

Considering the past, what do we do with all of those pieces. The interactions, smells, textiles, what to do at the end. Cutting room, edited pieces, materiality, exploration of experience of DCP.

Acknowledging the materiality of this experience and the brutality of editing and cutting. Thinking about things like technical, functional , projection, script and emotional engagement

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Thoughts after writing it up:

Feel as if I have been in a seamstress workshop with a hairdresser alongside it – feels as if two parallel processes were happening . In one room different material is being cut ,altered, discarded, mended and a new creation is emerging whilst next door in the hairdressers human hair is deposited on the floor and a new look emerges for the human. Powerful sensory experience of smells from both rooms and the outside and the need for cutting and changing and mess and dirt in order to evolve and change.

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I am across this and thought of you all. "Laughing together makes us feel more connected. It floods our brains with same hormones associated with love and who doesn't want to feel more joy and humour in our lives?  Where humour exists love is not far behind."
Of course...if you're David Brent aka The Office then humour is fatal. Is there space to experiment with humour at your workplace? Curious to know if this is too risky?

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Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas: Why great leaders take humor seriously

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There's a mistaken belief in today's working world that leaders need to be serious all the time to be taken seriously. The research tells a different story.

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Art, Culture, Activism & the NY Public Library

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Art, Culture, Activism & the NY Public Library

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I’ve walked by but have never frequented this famous library.  In a reprieve from the heat of the day, I stumbled upon an exhibition that combined literature, art, culture and activism.  Then I sat in one of those rooms - the ones with the long tables with old fashioned lamps that you see in the movies - and tried to soak it all in.  I read. I wrote. I listened. I observed. I wondered about how it might all be connected to what we’ve explored and how fearlessness and courage plays a role….in Alice in Wonderland to Martin Luther King to the feminist ballerina Nadia…..

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A bit more depth added by more grape deposits onto the canvas 

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A bit more depth added by more grape deposits onto the canvas 

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I used the grape juice and watercolours and somehow the painting took on a new life ..

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Starting with nature on the blank canvas 

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Starting with nature on the blank canvas 

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I thought lots about the work we had done with Sam in spring so began this canvas with nettles soaked in boiling water then added some squashed grapes followed by some remaining fresh coffee granules from breakfast . Left it to dry then removed the products to just leave the trace marks behind - then just added some acrylics for grape vines and sky . Curious to explore further  this integration of nature and modern products

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RECORD OF SOCIAL DREAMING MATRIX – JULY 16, 2022

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RECORD OF SOCIAL DREAMING MATRIX – JULY 16, 2022

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TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RELATIONS

RECORD OF SOCIAL DREAMING MATRIX – JULY 16, 2022

SUMMER SEASON – MATRIX #2

Dream one

I dreamt that I am the age I am now living with a partner in a childhood home. I had been at a party and was looking out of the window. I saw a large military installation, an aircraft carrier landing in London. Russian invasion. I needed to grab a bag and get away. My partner was upstairs and being very slow. I shouted at him “will you get your clothes on?” I shouted this out in my dream and he woke up, but I stayed asleep. I said to him, this is a grab bag situation. I looked out of the window and saw my car and it was battered as if it had been in a crash.  Two dead bodies were in the front. It was made to look as if we were dead. I still thought that my car worked and that we could get away. However, I looked out of the window again and there were troops on the ground we needed to get away quick.  I screamed “no!” and then I woke up.

Dream two

In my dream I was in a mountain hut like that one on my holiday, with dorms and multiple groups of people eating and conversations. A colleague said that she was going to enter a random competition or a lottery. It turns out that she had won it. Suddenly in the hut, but she was on display on a TV screen. She had an aluminum nose. She was on the TV in a carriage on display as the winner.  In another corner, there were a group of children, like a football table but in the table there were premature babies in incubators like prawns. Children were caring and looking after the babies.

Dream three

I remember fragments of a dream. I saw a boy that I went to school with. However he looked like he might look now – although I have not seen him for 35 years. There was a party in the house and girls were in sequins and shimmery dresses. I felt something warm in my pants and put my hand down my pants.  I’d shit myself. It was warm and my hand was covered in shit. I tried to clean myself or to find something to cover it. I went to look for a toilet and saw grandad’s room. I went to the bathroom but this was not occupied. There was a tiny sink where the window used to be.  I’ve put the hand in the sink and tried to clean myself but the sink wasn’t working. There were some tiny drawers.  Then, as I cleaned my hands, dirty water was splashing everywhere all over the clothes. And then I woke up.

Association one

I have an association to the mountain huts.

Youth hosteling in as a young person. Reminds me of travelling around. Lots of beds and people sharing things. Very communal.

Association two

I have an association to all three dreams on the theme of community there is everything in the dreams – war, birth, death, money, shit, excrement. Aspects of communality and being together yesterday.

Association three

The last dream reminds me of a fragment of a dream that I had. I am in a kitchen by the sink and looking through the window.  I see a woman masturbating in her pants. I quickly look away.

I wonder if she knows that she can be seen. I also have an association with the dream with the colleague on TV. Putting oneself in an exposed situation. Possibly excitement, possibly shame. Putting oneself out there.

Association four

I have an association to the aluminum nose. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Sensory deprivation – being too slow in reaction to the invasion.

Association five

I have a sensory association to all the dreams. Before the masturbation dream it felt as if I had a piece of string pulling me down below the ground and I was going down into the building alone. It was a nice experience the pieces of string were like sucking. After the masturbation dream, I had another sensation of flying, lightness being in the air. Now I feel as if I post-exercise, heart rate up.

Association 6

I have an association to the colleague on TV and the masturbation, the post-coital high or exhilaration of being on TV. One of my sisters was on live TV performing and she said that she can understand why people on TV may take a lot of drugs because it takes a long time to come down from that kind of exposure.

I have an association with the image of premature babies and the tank light container.  It has morphed into something much more sinister, and then morphed again – like an old TV/cinema advert, in the advert the babies are like prawns – singing and dancing prawns advertising a seafood restaurant.

Association seven

The prawns are like fetuses – whether women have a choice. Responsibilities.  Sitting on our ancestors. Sitting on ourselves. What choices can we make – realising that we have choices. How do we shit on our ancestors and ourselves and what choices we make. I read yesterday that we make 35,000 decisions per day, consciously and unconsciously.

Association eight

I have an association with the fetuses and choice I’m thinking of the pussy hats, the Women’s March in Washington DC. Bright pink crocheted pussy hat.

Association nine

Bunch of carrots and the Ambient Jam artist, carrots over her vagina, wearing her pussy proudly outside her clothes.

Association ten

Breasts that resurface this week and originated in a previous season. Are they in or out? What can you show? What are you obliged to keep under wraps?

Association eleven

When I was breastfeeding and extracting milk for the first time. Decided to taste my own breastmilk – sweet and lovely. My brothers in particular were repulsed by this – drinking my own breastmilk.

Association twelve

Looking out of the dreams, like looking through frosted glass. I’m outside and can’t get in. The highs, the lows, the excitement, the shame, the shit. I’m outside.

MATRIX REVIEW

Final matrix of these four seasons very rich. More associations with the work of the season and it’s the final matrix of these seasons.

The first three dreams came very fast and frenetic.

Getting into the real stuff – breasts, milk, masturbation, arch-types, shit.  And the contrast of war, invasion, soldiers . . .. The womanifesto.

I felt a bit disassociated. Dreams are very vivid and that helped me get into it.

Very sensory experience very in my body. Extraordinary, feel a bit sexually aroused – felt in my body.

Very real, very authentic and intimate. I went to the worlds best opera house and it was amazing but the SDMatrix here was more real, more true, something very authentic.

I’m noticing the shift from the 1st SDM of the season that felt more open space, softer.  There weren’t so many dreams, not as rich as this one, we’ve warmed up into this one.

Feel a bit giddy feel excited by the potential opportunity.  Let’s do another one, I’m curious.

Is the excitement in the field of the performance being acknowledged in the matrix? So much potential that this could go on longer and be created and structured differently. Both a playfulness and seriousness.

Thinking about how spring was sensory and light and summer arriving and what it can offer.

Something got clearing and it became more honed.

Ambient Jam session – I feel privileged to take a part in that.  Group exposed to other people and seeing it in a different environment of people.

THE MATRIX IS CLOSED

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The Future of Art According to rSimon Denny

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I’m really fascinated by the concept of what is art and the why of art.  The readings coincide with my internal ruminations or visa versa.   I found this series investigating Denny from our readings.

As a group, in exploring hybridity, art and organizational dynamics I’m thinking about the journey, the evolution we’ve been on since last October.   I’m reading my journal and reflecting.  Sometimes I wonder if any of it connects and then I read something and have an epiphany that yes, yes it does.

There are other videos in this series, worth a look.

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The Future of Art According to Simon Denny

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A modification of the poem by Christopher Logue - “I” replaces “he”

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I’ve been thinking about the ‘why’ of what’s lurking underneath a project that’s trying to emerge.  I’m trying to explore coming to it from alternative means to keep this why question very softly, exploring, poking, playing, testing……this is not my normal way. In fact, it’s patience more than procrastinating, which feels good.  My local theater showed this film tonight, almost serendipitously, it was timed perfectly with my thoughts and is a great documentary:  The Art of Making It.

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The Price of Everything, a film about who gets seen and who gets left behind in today's seductive, secretive and unregulated art world. The film follows a diverse group of compelling young artists on the brink of unimaginable success or failure as they challenge systems, break barriers and risk it all with the goal of making it in an industry where all the rules are currently being rewritten.

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The Price of Everything , a film about who gets seen and who gets left behind in today's seductive, secretive and unregulated art world. The film follows a diverse group of compelling young artists on the brink of unimaginable success or failure as they challenge systems, break barriers and risk it all with the goal of making it in an industry where all the rules are currently being rewritten.

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My secret goal of the past few years to do a MOTH event is no longer secret.  It’s only 5 minutes, really one tiny moth in a swarm (is that what a bunch of moths are called?).   I signed up.   Happy to have my lovely cohort (Bernie/Claire) agree to come.  Anyone else care to play and do one too?   Gulp.

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I love Ingrid Fetell Lee - especially her book "Joyful".  I found this newsletter in my junk box.  Let it be easy.   I wonder, what would that looks like for you, right now?

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The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee

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We love to work on things, don't we?

One friend is working on a journaling practice. Another is working on being less judgmental. Another is working on a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. "Working on" something shows we take it seriously. We're putting in the effort and we're committed to reaching a goal. We work on new year's resolutions, old cars, and home renovation projects. We work on our bodies and we work on our marriages.

The American obsession with work is a topic of much discussion lately, but perhaps more interesting is the way we turn everything else into our lives into work too. ("Still working on that?" the waiter says, eyeing our half-full plates. Even our pleasures can be work.) Our culture tells us that if we want something, we must work for it. Work isn't just how we earn things in a capitalist society. It's how we become entitled to them. We pay for our success, our leisure, and our joy with struggle or sacrifice. Otherwise we feel lazy, or unworthy of them.

Personal development is steeped in this language of work. We work on our bad habits through discipline and rigor, and we work toward our goals through diligence and practice. One source of this idea was the finding, popularized by Sonya Lyubomirsky's The How of Happiness, which says that roughly 50% of happiness is determined by a genetic set point, and only 10% relates to an individual's life circumstances, leaving 40% up to an individual's actions. (See here for a good breakdown of the concept.)

Leaving aside my skepticism about that 10% number, which purportedly includes income, life experiences, and demographic differences, and therefore all of the grotesque consequences of living in a structurally racist, sexist, and unequal society, the prevailing takeaway from this model is that there's quite a lot of happiness up for grabs, if only we're willing to work for it. Rather than focusing on making more money, psychologists tell us that happiness lies in mindfulness and gratitude practices, in maintaining high quality relationships and getting regular exercise. Thus happiness became a goal, and reaching it subject to various forms of labor.

No wonder we're all so F'ing tired.

We turn from burnout at work to feeling like we need to work on ourselves. If rest doesn't come naturally to us (raises hand), we have to work at that too. And now the holidays are here, a time that can also bring more work - after all, the holiday magic doesn't make itself. (Santa has an army of elves, the epitome of cheerful workers who never get tired and never seem to need breaks, even to pee. But here on Earth, there are lights to hang and dinners to make.) And soon, the new year will be upon us, with its resolutions and commitments to work harder at being who we really want to be.
But what if it could be easy?
This little voice has been popping up in my head lately. I'm sure it's been there a long time, but I've only recently started to listen. After pushing myself so hard through these pandemic years, most of it with no childcare, juggling a career and a tiny human, I've reached a point where I wonder if there might be an easier way to do things. And while the old me would have recoiled at the idea of easy, which would seem lazy, or mediocre, or like I was settling for less than I could have done, I now find myself curious why I was so convinced the hard way was the only way.

I think of these opening lines from the Mary Oliver poem Wild Geese:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
What happens when we allow things to happen, rather than push our way through them? What happens when we soften into an experience, rather than hardening ourselves to work on it? I am only just beginning to find out, but what I'm learning is that ease can be a conduit to joy.

Do less

This might mean simply doing less. Perhaps this holiday you don't need to make both pies from scratch. Perhaps you don't need to make your own wreath, or hand write the place cards. This year I've gone bigger on the decorations than I've ever done, and I'm excited about the garlands and lights and bows. And then I was thinking it would also be fun to decorate a gingerbread house with Graham, and then, not seeing any kits I liked, I started to go full Martha, looking at gingerbread house plans, and I found a gorgeous delicate gingerbread greenhouse with translucent gelatin windows, and just as I was on the point of printing out the directions I stopped myself and said, "Let it be easy." I remembered how old Graham is, and how busy we are, and I thought, maybe some gingerbread people would be just as fun and about ten times easier. Or maybe I will buy them from a bakery in town. I'm breathing easier now just thinking about how relieved I am that I did not take that on.

Go slow

Or it might mean going slower. Over the past month, readers who are on Instagram have watched as I've painted the trim in my home office and very slowly added wallpaper to the walls. I have a lot of home projects I've wanted to do this year, but almost no spare time to do them, and for a long time they have just been sitting on my to do list, making me feel guilty. But doing a couple of wallpaper panels each week is a way to make progress without having to push myself so hard through the project. As a result, the process has been more fun, and more serendipitous. For example, for weeks, I'd been trying to decide on a fabric color for the daybed that will go in this room. I kept putting off the decision and feeling badly about it. One day I noticed the contrast of the red ladder with the wallpaper and I loved it! I was reminded how Dorothy Draper used to love light blue and cherry red as a color combination, and it inspired me. Rather than taking the hard path of forcing myself to make a decision, the easy route of taking my time and letting a solution surface has yielded a surprising new direction.

Add music - or a friend

"Let it be easy" sometimes means adding a component that makes the task feel lighter. For example, in our post last year on ways to make chores more joyful, many readers talked about how adding music, dance, or podcasts to a chore made the time seem to go more quickly - and even made them look forward to the experience. Sometimes we make a task easy by making it more social, not just because we share the work, but because (and research bears this out) most activities are more enjoyable when we do them with someone else. (This principle explains the appeal of sewing circles and quilting bees.) Even if doing a task socially ends up slowing you down, it may still make the task feel easier.

Adjust your expectations

Letting it be easy is also about changing our expectations of an experience. I often find that I get very anxious about writing certain kinds of emails. I put them off, and then I draft them and come back to them, agonizing about every word choice. But when I ask myself, "How could this be easy?" I find I settle into a more natural way of writing, and the words flow. It's as if my expectation that writing something will be hard work makes it more work, while coming with the expectation that it will be easy puts me in a mindset that makes it easier.

Embrace curiosity over will

With writing, it often helps if I come to the task in a spirit of curiosity, rather than one of work. When I show up to the page feeling like have to muscle a piece out of my brain and onto the page, I feel anxious and tense. But when I arrive curious to discover what I have to say on a topic, then there is an excitement that makes writing a joy.

Curiosity puts us in an exploratory mindset, which opens up our perspective. This is why the notion of "letting it be easy" was so important to me when creating the Joy Jumpstart. There's so much work involved in self-help that it can sometimes feel like we are dragging ourselves along the road of personal development. I wondered if rather than push ourselves through that process, we might instead have fun with it. Along the lines of the post I wrote on joy and transformation a few months back, what if transformation could be easy, rather than hard? What if we let joy lead our process of growth? The idea was to create exercises that were playful, to inspire you to think about meaningful changes in your life but in ways that feel light, exploratory, and fun.

Ultimately, there will always be hard things in life, and there will always be things that are worth working for. But the reflexive urge to make everything into work can leave us vulnerable to burnout and leave us with less energy for the things we really want to do in life. "Let it be easy" doesn't mean drop your standards and settle for less. It doesn't mean that you never push yourself or rise to a challenge. Rather, it means acknowledging that easy doesn't mean lazy or weak or half-assed. It's not a compromise. It's a gentle surrender that trades control for presence. By allowing ourselves to participate in an experience without orchestrating it, to let it happen rather than forcing it, we find a more easeful way of being in the world, one that channels our energy in creative new ways.

Image: Yoori Koo via Unsplash

Find your spark!

Break out of a rut with the Joy Jumpstart, a 7-day self-guided program to help you rediscover what makes you feel most alive.

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Let it be easy - The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee

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We love to work on things, don't we? One friend is working on a journaling practice. Another is working on being less judgmental. Another is working on a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. "Working on" something shows we take it seriously. We're putting in the effort and we're committed to reaching a goal.

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I resisted reading this book because of the title.    Funny enough the practice of letting go and sitting in the awareness of the resistance is exactly the point.   I’m trying to not grip so tightly so that was needs to be created will be unearthed.  Maybe it’s about play, which I can find challenging when I’m thinking about the context and relational dynamics of what it could mean.  (See!!!   I start making words get all ‘smart’ on me! When I should have said ‘school makes me a serious student’ and I need to resist! That’s better.).

With this notion, I’m working to enter summer in a different zone (in other words, remind me I said this!) with a side project of creating what I intended to create all along - a theater piece that likely started in season 1 - last October.  I mention it lightly because although I want to share it, I also need to keep any self imposed pressure out of it, lest I pressurize it to nothing! (I know if I mention it I mean it - but if I start forcing it will blow up.)   It’s started in concept, but without the pen, trying to find it’s unearthed beginning.

This book is helping me to remember to stay in that space and I’m no longer afraid of the title.  😊🌷🌈. A good read and a quick one.

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Love this idea of fiction and strategy -which really meshes with what we've been exploring in #DCP. Sometimes it's the words that get in the way. Even I will say, 'well, I'm not an artist, I can't draw,' but who sets the standard? Can we try on different mediums like photography, painting, writing, designing, curating, dancing and allow for different personas and perspectives? Maybe I'm giving myself permission to explore more.

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Trying to predict what the future will look like is doomed to fail. Yet this is what most executives do when they strategize. They - we - do this because we have been trained and educated to use trends and statistics to predict what is likely to happen and prepare accordingly. As a result, companies struggle to react to changes in their environments when they should be shaping them proactively. This is an issue for executives around the globe whose strategizing, anchored in the past, misses out on important opportunities to envision, and design, possible futures.

Over the past seven years in working with about 50 executive teams around the world, we've been experimenting with an alternative approach to strategy: design fiction. Design fiction is a technique that immerses executives and employees deeply in various possible futures, and uses artifacts such as short movies, fictitious newspaper articles, and imaginary commercials to generate transformation roadmaps. Rooted in the future but helping to act in the present, design fiction results in concrete actions taken to adjust companies' visions, strategies, and activities to create a better future.

Unlike many strategic foresight tools, design fiction does not attempt to identify what is more likely to happen. Nor does it limit strategy conversations to the C-suite; in fact a core component is the participation of a wide range of stakeholders. Consequently, the teams that we've seen deploy design fiction are able to formulate and shape desirable futures that other tools do not enable people to see.

How We Use It

The first step of putting design fiction into practice involves crafting scenarios of possible futures. For example, in a project with a major car insurance company, we analyzed information from urban mobility trends, autopilot flight modes, Luc Besson's notorious movie The Fifth Element, and interviews with early electric car adopters to develop scenarios of possible futures. These atypical data sources help spotlight less obvious aspects that would otherwise remain unnoticed in the strategizing process. In this example, from talking to an airline pilot we understood how the risks will be shifting in an autonomous driving ecosystem. Bumper shocks and losing control of the vehicle will not happen anymore, but new risks such as system hacking and break down of vital sensors will arise.

Akin to strategic foresight tools, we do analyze current trends and weak signals, but importantly, we also leverage the best design tools by building on analogous situations, science fiction inspiration, interviews with extreme users and other stakeholders. Typically, we also interview employees to understand which possible developments have (not) been considered by the company. We ask questions such as "What has been the biggest failure you've seen in the company?" and "What could kill the company?"

From this data we craft a mix of scenarios which depict different versions of the future. For example, by talking to employees of a major fragrance brand, we identified the limiting belief that the company's sales would forever be driven by the end of the year season, as it has always been since the creation of the brand more than a century ago. Using this information, we crafted a "Christmas is over" scenario in which sales seasons were spread out over the year.

Next, we run immersive workshops in which we discuss three or four of these scenarios with employees from all areas and levels of the company. The participation of a wide group of individuals helps expand strategizing to certain stakeholders, such as frontline employees, who can contribute different and necessary perspectives as well as identify opportunities to seize. In small groups, we help them reflect on the role that their companies could play in these scenarios of possible futures and how to provoke the conditions for a more desirable future. Design fictions emerge from these discussions. They describe new missions and visions for companies and how to get there. In the project we conducted with the car insurance company, this part of the design fiction process triggered a change in the mission of the company from insuring cars against damages to enabling individual journeys with all mobility means. Workshops with the fragrance brand around the "Christmas is over" scenario generated a new mission that was more inclusive by focusing on events such as Black History Month and Pride Day. While discussing how to get there, the company also realized that its targeting strategy would be much more accurate as a result.

Finally, we use the design fictions to design shareable artifacts (e.g., short movies, fictitious newspaper articles) which can be considered as a prototype of the companies' future. From these artifacts, a roadmap of strategic transformation is created. For instance, a design fiction project with a large construction company ended up shifting their innovation strategy after they invented a future in which 3D printing made building construction carbon-emission free. The transformation roadmap included areas of 3D printing to focus on and investments needed to shape this desirable future.

Inventing the Future

Design fiction has helped dozens of multinational companies to strategize differently. And while creating fictional futures may sound a little quirky, we know that it works. For example, a recent design-fiction project conducted with a major oil and gas company helped identify how to shape a future in which people living in remote areas were less socially isolated. The company decided to repurpose gas stations into places galvanizing community through services such as car sharing hubs, medical centers, delivery platforms, and ghost kitchens. Although company executives had engaged in various strategizing and foresight exercises in the past, only design fiction enabled them to envision this possible version of the future.

It's not always easy. Using design fiction successfully requires executives to be creative and open to all possibilities. Yet as much as design fiction helps bring back imagination in the strategizing process, executives can be resistant to it. By force of habit, most executives tune down their imagination when strategizing and it is challenging for them to do otherwise. To work past that, we remind them that they are the ones in charge, that they are the ones with the power to shape a more desirable future, and that they have the responsibility to do so. After all, you can't predict the future, you can only invent it.

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By force of habit, most executives tune down their imagination when strategizing. This is counterproductive, the authors argue. Instead, they offer an alternative: Design fiction. A design technique that immerses executives and employees deeply in various possible futures, it uses artifacts such as short movies, fictitious newspaper articles and imaginary commercials to generate transformation roadmaps.

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I thought my camera was capturing my gaze but can see now that it captured multiple views - reminded me of Spring season

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Added a couple more of my own pieces and some that I selected from the found art in the Thames - curiously now I see a clearer narrative emerging for me but am more excited about what we might evolve with our work together

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Thinking about social dreaming as we prepare for Summer and I lay out some of the art work that has emerged for me between the seasons . Curious to explore colour rhythms, repetition and change - strangely feels like I am looking at sheet music when I look at this slice of artwork as a whole - am reminded of the sheet music in “Open” by DCP cohort 1. I wonder what each of the others would see with a big picture snapshot of their creative work in all its lovely forms . Wonder what happens when we put all the big pictures together in some way ?

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I couldn’t help but be reminded of @bongsu and social dreaming.  Are those big splotches big dreams?

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https://vimeo.com/718387052

Playing with words in a physical way

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Light

Burn

Bright.

Head touches heart.

Sparks fly

Ignite.

Is there so much difference

Between heart and head?

d

rt

.

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Rain songs and 🎶 rhythms.
The sounds before working hours
Window open
Coffee
Pain chocolat
A siren on the next block
Raindrops on the window pane
Rolling tires on pavement
Kicking up the water
Honking horn
A crescendo at the base of the window,
Moving the curtains with a breeze
Accepting
This is a new day.

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Flying , rowing, flowing and rippling - slowed down black and white frame 

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Flying , rowing, flowing and rippling - slowed down black and white frame 

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Recorded this morning prior to online inter seasonal DCP pm

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I never knew that swans held their young on their backs and then hide them with their wings.  A phenomenon of nature and if we are very lucky and place close attention we get to bare witness.  What else are we missing in our fast paced world? What amount of pause is enough time to explore?

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Extraordinary performance - as this photo was taken I could smell and taste the sweat in the air ….the spectrum of emotions and movement experienced by the dancers was breath taking. I can only ever remember feeling like this when I saw Coal by Matthew Bourne …… incredible to think they will perform it again tomorrow! The most wonderful physical demonstration of the plethora of human interaction: mass cohesion , solo moments , pairing , small groups fluctuating between synchronised and individual variation , static and motion weaving together, frantic and balletic, repetitive and spontaneous and all the nuances in between. So much to digest - thoroughly awe inspiring and poetic . Go if u can only 1 more night !

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The empty space on padlet communication 

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The empty space on padlet communication 

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I am keen not to disturb the peace of the space but also mindful it is our way of communicating with many and I think that something bubbled up or surfaced for me this week and I am trying to hold what I have learnt from the social dreaming and approach what surfaces for me in a different way .I would like to invite you to view this short video and am curious to see if there are any responses of any form or any associations or what becomes of this now https://vimeo.com/712147924

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Temporary art.  Participatory art.   What might we create that has both an interactive and impermanent component?

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I went to this exhibition in Cambridge about 10 days ago - small but significant. I was drawn to it as I knew it was the work of Ai Weiwei - he entered into my being 5 years ago when I felt deeply connected and moved at the same time by his creation Iron Tree at Yorkshire Sculpture Park . So much spoke to me at the time in the exhibition but even more so on my return home and subsequent experiences over the week . The strong message of the right to own and express doubt I heard but now I am wondering if liberty is even really liberty - the doubt about liberty is what I am left with just now .

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Funny this photo was an accident as I was in my taxi looking for Invader’s street art and now I can’t take my eyes off of this composition.   What do you think?   Am I seeing things?

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On the way to the airport I had a fun art tour looking for ‘invader’!    I spotted the work 5 times but was only able to capture 3 in my taxi.    Invader is political challenging perceptions of ‘what is art’ and of course that the art can also be stolen and chipped off, making it an impermanent exhibition.   Can we do something with a shelf life that resonates beyond its existence?   We create, recreate, edit and add.  What will emerge?

An interesting article too about this artist:

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/paris/articles/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-street-artist-invader/

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Basically, we are better together.  Science says so.   😊.

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I wonder how others receive this photo I took last week and the title I put on it ? Am curious to receive other perspectives and happy to share mine - but I recognise I was revisiting my childhood area and this loaded the day with a mixture of familiarity and total disorientation and I had to seek some fixed unchanged features to help to orientate me to the changed yet similar environment . I only took a small number of photos but this one seems to hold something special for me which I am keen to explore more about …. and getting other perspectives feels a good starting point

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The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations with Dr Eliat Aram

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Highly recommend this podcast that Eliat recorded the week after we did DCP.  It situates the work and practices of the Institute in a really beautiful and interesting way including the integration and emergence of the arts and organisation.
Especially poignant alongside the richness in this space of poems, images, reflections, experimentation and more.

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Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR).

Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation. Believing in the abundant potential of human relationships and love for people are the drivers in the way she shapes the direction of the institute, the multitude of its activities as well as her praxis.

TIHR was established in 1947, dedicated to the study of human relations for the bettering of working life. Eliat discusses some of the TIHR developments over the years and shares new directions they are pioneering, particularly in the areas of how aesthetics, art, and place inform our working lives today.

TIHR developed many experiential learning methodologies, drawing on systemic thinking, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and other social sciences, the most well-known are the Group Relations Conferences. Eliat reflects on the importance of this innovative learning methodology and its continued relevance in today's disruptive world. This podcast will be of great interest to all of us indebted to the Tavistock Institute and its positive influence on work, organisations, and society.

Dr Eliat Aram is a Chartered Scientist Psychologist (BPS), a UKCP registered Gestalt Psychotherapist, and has been one of the pioneering members of the CMC (Complexity & Management Centre) of Hertfordshire University. Her theoretical grounding is in complexity theory, organisational studies, Gestalt psychotherapy theory, and systems psychodynamics. She is a keen practitioner of Group Relations, the Tavistock enterprise's core 'learning through experience' practice. She has directed many Group Relations Conferences internationally including the Tavistock Institute's flagship GRC known as the ' Leicester' conference. She has been one of the two directors of the TIHR's certified courses Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development (2014-2017) and co-founder of the Supervision for Coaching and Consultancy course, now in its seventh cohort. She has contributed to all TIHR Professional Development activities and program design. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. Working with the dynamic of shame as an integral part of any potentially transformative learning process has been her quest and the tenet of her evolving thinking over the decades of her practice. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. She unashamedly thinks this might just be so.

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The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations with Dr Eliat Aram

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Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR). Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation.

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Discarded collage.

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I feel at home in Bastille in Paris and now I have a Bernie-style appreciation and amusement for other things I see.  There a theme of the mundane and discarded isn’t there?

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My mother hated yellow
She said it made her hot
Never wanting to put yellow flowers
In the garden
Pull them out!
That morning my father died
With me sleeping on the floor next to him,
Keeping watch, I’d missed the moment.
The hearse gone,
The plans made.
We went out to the garden
Messy and unkempt,
We’d been watching other things.
My mother sat on a chair, in her broad rimmed sun hat.
I put my bare hands in the dirt with her direction
Pulling weeds
Fixing the flowers.
We only spoke about the flowers
It must have looked funny,
Us working together
Her in the chair and me in the garden
Speaking only about the flowers.
My father needed us to do this.
We had difficulties but
Not when we talked about the flowers.
We made that garden look beautiful
And we made it something we did together,
Mending those flower beds
Working together.
Until she fell ill.
We weren’t going to garden that next summer.
I offered to smoke her cigarette
So we could be outside
Looking at the flowers in the garden.
The next day, I lay in bed with her
Looking right into her eyes
Face to face
her breath slowing
Until it whispered
No more.

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Social Dreaming #6 - Saturday, 30 April, 2022

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Social Dreaming #6 - Saturday, 30 April, 2022

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The 6th Social Dreaming Matrix of Deepening Creative Practice on Saturday April 30, 2022.

·        4 Dreams

·        24 Associations

·        3 people on zoom

·        6 people present in person

Hosted by Ros and Elizabeth

Dream one

I dreamed that I discovered a dark circled area on the back of my leg, like dried mud. There is a muslin shaped paler colour in the middle. There is something moving under the surface. Other dreamers say it is a bee that’s made a mess. I can remove it by soaking or cutting, but how do I do it without getting stung or killing the bee. Whatever I do, I might kill the bee!

Dream two

I was at a train station, the architecture seems familiar, there is a grand high ceiling, reminding me of a London station. I am with my two sons. There are two very straight lines waiting to board our train. Our line is held and the line next to us is able to go to the Train. There are rumblings in our line, why couldn’t we go? The person at the front of our line is called away. There is an opportunity to start moving to the train. Some stay as told and some go. There is a choice. I take my two sons across the concourse. There is a body of water on the right-hand side. The trains are coming in at funny angles. Then everyone is screaming – come back. There is a little child screaming. A train guard says “jump in the water “. I have a dilemma – do I jump in the water with my sons and what about the little girl who has lost her parents.

Association one

Grenfall  tower burning. I heard about it on the radio. I got to work at 7 am in Clapham junction. I could see Paddington  & could see Grenfell Tower burning. I wanted to throw up. I was thinking why did they follow the rules? I would have kicked down the doors and grabbed my sons and run. I definitely would not have followed the instructions. I feel sick now thinking about it.

Association two

Both dreams make me think about privilege – priority boarding. Who goes first, who gets the privileges and why?  The consequences of unconscious bias are coming up all over the place and how to become more conscious.

Association three

First dream and the bee – makes me think of visiting Dungeness. It is a very open and desolate place. I saw a bumblebee and it was just lovely watching it.  I also had an association about queueing for trains and it made me think about Ukraine.

Association four

I have an association of helplessness, grappling for decisions, what to do when it is all fucked up anyway?

Association five

I have an association of many choices and interconnectivity, a situation of emergency and my own state of mind. I am feeling very busy and in a state of stress. How that effects the ability to make clear decisions and how it bubbles up.

Dream three

Dreaming just before waking up at 6 am. Felt great relief. Two nights ago I dreamt that a family friend in her late 40s had a stroke. I am curious about this because I haven’t seen her for a long time. Lots of people were crying. Some said she can move, others she is helpless, she can’t do anything. I said  - does this work & took her hand, put her on one side. I walked to the window in her room. Her son, who was a child again, took my hand. I felt a deep, deep sadness. Last night, I could hear my son crying, but all I could see were railings and I started to run all around the park.

Association six

I have an association of playing the microphones on the railings in Sam’s workshop Southwark Park.

Association seven

The railings are like the ribs in Berni’e picture – stopping getting in and out and protecting. Not allowed.

Association eight

It is like the wall on the US-Mexico border is so high. People are climbing to get over the wall and suffering life changing injuries. There is a crisis in San Diego hospitals due to the choices people are making.

Association nine

Walls/Railings/Ribs. My mum was in hospital with a biopsy in her lungs yesterday. Her long collapsed but she is now okay. I’m thinking of porous membranes the inside and outside and fluid.

Association ten

I am thinking of the difference between a wall and railings. A wall is in impenetrable and railings allow the light to come in. You can grab something through a railing how much can your arm reach or an instrument to get something out.

Association 11

Bee in the skin, Bee is trying to get through the skin and the boundary.

Association 12

There is a dramatic rise in skin cancer. People don’t have a choice. It is easy not to notice it.  The bee made me think of ‘being’. Death of the bee – beyond, without memory and desire. Harder to be in the moment with memory and desire.

Association 13

The 2 lines of the train. I am thinking of Jewish parents putting their children on trains in the Kindertransport. Terrifying. I am thinking of JG Ballard‘s novel Empire of the Sun and the child at the train station. The separation of parents and children is terrifying.

Association 14

I am thinking of Ukrainian parents writing the names and phone numbers  in indelible markers on the backs of two-year-olds.

Association 15

I am thinking of a railing and children – children taking a stick and making music from the ground. Making sound and playing even in the most dire circumstances.

Association 16

I am thinking of Sam's - Clowns without Borders that works with kids and families in refugee camps  and the DCP exhibiting season. What can be done that is not performative? Allowing boundaries, connections and play. Finding meaning in what one is doing, rather than changing the world in one season.

Association 17

US-Mexican border. Art installation of a seesaw created through the wall. US and Mexican children playing on seesaw. Couldn’t see each other but hear laughter. Children continue to play.

Association 18

Joseph Boyce – founder of the Green party in Germany, a lot of his art related to what is happening in the world. Planting trees was a moving installation.

Association 19

Broader Cantos project collaborative photographer and musician on the US-Mexican border. Items discarded at the border and turned into musical instruments.  Create a soundscape at the border. Memory and trace within objects.

Dream four

Large white plastic cylinder. Spiral of a seashell. Walls are very thick and I see several doors to go in to use the loo. Over that there is another spiral stairway with workers going up. Lighthouse, cylinder of white plastic.

Association  20

I had an email from an art centre to go and visit their toilets,  as an artist has designed their toilets.

Association 21

In our family we often judge restaurants by their toilets, like a first impression judging how we look at a person. How does first impression play out? Also books by the covers?

Association 22

The dream of the white cylinder reminds me of a seashell and a child at the seas and picking up a  seashell and listening to it, and being transported to different places – picking up a conch seashell. I want to do that.

Association 23

An association of bomb shelling in cities.

Association 24

Little kids in Ukraine, jackets and cold weather and buildings bombed out.

Reflections:

·        I could have gone on and on but I wanted it to stop

·        Starting to be confusing.  It was graphic and awful things in the world and less about beautiful things

·        Flow and the mood during it.

·        Bee and the line at the station. 2 different lines of inquiry and a feeling of disembodiment. We are in 2 different lines.

·        Were there 2 different things with hybrid?

·        I experienced this as the most fluid we had

·        The voices came from different places – a different quality of experience

·        Felt very intimate -rich and expansive. Full but also spacious

·        I’m thinking this is like a cross – loud loud than silent

·        Something like having been on zoon and having been in the space – Ive been in the movement in between the spaces and the boarder becomes more fluid.

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Oh Wilfred, Wilfred what did you do
For them to name this room after you?
A holding space to dissect our group,
A container to take a different view.

Oh Wilfred, Wilfred what did you say?
Contrasting this space with the one where we play.
Discomfort of silence, how long will we stay?
Will the group bond together or will fault lines fray?

Oh Wilfred, Wilfred if only we’d met!
You could share the experience, you’d love it I bet!
I’d thank you for the space to which I’m in debt,
And for time to explore that I will not forget 😉

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What image does our mind create

To translate the unknown.

Our need to make sense

The sound of rain on a dry day.

An alien life form.

Static electricity.

What a worm sounds like.

How little we like to sit

With the

Discomfort

Of not knowing.

Insecurity of feeling stupid, out of our depth, being

Found Out.

The safety of the familiar.

The space we take up as humans.

Our own

Self

Importance.

Is the other more wise?

In circumstances different from those present; or else.

In other respects; apart from that.

In a different state or situation.

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Spring: SDM #4 Thursday, 28th April 2022

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Spring: SDM #4 Thursday, 28th April 2022

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Spring: SDM #4 Thursday, 28th April 2022
8 participants: 5 in the room and 3 on Zoom
5 DREAMS and 11 ASSOCIATIONS

Hosts: Claire and Ros

Dream 1

I dreamt last night that I was swimming fully clothed. I got out of the pool and saw, I think, my old manager/inspirational leader.

He said to me: “come on, are you going to go for this interesting job “. I was dripping wet. I said that I needed to pick up my younger son or brother. Then an old friend from university, ‘J’ appeared and said I will pick him up. I was still dripping wet. We walked past a man with a beard. J said:’ He’s going to go for it - go on.’ I said no, he stared at me.

Then, out of a door appeared someone else, someone I had worked with years ago who said to me aggressively: “I can’t believe you are going to go for it – this is a highly paid job, you talked me out of it and you are going for it. You convinced me it was more important to be happy”

Association 1

Water, seas and the ocean. These are all associated with the unconscious. Diving in and coming back out. Man with a beard – I thought of God. God has a beard. God being with us in our endeavours. The collegial way we can help each other or compete as rivals. The way we can get in touch with each other.

Dream 2

Very vivid dreams. Dreamt the night before that I was in the business of joining a group of new people who I didn’t know very well. There were a lot of spaces. I was being collected by someone and with a new person in a taxi. We had to walk up a ramp into a skeletal room. The side of the building was taken off. A space with lots of people all in different coloured boiler suits. There was a very wet and muddy floor. I then got picked up/collected.

Association 2

Boiler suits – Ghostbusters the movie.

Association 3

Muddy ground and muddy puddles – daughters sparkly wellies.

Association 4

Little girl in wellies. Little girl sitting with clear umbrella, standing in backyard in wellies, watching the rain coming down through a clear umbrella.

Association 5

Being a child, looking at the window on rainy days, racing raindrops down the window. Picking the one I want and racing it against another

Dream 3

Someone I had been in competition with.  Revenge needed, a great need.  A sexual dream, at least a feeling it would be.  Intense rivalry and competition. Intense relief. This is what is really meant to be.

Association 6

Association with the first dream. Mud and rain. Dreamer in first dream, her clothes were wet and she was in a competition – with a male colleague. I am thinking of the news and the behaviour in the house of commons to women. How competition plays out in that way. Women cannot not be exposed in the public eye. I am thinking of the mud and a dance piece that I saw. Naked dancers performing in the mud. Visceral. Wasn’t sexual. Number of things. Something quite rich – bodies in space without objectification. Mud.

Association 7

Dancers dancing in the mud. Old black-and-white movie and mud wrestling.

Dream 4

I dreamt last night –in association and relation to pair and performance. Dreams in association with the context of DCP. Municipal big spaces. Dreaming that I attended a performance of Hamilton with my sisters and my parents. My parents are both dead but in the dream they were there in their declining state. There in different seats, managed to see the first half. Parents left. However, in the second half, dad was wearing a mask, they were sitting together, frailly waiting for us to go home.

Dream 5

I am on the stage in a school hall.  A wooden stage. I look to the side and note that my friend is there. I think this is good because we are going to make a show together. Feeling excited and happy. Realising that we are going to make a show about anti-racism training. Not knowing how to do it. Part of the fun of her being there. Comfort. She knows how to do it.

Association 8

Association to DCP and all female group. The challenge of the creative process. How much different creative ideas/paths/approaches could be in competition with one another or relied on or trusted in different ways. Maybe there is a tension between a desire to trust someone to know the right thing to do and the fear of losing one’s own creative ideas and energy when going with someone else’s idea,

Association 9

I have an association with the word ‘run’. A strong memory that I was asked to represent the school in athletics in the first year at secondary school. I was chosen for the hurdles and knocked down the third hurdle. Never seen it done before. I did not know that I could stay in the race. No one had explained the rules. I thought I was out. I remember the coach being very vocal screaming ‘run/run’. I then saw that others had knocked over hurdles but were keeping going. I realised the rules and ran as fast as I could but came last.

Association 10

Association with the rules, instructions and where the power sits. Ability to set or break the rules, choice to follow or not follow the rules.

Association 11

Association with the film ‘singing in the rain’ and dancing exuberantly. Magnificent dancing. Unexpected circumstances of the rain, could have dampened but didn’t, it actually makes it.

Review summary

-        Not many dreams, calm melancholic, felt space lots of quiet pauses, felt comfortable, patience and tolerance, not an anxious matrix

-        Melancholic texture.  Others invited, perhaps is it connected to that.  Collaboration, network, community might be impacted.  Enough space in the matrix for everyone

-        Competition and rivalry (first time in the matrix), juxtaposition with collaboration .  A lot about collaboration

-        How we evaluate what participation means.  Evaluation of output and outcome.  How do you measure community, network.

-        Set up of room.  Backs to screen.  Not knowing who was on screen, felt rude. Guessing who was there.

-        Rain, rules, mud, ability to pivot, dance with the rules

-        Exposed- dripping wet in costume

-        Female nature- going for a job when tick 9/10 boxes, not 4/10

-        Not knowing what is ahead – the stage

-        A lot of spaces and halls

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This feels so one dimensional and boring.   As we play with hybrid working - there is really something to shifting that ‘box’ or ‘flat screen’, isn’t there?

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Playing with levels, perspectives and photography.  I like this shot better than the live collage itself.

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If you decide to use it for the start of further art I would love this piece to do something with

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A virtual tour of the drying art from the river 

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A virtual tour of the drying art from the river 

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Elizabeth maybe this would be enough for somebody to identify on SM but occurred to me that it may have a different narrative behind it - what if it wasn’t lost but intentionally thrown in by the artist or somebody else ?? What if it was an attempted drowning ? Do I still follow the same script to find an owner ? Ros do u think finders of treasure in Greenwich seek out the owner ? I am left with many many questions and provocations right now ….

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Now what do I do ?I have some ideas but would love to hear/see your thoughts and reflections and am of course blown away by how this whole episode has reflected some of Spring DCP

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Stage 1 drying outdoors

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A gem that washed up on the shore of the Thames in the west at low tide 

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A gem that washed up on the shore of the Thames in the west at low tide 

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I walked the Thames yesterday morning and this caught my eye on the river bed . I went down to the river bed to inspect it and found a very wet art book full of lovely pencil drawings and charcoal work . I took it home and carefully separated each page to dry the pages one by one

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Sound/RiverScape this morning at Greenwich. Tide out. Standing at the bottom of the river with rope, chains, nets, steel girders & roman coins.

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Inspired by this mornings social dreaming matrix #2

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Inspired by this mornings social dreaming matrix #2

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Inspired by this mornings social dreaming matrix

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Inspired by this mornings social dreaming matrix

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A tour of our temporary exhibition from our work with Sam Nightingale.   Art, nature, words, pictures……. Other worlds….sounds from the park.

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Good morning!
Below is a link to all the recordings made in Southwark Park yesterday.

Link to dropbox with files to listen/ download

Later this afternoon we will review the recordings and start to build a sonic script that will become an element of the performative installation.

Step 1:
This afternoon, as you listen and make selections consider the following:

What worlds (worldlings) - human and otherwise - are produced in and through these sounds?

Could we produce a sonic psychogeography of the park?

How might the sounds enable us to imagine otherwise?

What do the sounds evoke for you?

Preparing the sonic script: Choose a selection of sounds (30-60 seconds) that you would like to use in the installation. These could be from what you recorded or from another group, or a mixture.

Step 2:

Live accompaniment for the installation: writing, movement, speech, reading - prepare material that you would like to perform as part of the installation.

This could include live readings from own writing (memories, associations imaginings, fictions of the otherwise), a quote from a book, or instructions for movement, or .....?

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Hi everyone, looking forward to seeing you on Weds for the opening of the Spring Season. Either on your way towards the Institute on Weds morning, or as part of your journey before then - please can you pause and record 15 seconds of birdsong on your phone to bring to the opening plenary please? It is fine if there are other sounds as part of the recording and it doesn't need to be full of birdsong, whatever you record will be great. Thank you and see you Wednesday!

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The unfolding precious photos - revisited Kew 25 April 

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The unfolding precious photos - revisited Kew 25 April 

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The leaves have unfolded but the buds are yet to open ……

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I meant to post this on Friday (Earth day) for anyone who would like to start to attune their ears. A few links to sonic streams from the earth to help the ears start to vibrate!
1.

Sun Sonification - NASA https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sun-sonification

This humming sound captures the Sun’s natural vibrations and provides scientists with a concrete representation of its dynamic movements.

2. Jana Winderen - The Wanderer (listen to first 5 mins or so if you can)

The Wanderer is a sound composition created from hydrophone recordings from the realm of Zooplankton and Phytoplankton in the Atlantic Ocean, made by sound artist Jana Winderen on her travels from the North Pole to the Equator.

3. Listen to the sounds of glaciers melting in artist/ researcher Susan Schuppli's project  Listening to Ice. (the recordings are on the left side of the screen a little way down).

4. Ink botanic. Here we hear the inner sounds of a cherry birch tree. These strange sounds are the traces of listening to plants, recorded with self-designed and built adapted microphones by the sound artist Jez Riley French.

5. Lago - by Joshua Bonnetta. Everything that was ever something - 1:00 - 4:00 / What lies in it - 0:00 - 5.30. https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/lago

These two sonic compositions are drawn from sites in and around the Salton Sea in the Sonoran Desert, in the US.

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@Claire, much better!   Wondering how this list reflects the DCP process as a whole.  I was tempted to include dancing @berndadette.

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I went to the V and A today specifically to watch this film which is a highlighted part of the Performance Festival Dance . Really powerful work that resonates with some of the work we have done together around movement but especially for me some of the dance I have been exploring at home both in the shadows and out in nature and more public spaces and how important that this has been for my own recovery recently. When I came out after watching it on a loop three times - it so happened that the Director Leo Bill was at the bottom of the stairs . Magic moments for me to get the chance to just chat with him and to have shared an understanding and appreciation for the power of movement/dance and the importance of finding ways of expressing some things that words just can’t touch/cover. Leo was generous with his time and listening and sharing his ideas - I feel enormous gratitude for this fortuitous meeting and he was keen to hear about DCP and what we are doing . As agreed I will make contact with him by email and see what evolves - he thinks there will be a way for me to share this film with you all …. it feels as if something is starting in motion

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An amazingly complimentary curated exhibition - feeling inspired by these young artists 

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An amazingly complimentary curated exhibition - feeling inspired by these young artists 

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Tomorrow free performance art at 2pm really resonates with the work we have been doing 

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Tomorrow free performance art at 2pm really resonates with the work we have been doing 

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This is a collective of 2nd year art students from St Martin’s who have got together and pooled their money to rent this wonderful space at the crypt for a few days . I stumbled across it today whilst attending The Place to watch the dancers .Performance art tomorrow at 2pm would be lovely to see anybody who can make it and this space could provide an ideal venue for us . The students are wonderful and open to collaborative working .

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What does space for reimagining ourselves and the world look, sound, and feel like?

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What does space for reimagining ourselves and the world look, sound, and feel like?

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I've been reflecting on power, arts and activism. What are the limits and what are the possibilities?  What's missing from this list... @Elizabeth I might add "paying attention".

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Printing collage. Swirls, flows & reveals.

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Angrily facing the world. Reverse printed people.

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What's this imagining otherwise stuff???

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What's this imagining otherwise stuff???

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The title of the session next week 'Aesthetic practices for imagining otherwise' is inspired by the wonderful book 'Experiments in Imagining Otherwise' by Lola Olufemi. The task of how one might imagine otherwise is one that occupies much of my creative practice. For me, this is a question of how to make sensible environments/ spaces/ conditions/ times that we are a part of but that also persist beyond the limits of human experience – what I think of as the arts of noticing otherwise. For Lola Olufemi the otherwise means something different, it is the space between what is and what could be (amongst other things). I wanted to share the first couple of pages of Lola's book, which act a little like a manifesto for the 'otherwise'. You can download the pages here. I share them as a proposition for thinking and practice. The otherwise is always something different (or not) for each person... I am interested to learn what your imagining otherwise might be?

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Para-photo-mancy in the field, Sam Nightingale

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Aesthetic practices for imagining otherwise

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Aesthetic practices for imagining otherwise

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I am dropping by here to say hello and that I am looking forward to meeting you all next week for Aesthetic practices for imagining otherwise. I will be posting a few things over the next week in the lead-up to our first session. I thought it would be helpful to share an outline for the two sessions where we will be working/practicing together.

Wed, 27 April 2.15pm - 5pm

Session 1: Sounding out/tuning in
In the field - meeting at Southwark Park Bandstand

Map: https://goo.gl/maps/73PamBJEnrDyp7T78

Practices in attentive listening/ recording and gathering/ harvesting botanical matter.

Thur, 28 April 12.15pm - 5pm

Session 2: Para-photo-mancy
In the TIHR studio

Practices in photochemical alchemy - co-production with plants

During the first session, taking place in Southwark Park in south London, we will experiment with different practices and recording technologies for listening and attuning to the world around us differently. Looking for what might fall outside our conscious awareness and finding stimuli that demand a heightened sense of attention and imagination. We ask what sounds bubble to the surface and what do we need to unearth from beneath our feet? How do we listen effectively, and what is the difference between hearing and listening? Working together we focus on different modes of listening/ recording as we move around the park. We will also gather a small amount of botanical matter (moss, leaves, grasses, etc. ) from the locations where the audio recordings occur.

In the second session, taking place back in the TIHR studio space, I will introduce you to a practice I call Para-photo-mancy, a process of making photochemical images/ artefacts using the inherent capacities of plants. Working directly with the botanic matter we gathered during the sounding out session, we enter a dance of photochemical alchemy and chemical affinities. Finally, combing the sound recordings with the photochemical artefacts, we generate a visual and sonic stream of conscious and unconscious encounters - eliciting a tangible/ intangible relationship between the unknown, earth processes and technology.

By imagining the ‘otherwise’ in this way, we are returned to the original task of aesthetics (aesthesis) - a practice of sensing (the capacity to register and be affected) combined with sense-making (transforming sensing into a form of tacit knowledge). In a work of co-production, we discover that aesthesis is not an exclusive capacity of humans but open to a multiplicity of lives - animate and inanimate.

Look out for more posts later this week!

All the best

Sam

www.samnightingale.com

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Is it coincidence when what you're thinking about starts to come at you from all angles?   A client got me thinking about art as activism when he posted an article about housing appraisal disparity of black and white owned houses that is currently an art exhibition in Pittsburgh.  Then, the first reading I chose for this season was about Sonia Boyce - who has been addressing race and gender through art since the 80s.   And then I thought, I know this use of art, but do I really know this?   How can I view art differently?   How might I invite more exploration into the layers underneath.  Since we have the reading I will share the article that first sparked this inquiry and I asked myself - how am I paying attention to this and how am I not?   

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Is it coincidence when what you're thinking about starts to come at you from all angles?   A client got me thinking about art as activism when he posted an article about housing appraisal disparity of black and white owned houses that is currently an art exhibition in Pittsburgh.  Then, the first reading I chose for this season was about Sonia Boyce - who has been addressing race and gender through art since the 80s.   And then I thought, I know this use of art, but do I really know this?   How can I view art differently?   How might I invite more exploration into the layers underneath.  Since we have the reading I will share the article that first sparked this inquiry and I asked myself - how am I paying attention to this and how am I not?   

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I found Mira’s TED today because I was looking at the obituaries: Mira Calix, 52, Composer, Producer and Visual Artist   (October 28, 1969 to March 25, 2022).

She says, “Create with intention, but be open to interpretation.”

We’ve been playing with sound, video and other mediums and I wonder how to simplify?  How to hold the creation process less tightly but with no less intention?  How might we find inquiry and invitation?      Perhaps this is my own challenge and inquiry?

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What does happiness sound like? What about misery? Musician Mira Calix explores the emotional qualities embedded in music and noise and shares a sound-based spectrum of human sentiments that emerged from her work.

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Hindsight is a great thing -when I put this together in the days after DCP Winter in January I thought I was capturing how I felt on day 1 Winter or maybe I was trying to capture my emotions but all I could gain access to was from my outside looking in - I filmed footage on a break period when I walked around the building -literally on the outside. of DCP But I sense now that this was a film of something much greater than a single day - I think it may have captured the past two pandemic years and what it has felt like to have travelled this pandemic journey in the health service rather than travelling the World on a career break which was plan A. I have not explored myself from within during this time -I have just been in sensory overload from the outside. But then just after DCP Winter -my own health issues forced me to stop , to slow down , to switch off the sensory bombardment and to seek stillness within and nature around me. Now I am curious to see how I transition into Spring DCP and how I capture this experience differently . I am also reflecting that usually I post my work onto padlet as I do it in real time -this video I didn't -I have in effect been "sitting with the discomfort for a little while"

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How I felt in sound clip and visual DCP Winter day 1

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From Seed To Dust by Mark Hamer. Highly recommend- a story of the cycle of seasons intertwined with life

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Seeing light in the flow of life in the trees and the river 

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Seeing light in the flow of life in the trees and the river 

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Exploring painting literal light and shade  and then following that with abstract light painting capturing the fast flowing part of the river as the tide goes out …. am interested in key colour themes that seem to emerge on padlet through our diverse contributions

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Flowers arrived with huge wrapping tightly holding the flowers in contrast to the flowers in the recent nature photos on padlet 

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Flowers arrived with huge wrapping tightly holding the flowers in contrast to the flowers in the recent nature photos on padlet 

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I wanted to use the experience of unpacking and arranging the flowers as part of the gift

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Having watched Spring unfold in nature - in contrast I received some flowers as a gift that were heavily but beautifully packaged - so I explored unpacking the gift unfolding the flowers and undressing the outer layer of myself in this process of arranging the flowers -curious to see what I may be addressing

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The bin that was centre stage in maybe it’s art ? Jan 2022

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The bin that was centre stage in maybe it’s art ? Jan 2022

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This time I found it in a different stage of undress - the cloak was gone and the lid was off -exposing its insides and the refuse contents

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Just coming out of Covid, like many!

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Looking through our scrapbook I felt echos of this image in bernadette's "silver birch laid to rest", Elizabeth's image of the house and Claire's pictures of roofs and sky in Budapest and the empty seat. It's by John Buckley..." "our fears and vulnerability come this time from above" he said. It was his response to the war in Libya in 1986.

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The hour and twenty minute crossing by ferry boat starts here and that’s before the in between of neither here nor there in the middle of the Long Island Sound.  Calm waters can chop in the middle and sometimes it is like glass the entire way.  As long as the captain says it’s okay, you drive yourself into the boat and leave it in the hull.  I sometimes think about it sinking and then I’d need to use my swimming skills to float and remain calm in the dark waters. (I never should’ve seen Jaws as a child! Grandma took us to the matinee and then we went to the beach!).  Alas, there are always creepy things in the water but you have to keep going.  Sometimes if you relax and hold your breath, sometimes something beautiful will appear.  It’s okay to hold your breath as long as you remember to come up for air and let it fill your lungs.   The shore of the other side is getting closer.  Let the sea air guide me and then walk back down the stairs once again . . .