FIELD notes - Two Destination Language

FIELD

notes

TWO DESTINATION

LANGUAGE

FIELD

notes

T W O

D E S T I N A T I O N

L A N G U A G E

FIELD residency — in June 2020, a group of 23 creative practitioners

came together in virtual spaces to think, talk, listen and dream,

learning from each other and through the act of dialogue. These

writings reflect some of their thinking, on where we are now and

some of the paths forward.

Edited by Alister Lownie

Illustrated by Katherina Radeva

Published 2020 by Two Destination Language

Two Destination Language,

ARC, Dovecot Street, Stockton-on-Tees TS1 8 1 LL

twodestinationlanguage.com

ISBN 978-1 -8381 51 5-0-8

Individual contributions © individual contributors, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without

written permission of the publishers. Permission will normally be given to

voluntary and community sector organisations except for commercial

purposes.

All opinions expressed in the material contained within this publication

are those of the artists and authors and not necessarily those of the

editors, publishers or the publishers’ partners.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Two Destination Language is a charity registered in England and Wales,

no. 1 1 65934, and in Scotland, no. SC047502.

C O N T E N T S

Meet Me At Field Lisette Auton............................................................. 1 4

What Are You Willing to Lose? Emma Beverley.................................... 1 8

Pain on Paper Umar Butt........................................................................ 24

What I Heard When I Really Listened Kate Craddock........................... 28

Be Like & Free Writing With Daddy Issues Brendan Curtis.................. 32

We Will Care Deeply: A Manifesto Emma Geraghty..............................36

Fences Adam York Gregory................................................................... 42

Less Walls, More Ramps Ellie Harrison................................................ 52

Transparency Katie Hickman................................................................. 58

Spit In My Mouth Like It’s 201 9 Lady Kitt.............................................. 60

Competition For Funds Alister Lownie.................................................. 66

1 0 Notes From FIELD Krissi Musiol.......................................................74

Crisis, Change, Care Toni-Dee Paul....................................................... 82

Muted Katherina Radeva........................................................................ 88

A Field Transforms Chloë Smith............................................................ 90

Question and Answer Hannah Sullivan................................................. 94

It’s Taken A Pandemic To Reimagine The Arts Jo Verrent.................. 98

Instructions for Playing Gojira Rich Warburton.................................. 1 02

Filaments Ben Wright........................................................................... 1 08

1 0

LiSette

auton

M E E T M E A T

F I E L D

Lisette Auton does stuff with words: disabled writer, activist, poet,

spoken-word artist, actor, theatre-maker and creative practitioner.

She uses her platform to make the invisible visible. She’s done lots

of stuff with words already and would like to live in a world that

allows her to do more. She likes walking her rescue dog, listening,

thinking, resting, making and kindness. She wishes that these things

were seen as important, valuable and salaried.

There is FIELD.

It is very far from here/not far at all/unimaginable/etched on your

skin.

We lie in FIELD star gazing. We nap. We create a care manifesto. We

dance. We listen. We remember pauses and silence are important.

We eat. We share.

Everyone has a key to the gate to FIELD. Sometimes we lose our

key/our way/blue sky. That’s okay. There is a key cutter/blanks.

FIELD will send you a new key when you least expect it. Deliver it

with a jar of rhubarb and ginger jam.

There is no map of FIELD. It is uncharted/evolving/layered in

conversation and thought. Sometimes it is easy to be lost/found.

Sometimes it is easy to be opposite. Sometimes you are alone.

FIELD calls to you in clouds/electricity/thunder/birdsong. You can

hear it if you place your ear to the pavement. You can taste it in

green. You can feel it just beyond exhaustion. It says: rest.

FIELD likes: snacks, castles, pirates, boats, skinny men on

aggressive tyres, three chords, laughter, working class rage in a first

class carriage, aggressive men on skinny tyres, time, a dog called

Panda. Many dogs.

FIELD does not like: closing the gate, closed heart/mind/pockets/

purses/safe/brave spaces.

FIELD likes it if we try. Likes safer, braver, kinder, anger, doer, thinker,

hugger, sleeper, lover, I’ll think on that and get back to you on that

when I know how I feel.

I know when I am in FIELD because my head is aligned with other

heads/heart is aligned with other hearts/challenge is accepted/I

accept/head is aligned with the stars and the green and the cows at

the edge could charge but don’t.

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There is not much FIELD asks for in return. Tend/mend/sit. Do.

Do says FIELD. Do. Be brave. Be scared. Be kind. Be radical. Be

confrontational. Be angry. Speak to power. Hold to account. Demand

access, transparency, education, sustainability, salary, rest, equity.

Ask: where are the voices that are not my voice? Ask: how can I

make way for voices that are not my voice? FIELD likes those

questions.

FIELD does not think this is much to ask.

FIELD knows it is not much to ask.

FIELD has no voice/1 4 voices/a chorus/a middle eight/an album

cover.

There is FIELD. There is kitchen. There is conversation. There is

world inside/outside/beside FIELD. FIELD knows that inside/outside

/beside is upside down. FIELD flips. Flip flop through FIELD. Flop in

FIELD. Shield FIELD, hope FIELD, breathe FIELD, live FIELD.

FIELD is live. Feel FIELD. Feel lived/live/loved.

We kiss FIELD goodbye. I have a grass cutting/heart cutting/shadow

puppet.

Shadow steps into FIELD. Sun makes shadow/shines shadow/

starshine.

We make starshine shadow rest/listen.

Speak FIELD. Do FIELD. Rest FIELD.

Shout/listen/hear/pause/vulnerable/mighty FIELD.

Behold FIELD. We are FIELD.

FIELD always ends in dancing. Can you put it on speaker?

1 8

emma

beverley

W H A T A R E

Y O U W I L L I N G

T O L O S E ?

Emma is Co-Director at East Street Arts, a 25-year-old creative social

enterprise and charity working across public art, policy, city planning

and artist support. Prior to joining East Street Arts, Emma worked as

an independent Producer and Programmer with multiple artists

including Selina Thompson, Katy Baird, Eclipse Theatre Company

and Leeds 2023. Emma’s work at East Street Arts is focused on

supporting artists, regeneration, programming and international

strategy.

Firstly, I’d like to say how nervous I am writing this. But how

grateful I was to be asked — not only to write this, but to be part of

three of the discussions led by the artists participating in FIELD.

Who welcomed me, a Director of an NPO, into the fold with open

arms. Each conversation was FULL of hope, frustration, thinking

and listening. Sometimes overwhelming but wrapped up in care

and excitement and really really difficult questions.

I wish that same level of generosity and care was offered to artists

each day in this industry. But it isn’t.

In a conversation about radical anti-capitalism, Toni-Dee Paul

asked the question, “What are you willing to lose?” She asked this

question to the artists and the representatives of NPOs in the

space.

The question wasn’t an accusation, but a genuine offer to consider

what loss it would take in order to gain true equity in our industry.

It’s a really important question.

There was a reflection in the room on how the word ‘radical’ can

often lead to an assumption of it (whatever it is) being impossible.

It’s an uncomfortable truth — particularly when what we’re talking

about is workers’ rights and job security for the people who sit at

the heart of our sector. Which is not radical at all.

The recent announcement of a £1 .5 billion financial support

package from the government further proves just how antiradical

our industry is, because none of that support is intended to go

directly to artists. The gatekeepers of that support made the

deliberate decision not to include artists early on. I can very easily

imagine that conversation happening, because it’s so familiar. So

many of our lives have been radically upended — but on the part of

the government, nothing has changed.

And I can predict what will happen next — the usual approach to

‘crisis management’ will ensue. Consultants who likely charge five

times that of an artist’s daily rate sweeping into our failing

buildings to fix them, without considering what really needs fixing

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in the first place — that there were already huge,

gaping chasms which the pandemic has further

exacerbated. And they’ll apply the models we

already know, models handed down over

generations that are riddled with the same

inequalities and violent power dynamics. There

will be nothing radical, nothing bespoke or new.

That would be too risky — and we all know how

the funders really feel about ‘risk’.

When I came to work at East Street Arts I wanted

to be there because I was curious to know what

an artist-led organisation looked like after 25

years. How it was different, and how it was not

different, to other regularly funded organisations

and institutions I’d worked with across seven

years as an independent producer.

I’m still working that out. But what I can say with

confidence is that there is one key difference: a

revelling in continuous change, being in a

constant state of flux. And I think it’s that

acceptance of movement, changing minds and

not applying the same approach to everything we

do, that grounds my genuine belief that artists

should be at the helm of our industry. It’s that

belief in the process before the product. And that

if you get that process right, the experience for

the audiences that you invite in to witness the

ending will be glorious.

What’s troubling me here is that I don’t believe

the process we will go through over the next year

or two to get the industry going again will accept

change, risk or failure. Because our industry in

the mainstream never has.

Of course, I understand that in the midst of a

pandemic to start taking ‘risks’ might not feel like

taking care — perhaps we can’t afford failure and

need security in the suffering. I question what the

bigger risk is and don’t see how we can continue

to ignore that the average artist’s annual income

is approximately £5,000, when a Director of one

of our NPOs can earn up to £800,000 per year.

What would it be like if artists were the

consultants? If we didn’t re-open the buildings,

and artists had space, time and that consultancy

£ to bring these buildings back into life and their

original purpose as spaces to begin with?

What if we genuinely understood what the role of

the current employees of those buildings needed

to be as part of that process: yes the CEOs, the

Marketing Managers and the Producers, but

more the front of house staff, the cleaning staff,

the bar and hospitality teams? Who, by the way,

are regularly artists themselves.

(To be clear — I’m not suggesting that we just

turn around to the independent sector and go

‘okay, you clean up this mess we’ve made’ and

expect artists to go at it alone. That would be an

impossible, and unfair, task to set. I am

suggesting that we utilise artists’ rich pool of

expertise whilst providing the employment

creatives need, to create the recovery we all

deserve.)

Artist-led isn’t new or radical (speaking from a

25-year-old artist-led organisation). But it has

been suffocated and trapped between a higher

education system that’s lost its way, and ‘the

institution’ as what artist-led is supposedly

aspiring to become. Artists have been

infantilised and reduced, blocked from leadership

positions and pushed into unstable and unfair

2 2

payment systems. Because artists just want to make art, right? We’re

doing them a favour.

It’s this system that sets up an artist vs venue dynamic. And I, as a

Director of an NPO, am complicit in that. Which is why I need to be

careful when I get that sickly feeling of discomfort at being asked,

‘What are you willing to lose?’ and remind myself that it is not an

accusation. It is a genuine, important question asked by Toni-Dee

Paul that I need to consider. Not one set up to create a divide

between the artists and the salaried people in the room — because

that divide is already there. And we have stopped progress from

happening by pretending it isn’t a deep, inherent part of all of the

conversations we have about the future of our industry. If we look at

that divide, investigate it and accept it we can finally start to think

about what changes we need to make to bridge it.

And those changes must span salaries and payment systems,

staffing structures, governance systems, consultancy, business

modelling, ownership structures, project and regular funding

programmes.

There isn’t one answer to, ‘What are you willing to lose?’ but I think

these are the starting points. The reality is that for me personally the

most immediate losses will be money, control and a title. I’m good

with that. I just hope that I can be part of the process to sort out this

mess, work with my sector to change it — and I mean, really change

it.

The task might sound overwhelming. But, when you break it down

into its parts, this process doesn’t have to be as impossible as we

assume it might be. And when you get into spaces like FIELD, where

each person is there to bring something to the table, and to listen,

and to work in a process upheld by a strong undercurrent of care

and equity, then actually it is completely possible.

2 4

umar

butt

P A I N O N

P A P E R

Umar is an actor, writer, director and theatre maker focused on

socially engaged work, committed to creating work that focuses on

inclusive participatory practice. Based in the North East, he is an

Associate artist of ARC Stockton and Proteus Theatre Company,

which gives him a platform to develop work for people of colour. As

a first generation migrant, Umar is passionate about exploring

themes such as home, belonging, family, community and

displacement. He is also Co-founder of Bijli, inaugural company in

residence at National Theatre of Scotland.

Me, my mum and my older sister spent about a year and a half in the

jungle (Calais) when I was eight.

Most of my memories of that time are filled with my belly being full

from eating my weight in different styles of food, made by people from

different cultures and countries, all living in the same camp, displaced.

They didn’t have much money but they were the richest people in

humility and humanity I have ever had the blessings to be with. After

dinner, the maulanas stood up to pray, the musicians played their

different instruments, the singers sang their songs, this cacophony of

sound all mashed together in a melting pot. I remember laughing and

laughter, surrounded by the sunshine and stories of hope, near misses

and happiness.

There is, however, a dreich memory which I suppressed. A memory of a

refugee girl, my age then, my best friend, who was battered to death,

supposedly by the people who wanted us refugees out. There was a

big riot and the authorities had to lock the camp down for little more

than three months, we weren’t allowed to leave our room. Our French

caretaker (Florien) gave me and my sister three books to read: two

were in French, — we couldn’t read French — and the other was an

English translation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which me and my

sister took months to read to each other. That book was our education.

That room was our world.

I didn’t realise how much of a trigger lockdown was going to be for me.

I started getting flash backs of that time. This notion of not being able

to do any of the work I had planned this year was daunting and very

destructive for my mental health.

I feel like, I have now, after many months, finally begun the journey to

accept this new normal.

I have found peace and serenity, in having a choice, because I have

time, to read all the books that are gathering dust on my book shelf if I

want and I have made a small start. I’m thinking of new projects

everyday, but I am struggling to find any sort of inspiration. And that’s

okay because…

2 6

Unexpected gift at an unexpected time.

Like everybody else in the world, I thought “I’m done! I will never work again.

I need to find another profession,” but someone wise once said to me, and I

think this might be true:

“Theatre has been dying since its inception many hundreds, maybe

thousands of years ago, but somehow it always seems to find a way to

breathe.

The surge of casting directors wanting me to self tape, getting paid £50

here, £20 there, to record a monologue on my phone, getting a masterclass

on where is the best place to put my laptop while on a zoom meeting.

Watching free performances and putting on two stones in these past three

and a bit months, has been sublime. I’ve not been raking it in by any means,

but I have had my necessities met. I have realised how little I need to

survive, to live, to love and be happy.

FIELD Residency

FIELD Residency by Two Destination Language is probably the best thing I

have been part of thus far, in this lockdown. Kat and Alister are super cool

humans, driven with compassion. They are the trail blazers of the new

normal. It’s lovely to see and experience that in this adverse challenging

time, there are still companies out there who are thinking outside the box

and helping artists do what do they do best. It has been a total bundle of

Joy! Speaking to many different artists with very different life and work

experience, has shifted my tunnel vison of draught and made me hope and

dream again. It’s going to be alright you know.

Nostalgia from the past but securing the future.

Since the FIELD Residency, I feel like I have had so many chats with artist

friends about nostalgia for the past but also about securing the future.

People really want to make a difference. There is a great buzz around being

transparent, keeping everyone in the loop and maybe this is the time to sow

seeds for future fruits. I feel like I am coming out the other side. Back then I

was scared I will never work again and now I’m thinking if things go back to

normal, then it’ll be a crying shame. I want our industry to do better. Our

world to be better. I mean, people are saying “hello” when they go past me

on the street. After four years of living in the same house, on a same street, I

know my neighbour’s names. I’m seeing compassion. I’m feeling the love.

And long may it continue…

2 8

kate

craddock

W H A T I H E A R D

W H E N I R E A L L Y

L I S T E N E D

Kate is Founder and Festival Director of GIFT: Gateshead

International Festival of Theatre, an artist-led festival celebrating

contemporary theatre. Kate works across creative and academic

contexts, she holds a PhD, and is currently in a research role at

Newcastle University. As a theatre maker, Kate has performed

throughout the UK and internationally. She is a Trustee for ARC,

Stockton and The Paper Birds. In 201 8/1 9, Kate was recipient of the

Clore Cultural Leadership Theatre Fellowship.

I was invited to join some of the online FIELD

Residency conversations — to listen to the

participating artists, and contribute responses

from my perspective as Festival Director of GIFT.

As soon as I landed in FIELD — what blossomed

into an online haven — I realised how privileged I

was to be invited into this space. This field was a

computer screen brimming with extraordinary

artists, full of opinions, ideas, solutions,

possibilities, and a palpable sense of care for one

another, crafted and facilitated beautifully by Kat

and Alister.

I eased my way in.

I listened. Actively, and deeply.

In return, in the safety of this space, I probably

over-shared.

This was a screen full of voices that are not

always heard,

on the stages where they need to be.

At times this was a screaming screen of anger,

At times a streaming screen of tears,

And very often a screen filled with laughter — a

total scream.

I listened.

I heard the pleasure in pursuing an artistic

practice,

I heard the pain in professionalising that pursuit.

I heard frustration at the fickleness of blowing in

and out of fashion,

I heard delight in realising that you weren’t the

only one.

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I heard parenting panic, the perennial problem of

how to prioritise,

I heard how ‘never hearing back’ can attack the

will to even try.

I heard Black Lives Matter.

I heard the ceiling still needs shattered.

I heard how lack of access perpetuates social

models of disability.

I heard solutions and new structures for making

the arts equitable, free.

I heard the importance of care, for yourself and

others,

I heard of hard work, free labour, no time for

lovers.

I heard how university courses set artists up to

fail,

I heard of discomfort and deceit when discussing

deals.

I heard solidarity, and recognition.

I witnessed care.

I heard that feeling valued as an artist can be

extremely rare.

I heard of power imbalances, references to ‘us

and them’ —

I heard brilliant proposals for how we might all

start again,

from scratch.

I listened as the conversations ebbed and flowed,

The pauses, the space for silence, the joy of

shared crescendos.

This fertile field of possibility, of dialogue, delight,

Should be heard, acted on, amplified.

3 2

brendan

curtis

B E L I K E

&

F R E E W R I T I N G

W I T H D A D D Y I S S U E S

Brendan Curtis (he/him) is a Liverpool-based artist, performer, writer

and chef. he co-produces and hosts EAT ME a 3 course drag dinner

cabaret, preach! a queer disco and SPEW a night for new queer

work. he is currently working on Queer Bodies — a rolling, peer-led

alternative education project developing cohort of North West

writers and poets. he writes around the grotesque, cuteness, DEATH

and failure, often performing as Auntie Climax or Penny Lane.

be like libraries

like soup kitchen

like carnival

be like mothers love be like

no borders

be like dinner table

free buffet

be like help yourself

eat

before you work

be like artist

is already a job

like work smarter not harder

like gift economy

like give the soft animal of your

body what it needs

be generous

be grateful

be free

be like safe space

you can nap if you want to

shoot up in the loos

be like take your time

don’t have to buy anything

low slow ferment

like mildew, funghi, mould

be like dancefloor

like playful mess

like shit everywhere

but behave, ok?

be for every body

be like horizontal power structure

be like a mirror of society

be like I don’t know

— but I’d like to

be like, not a total fucking prick?

be like fuck the fascists!

like do the scary thing

be evolving

take the risks

be like green revolution

blue sky

garden

be sustainable practice

like boundaries are sacred

like home life / health / kids matter

like returning to nature

hands in the earth

map the bottom of the ocean

plant seeds

hug a tree

be slutty

be your own best bitch

be like ‘I love you’ every day

not just on valentines

(say it in the mirror)

be real

be ugly

be weird

too much

— but be soft

be kind

be like i wish you the best

like ask me what I need

like say how are you?

& mean it

3 4

be open

like I have nothing to hide

like my house is your house

like all property is theft

like all are welcome

like “i’m listening”

be like hope is radical

like access is sexy

like consensual sex

like fat is beautiful

like age is wisdom

like extra virgin olive oil

like too much garlic

The headline on my feed declares 75% of all insect life is dead it feels like we’re a long long way

from every body having equal rights and scientists suggest we have around 1 0 years before a

total climate system collapse. This makes me question the role of the artist in the struggle for

humanity’s survival. Maybe now is a good time to resist indulging in petty squabbles if you can.

My friend’s 6 y/o son who like many kids is utterly obsessed with all scuttling life had a water

bottle that said ‘there is no planet b’ writ on its side I’m not sure if I want mindfulness and therapy

to rid me of the anxiety I feel. I am certain some people would suggest the remedy to the fear is

love and greater degrees of compassion which are never a bad thing in my experience but

perhaps the best active choice we can all make is to try and sit with our feelings maybe

maintaining the gaze of someone who is suffering not simply switching off when we encounter

something that scares us or makes us feel guilty or angry retreating into a boxset or unscrewing

the lid of another bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Crisp gooseberries and tropical fruit

goes well with lamb. I had to write a letter to my father the last week and my counsellor reflected:

the distance you created between the two of you is an illusion so as I prepare to do a difficult

thing and send the letter to him after ten years of minimal contact I ask that you try to walk

towards something that scares you too. Aside from that I think it is always good to try to

remember that most often people are trying their best. Perhaps sitting with our difficult emotions

will make it easier to be part of the solutions and negotiate our own privilege, perhaps it could

stop us from becoming mired in our own defensiveness. When I think about that mass extinction

of insect life the sound of clicking mouthparts legs antennae and wings becomes almost

deafening but when I study the passage of one beetle from my front step to whatever dark hidey

hole it likes to rest in I find this phenomena more relatable. In bearing witness to the death of a

single snail or earthworm I can connect to the death of their entire species. Perhaps one role of

the artist today may be to transport our audiences or viewers into the microscopic world of

insects, to offer a focusing lens with which to look at, to sit with you and hold space for you — us

— the bumble bee and the billions of other silenced insects, tiny lives that mattered too — not as

separate not as an overwhelming cacophony but as struggling individuals connected by an

invisible fragile web of inter dependence and enormous vulnerability

emma

geraghty

W E W I L L C A R E

D E E P L Y : A

M A N I F E S T O

Emma Geraghty is a writer and theatremaker from Manchester. She

likes making work that explores the body, queerness, and the idea of

home — usually with a lot of music and several cups of tea thrown

in. Most of Emma’s time is spent imagining boat-based artistic

communities, thinking of stupid puns, and reading books big enough

to kill a man.

I’m writing this in the lounge. I’m listening to k-pop loud in my

headphones because next door are drilling again. They’ve been doing

work on their house since the start of lockdown. We (me and my

housemates) thought next door were building a new porch, but it

looks like they are extending the front of their house. Which is fine,

you do you hon, you show those bricks who’s boss.

The house over the road does it in bursts of three days. Last week it

sounded like they had started forging swords or making horseshoes.

We’re pretty sure the house two doors down started fracking in their

backyard two weeks ago.

In the first week of lockdown, someone in a nearby house decided to

start learning the bagpipes. This does not fit with the metaphor I’m

about to use, but I want people to know about the bagpipes.

There is a lot of Big Thinking going on at the minute. How do we

save the arts industry, how do we reshape the future of theatre, what

we need is massive structural change and equal distribution of

wealth and to overthrow the government and then we can have a

bigger brighter future, and I get it. I understand the value in this blue

sky Miss World skyscraper thinking. But it makes me feel so damn

small. It all feels out of reach. I struggle to get out of bed in the

morning, I don’t feel able to dismantle an oppressive power

structure.

Right now I need something solid, something I can build with bricks.

Some next steps. The canyon between here and whatever the future

holds is vast and yawning and I need something that can propel me

over it.

So I want to start with a manifesto.

We the Artists, in order to face the challenges up ahead and the

changes that have to be made, put forward this manifesto.

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We the Artists will put care at the centre of everything we do. We will

care deeply.

We will embrace vulnerability and know that as long as we stand

together, we will be safe.

We will stand together and be strong.

We will clasp hands and raise defiant fists.

We will know that power comes from community.

We will know that together, we can do so much.

We the Artists will only work with organisations who are transparent

about money.

where we can see the amount the artistic director of a venue

gets paid next to how much the cleaning staff get paid

where the budgets are readily available and easy to understand

where it is clear where they get their money from

When we make work, we will make sure everyone in the room is

getting paid the same amount. If there is a pay gap between

freelancers working on the same project, we will question why. If

we feel we deserve more money than someone else on a project,

we will ask ourselves why.

We will stop treating money as a taboo topic. If we don’t talk

about it, nothing will get done about it.

We the Artists will only work with venues and organisations who are

committed to proper equality.

who are actively anti-racist all the time, not just because it’s a hot

topic

who are actively trying to combat the climate crisis, even though

it is not the headline of the day

who recognise that the people selling ice creams are just as

much a vital part of the arts ecology as everyone else working

within it.

who centre accessibility as something that is vital for everyone,

and not as an optional extra

who recognise that just programming work by Queer / Black /

Brown / Asian / Disabled / Gender Diverse/ Working Class (and

4 0

so many more) artists isn’t enough

who stop using the word ‘risky’ to describe work by these artists

It is not enough just to acknowledge that there is a problem.

We must work towards solutions.

We will continue to learn.

We will continue to make mistakes.

There is always more work to be done.

We the Artists will be honest about being wrong. We will learn. We

will show up.

we will recognise that we do not need to be at the centre of

something to fight for it.

we will amplify the voices of people who need to be heard, and

know that voice is not always ours.

We the Artists will look after ourselves when we are making work.

We will not bleed our trauma onto a stage just because blood is

easy to sell tickets for.

We will take care of ourselves better than we are doing right now.

We will take care of each other. We will not beat ourselves up for

not being able to do things.

If we need days watching reruns of the x-men cartoons, then that

is okay.

If we need to go and stand in the rain at night and cry, then that is

okay.

If we can’t get out of bed, that is okay.

We will know that when we are hurting, there will be people

around to listen to us and to hold us, because every single one of

us deserves to be listened to and to be held.

We know that there are challenges ahead, and we will do

everything we can to move towards them with strength and unity.

We will give ourselves the bricks to build this bridge.

We the Artists will care deeply.

4 2

adam

york

gregory

F E N C E S

Adam’s final school report said, “when present seemed interested”

and he would like that as his epitaph.

He is currently trying to rehabilitate the term conceptual artist.

[FENCES]

David holds the barbed wire as I

lean under it. He’s the reason we

are both here, at the far edge of a

field at the far edge of town.

We had been talking about his

youth, growing up in that part of

Canada where farming dominates

the landscape. The Prairies. He told

me that they often used the

kilometers of wire fencing as a

system of communication.

It’s true, you can send signals along

the wires.

“Maybe we could try that here,” I

suggested.

And now we were in a field.

The idea had changed, as all ideas

change when applied to reality.

Rather than send a signal along the

barbed wire fence, we decided that

we could use it as a broadcast

antenna. Coupled to this would be

a small development board, a tiny

microphone, an amplifier, and a

transformer. It would be powered

by the car battery we had carried

up the hill.

You could, if you were being

technical, call it a pirate radio

station.

However, we were not planning on

playing music but instead, we

wanted to send the sound of the

rural landscape down the valley

and into the town. You would be

able to tune in and hear the grass

as it grows, and the hedges as they

lean into the wind.

We often think of noise invading

quiet spaces.

We were trying to invert that.

Quiet as a force.

We often think of fences as

keeping things in, not allowing

them to escape further.

David walked the perimeter,

checking for continuity as I hooked

everything up.

I’d rehearsed this a few times in my

kitchen but this was our first field

test.

Realistically, we expected it to be a

failure. Perhaps, at best, the

broadcast would be strong enough

to reach the radios of passing cars

that happened to be tuned into the

exact frequency.

Once everything was connected

and powered on, I wrapped it in

thick plastic and gaffer tape to

4 4

make it watertight and as quiet as

possible.

We left the field, dipping under the

wire again, and set off walking

back towards the town. After a few

minutes, David pulled the batterypowered

radio out of his rucksack

and turned it on. He moved the dial

towards the frequency we had

aimed for — one that didn't

compete with a local broadcast —

and listened as we passed through

distant voices and songs and

static, and then... nothing.

I’m not sure what we were

expecting. Perhaps we should have

made a distinct test signal. At first

it was a disappointment, but this

turned into a particular giddiness.

We were not listening to the static

of nothing. We were broadcasting

silence.

[SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO]

Signal to noise ratio is a measure

used in science and engineering

that compares the level of a

desired signal to the level of

background noise.

Expressed in decibels, a ratio

higher than 1 :1 indicates more

signal than noise.

When the signal to noise ratio

drops below 1 :1 there is more

noise than signal. The signal is

lost.

The term is also used

metaphorically to refer to the ratio

of useful information to false or

irrelevant data in conversation or

exchange.

[LOUDER]

How dare he!

How dare the man behind the

counter of a shop, his shop, in

Spain, over two kilometers away

from the hotel...

How dare he speak only Spanish!

The reddened man at the other side

of the counter, the customer, tries

again. This time, louder.

“Do you have any Marmite? Y’know,

for toast. Breakfast.... Break...

Fast.”

And once more, even louder.

“Marm... ite.”

The shopkeeper frowns and shakes

his head. I catch his eye and I smile

in apology. He smiles back.

The customer tries one last time.

Loud and now with the exaggerated

4 6

hand actions of someone either

spreading something on toast or

sharpening a knife on a leather

strop.

“MARMITE.”

The customer flip-flops his way

through the store and out into the

sunlight. He’s shaking his head,

unsatisfied and muttering.

I approach the counter and smile

again. The shop owner smiles

back. I point at the packet behind

him and he hands over the

cigarettes. I hand over the money

and I use the only Spanish I know.

“Gracias.”

“No problem,” he responds.

I walk out of the shop, down the

aisle, passing the shelves of

magazines, bottles of cheap but

decent red wine, and the jars of

marmite.

[AMPLIFICATION]

Generally, when we think of

amplification we think of volume.

We think of making things louder.

However, the main way in which we

encounter amplification is more

about transforming a signal from

one that we can’t hear into one that

we can.

The signal, as a radio wave, can

travel astounding distances,

dependent upon its wavelength and

modulation, but once received it is

unable to move the paper cone of a

speaker.

In this case, the amplifier takes the

radio signal and converts it into

electrical impulses that can move

the speaker cone.

This also highlights a limit of

amplification, at least in this sense,

in that it doesn’t distinguish

between the signal and the noise. It

converts them both equally.

A noisy signal becomes noisy

audio, no matter how much you

amplify it.

[NOISE]

If we were talking about electrical

equipment there would be three

main sources of noise.

External noise is inescapable. It is a

fact of the universe. It is cosmic

background radiation. It is the

sound of the Sun.

Internal noise, conversely, is

produced by the very equipment

you are using to receive the signal.

Most commonly this takes the

form of thermal agitation noise,

flicker, resistance effect and short

noise, which is caused by the

random movement of electrons.

Then there is the other, lesser

talked about source of noise.

Other people’s signals.

[FILTERING]

There are ways of isolating a signal

from the noise surrounding it. Your

radio is rather brilliant at it. It uses

frequency as a selection criteria.

You turn the dial to a specified

frequency and every other

frequency is filtered out.

Can you imagine a radio without

this ability? It would amplify all the

signals it receives at once. All of

the songs, and interviews, and

adverts overlaid and intertwined

and stuck together with static.

[LOSS]

Google captions are amazing.

Really amazing.

Real-time translation of audio into

text.

This is like living in the future.

You can read what you can’t hear.

But is it real? If you can’t hear what

is being said, how do you know that

what you are reading is a perfect

copy. A signal without the noise of

a machine?

What follows is a collection of

captions, taken over a two week

period, 1 5–26 June 2020, during

the FIELD residency. Presented

without context. I will never know if

these were words genuinely

spoken, but I have my suspicions

that they were not.

America Pain twins.

Dead Deb.

Bread Curtis.

1 00 Wow.

Beer on Swoosh.

More Warp Feel.

We might just find a prom but we'll

never get there.

What do we need with this cabinet?

Nobody gets back to you after the

small poo.

You're being kind if you think your

ex is a massive thing.

We should order film back in 201 5.

Mike Spence, you so different.

This pie killing best looks break it.

I'm a lime, non-disabled.

Use your imaginal cells.

But all of wooden throwing in here

is time.

We're death we can adapt.

Socially engaged practice we need

to lick.

4 8

I wonder if this is a good debacle.

40 Week gas station period.

Performance Adulate.

Everyone's just google.

It would have been nice to be on

that salad.

[LOUDER]

The Mosquito is an ‘anti-loitering

alarm’ sold by Compound Security

in the UK. They describe it as

“using the science of sound to

prevent anti-social behaviour.”

It is designed to stop teenagers

from gathering in groups.

The Mosquito relies on the fact

that as we get older, our ability to

hear high-frequency sounds

lessens. Young people, teenagers,

can hear what we can’t. Also, and

rather importantly, these high

frequency sounds are unpleasant.

Like a dog whistle.

At a frequency of 1 6–1 8.5

kilohertz, a tone is inaudible to

adults but unpleasant to teenagers.

That’s the science of sound,

apparently.

The Mosquito broadcasts at a high

volume. It broadcasts like a fire

alarm that warns of adult disdain,

rather than any danger.

The system is often installed in

public spaces. If you are wondering

if that is legal, Compound Security

assures you that it is.

The system is installed to prevent

congregation. Outside shops, in

city streets.

The Mosquito targets people that

want to meet with their peers in

public spaces, by deliberately and

selectively making their

environment unbearable.

And somehow, it is the teenagers

that are accused of antisocial

behaviour.

[SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO]

It is 201 7 and the Edinburgh

Festival Fringe is in full swing. I'm

excited to be here, not as an artist,

but as an audience member.

I'm surrounded by amazing work of

outstanding quality and variety.

And their posters.

And their postcards.

And their flyers, thrust into my

hands as I walk the streets.

The same expressions staring out,

over and over in a row along a wall.

5 0

An endless narrative of four star

reviews.

It was brilliant, the best show I've

ever seen, four stars.

It was awful, the worst show I've

ever seen, four stars.

It has become noise.

All noise.

The competition, for my ears and

my eyes.

It is overwhelming. There is so

much here that I adore. So many

things that I’d normally be thrilled

to encounter... but the noise.

It is 201 7 and the Edinburgh

Festival Fringe is in full swing.

I’m in a bar, hiding, not watching

anything.

[UNION]

The first unions were children of

the industrial revolution. Workers

realising the combination of their

awful working conditions and their

own power as a necessary

resource.

The union became a tool. An

amplifier of a clear signal. A single

message spoken with power.

The unions were of, and for, the

working class.

When did this change?

How did this change?

The 1 970s.

Margaret Thatcher.

The Tories.

Capitalism... no... Neo-liberalism.

Individualism.

‘Class Mobility.’

The unions and their strikes are not

for your benefit. The darkness you

sit in is their fault. You just want to

work, and make money. Your life

isn't that bad... it is better than your

parents’. You can even buy your

own house now. Your former

council house.

It is not the government that goes

on strike, it’s the union.

And the working class dissolves. It

chose a quiet passivity over a

unified voice.

We all became middle class.

“I’m the first of my family to go to

university,” says everyone.

Except for the ones that don’t. The

new underclass. Non-working

class. Exploited and now voiceless.

Back to Thatcher. Now she makes

gathering illegal. Protests and

raves. No single voice, no repetitive

beats.

She becomes a political mosquito.

Which one? The one that drains

your blood and spreads disease, or

the one that stops teenagers from

gathering and organising?

The rise of the individual is sold as

empowerment. Your voice, your

way.

Except now we are all shouting.

Millions of different voices, all

urgent, all saying different things all

at the same time.

Shout louder, they say.

But all this does is make you

compete with your peers, your

friends and your family. You are

distracted because your throat

hurts. It’s tiring shouting to be

heard.

And it is lonely.

The signal to noise ratio has been

reduced to less than 1 :1 .

...But this isn't the end of it.

We are not powerless. We have a

weapon.

Quiet.

Aggressive quiet.

Attentive quiet.

Conspiratorial quiet.

The ability to pause our broadcast.

To reduce the noise. To listen to

others and to allow their signal to

get through, and perhaps, to work

together to amplify it, in union.

[STATIC]

They walk amongst us. The last

generation that could fall asleep in

front of the television and wake up,

some time later, to a screen of

snow and the sound of static.

You can download apps that play

you white noise, to lull you to sleep.

It isn't the same though. This is

clean, artificial noise.

You will never hear the accidental

bleed through of strange music,

people speaking languages you

can't understand, conversations

and communications, and the hum

of cosmic background radiation.

It’s that sound, the pervasive,

eternal sound of the universe that

has such a soporific effect on us

all.

5 2

Ellie

Harrison

L E S S W A L L S , M O R E R A M P S :

A S P A T I A L R E I M A G I N I N G

O F V E N U E S A N D T H E A R T O F

W E L C O M E

Ellie Harrison is an artist living in Leeds and working internationally.

She creates a range of solo and collaborative performances for

studios, galleries, found and public spaces. Participation is at the

heart of all of her work as a performer, facilitator and mentor. For the

last decade she has been creating a body of projects called The Grief

Series and is currently collaborating with The Faro De Oriente in

Mexico City on All that Lives.

If this was a usual, geographical residency and I had to pack my bags and go

away for two weeks, I don’t know if I’d be able to go as I have a chronic

illness, other jobs and caring responsibilities. I don’t even know if I would

have applied. But I did apply and I am here and it is glorious. It is a space for

me to learn and listen and think and speak. And say the things I’m scared to

say. A space to feel huge waves of relief as others articulate more

beautifully than I ever could the feelings I thought I was alone with. And

things I’d never have thought of in a million years. Because of COVID-1 9 the

space is necessarily in our homes over video calls, with dogs and children

and books and musical instruments never far out of reach.

Every morning there’s a kitchen chat; informal and warm. For a moment we

feel as if we are in Kat and Alister’s kitchen with coffee brewing and chairs

round the table. In the afternoon we have more focused conversations about

the things that matter to us. Care. Anti-capitalism. Being an artist in the

North. And we are joined by people from venues, sometimes big sparkly

venues. But without their venues to host the meetings, they are just people.

People working from home. People who are listening. People with internet

connection problems and children sitting on laps. It is a more vulnerable,

more human way of working. It is a kinder space and a braver space.

Perhaps instinctively this is why I make site-based work. Work that

sometimes slips through the cracks and doesn’t feel quite at home in a

gallery or theatre. Because where I feel the space between people is more

porous, more equal, more intimate is more often in the bar, or queuing for

the toilet than in the main auditorium. This is why I’ve made work for parks,

town squares, caravans and one-man tents. The playing field feels more

level, if a little muddy sometimes. Sometimes accessibility is about more

than a wheelchair ramp. There are all sorts of other ramps needed too,

spatial and emotional.

At the moment venues are closing. Jobs are being lost. It is heartbreaking.

The impact is felt by organisations and freelancers in all sorts of sectors

and circumstances. In amongst the global chaos, I have been listening to

theatre makers and theatre buildings in a way I haven’t for a while.

I have been in zoom rooms with artists and organisations where, if it were a

real room (most probably in London or a train ride away), I would not have

been invited. That door would be firmly shut. But right now it isn’t. I can pop

into industry chats as easily as I can pop round to a neighbours for a socially

distanced front garden gossip. There has been a ramp in for me. Followed

by an open door. I feel hopeful. I’m able to join in even when I can’t leave the

5 4

house because I’m sick. We can join in with a child on our laps or a rescue

dog called Panda at our feet.

During FIELD the people who have joined us from venues have felt more

human, more vulnerable; I have heard their fear for venues, and the immense

weight on the people that run them. Although they (the venue people) are

still on salary (for now), and we (the artists) aren’t, the ease by which we

have been able to join the conversation has meant that the ‘Us vs Them’

which is so often keenly felt by artists feels different. It feels like in some

way we have taken a step closer together. That the precarity they are now

sitting with, is artists’ home turf. We live there and we know the terrain like

the square mile of our childhood: welcome to our neighbourhood.

I say all this with full acknowledgement that some big organisations have

regularly spent more on dry, uneaten event sandwiches than I have earned in

a single year. However close we may feel sitting around the same zoomkitchen

table in this moment of crisis, the reality of surviving year after year

as an independent (tired) self-producing artist is a tough endurance slog. It

has given me rage and makes my emotional baggage intolerably heavy. But

maybe, counterintuitively, now is a good time to set that down and stay at

the table a while longer.

My practice around grief has taught me that shaming people is rarely

helpful; it isn’t productive for people to feel shame unless it’s connected to

action and hard work. So when I am teetering between rage and compassion

I will pick the hard work of compassion as much as I can. Don’t mistake

compassion as fluffy. It is not the absence of anger or fear. It is work... but

I’d rather work with people from venues to rebuild better, more equal spaces.

So where will the next phase of rebuilding work take place? Will the venues

continue to invite artists into their zoom-kitchen once lockdown has eased?

A door has opened, very tentatively. I am both hopeful for the future and

scared that when lockdown ends the door will swing shut again. So many

doors. It makes me think; what if the way we’ve been looking after the big

buildings really has been getting in the way of looking after the people?

Picking up what (I think Hannah?) said on the last day: what if Artistic

Directors were called Caretakers? It’s not just a change of job title but a

change of role. What I love about the title ‘Caretaker’ is it immediately

prompts the question: what or who are you taking care of? Is the building at

the top of the priority list, or the people? Of course, I think it’s the people.

Even though there are structures that need to change, people who work in

5 6

venues, we care about you. We can say together that things need to change

and we can change them. Together. Let the ramp building commence.

Will venues start creating these accessible, human, vulnerable spaces, and

continue to keep breaking down the hierarchies between venues, artists and

audiences? What if they asked questions about what is needed rather than

telling us the answers? Guessing and dreaming together is part of the fun.

How could these kitchen-table conversations be a model for helping us all

remove the false distinction between ‘proper/impressive/professional’ and

‘intimate/meaningful/accessible’? What if venues started allocating a

programming budget that wasn’t connected to the main house or the studio?

A budget to nurture small moments of connection as well as big moments

of spectacle, meaning that art would be just as likely to appear on the cafe

menu as on the stage. In installations or invitations or provocations in the

bar and the loos and the box office. In carefully designed corners for mums

to breastfeed, designed by and with artists and mums.

What if there was a recognition that the front of house staff are often the

same people as the artists who have transformed the notion of welcome

into an art form? What if the art of welcome spilled past the building’s walls

and work was programmed in the car park or outside the scene dock?

I hope our venues can seize this learning to become accessible for more

kinds of artists and more kinds of people. That fewer people will see the

Theatre and think “that’s not for me. I don’t belong there.” Perhaps this

outdoor, participatory work could be a way to help invite people into a venue

they’ve never been in. A literal friendly face stood outside the door, saying

“I’m doing this, what do you need to join in?”

Why stop there? What if a venue wasn’t a building but was nomadic? That

the people who make up the venue could leave to meet artists and

audiences where they live? In the parks and car parks and door steps?

Human warmth can be felt in a space when there is no central heating.

And if it comes to it, if we’re going to take a sledgehammer to the existing

structure I want the Caretaker formerly known as the Artistic Director to roll

up their sleeves and do some of the heavy lifting. I’ll help. But I’m too tired to

do it alone.

Until sledgehammer time comes... come round to mine and we can chat.

The door is open and there are seats at the Kitchen table for you... and you

are very welcome. The kettle is on.

5 8

katie

hickman

T R A N S P A R E N C Y

Katie Hickman is Curator of Performance and Public Proramme at

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. She has curated

visual arts commissions, exhibitions and live productions, while

leading the development and implementation of performance work

at BALTIC during the last four years.

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there

they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean

it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if

they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel

it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now i know it more

when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there

they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m sure of it now

i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough

this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden before i’m

sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it even if we don’t

mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are there they glare brightly is the

light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this this process transparency radical transparency i’ve hidden

before i’m sure of it now i know it more when it is hidden even if they mean it

even if we don’t mean it meaning isn’t enough this process the gaps are

there they glare brightly is the light now shining i feel it i know you do

So I wrote this.

This

process.

Transparency. Radical transparency.

I’ve hidden before, I’m sure of it now.

I know it more. When it is hidden.

Even if they mean it, even if we don’t mean it.

Meaning isn’t enough. This

process.

The gaps are there. They glare brightly.

Is the light now shining?

I feel it.

I know you do.

6 0

lady

kitt

S P I T I N M Y M O U T H

L I K E I T ’ S 2 0 1 9 :

C R E A T I V E I N T I M A C I E S I N A

T I M E O F S O C I A L D I S T A N C E

Lady Kitt is a live-art crafter and drag king from Newcastle-Upon-

Tyne. Their work is driven by an insatiable curiosity about the social

functions of stuff that gets called art. They use papercrafting,

performance and research to create objects, interactions,

adventures. Some things that have happened as part of Kitt's

practice are: supersized origami wheelchairs, policy changes, and an

international feminist art magazine for and by children.

1 . I work in a people-who-make-art-with-people practice. This gets

called all sorts of things: socially engaged art, participatory practice,

community activism. Whatever natty phrase we go for, creative

intimacies are essential to the work I do. For me, “creative intimacies”

are human connections and they exist on a scale. One end is

something that, at the moment, I’m calling “civic creative intimacies”

(ideological and structural togetherness that happens because of and

through collaborative creative and social action). At the other end are

“personal creative intimacies” (emotional and physical connections

that happen because of and through collaborative creative and

personal action). An example of “civic creative intimacies” could be a

community group who use crafting as a connecting activity which

offers time and space to think about and build their shared ethos.

Maybe they then use the togetherness they’ve created to lobby for

political change or improve their local environment. An example of

“personal creative intimacies” could be a parent and child who play

music together as a way of sharing time and ideas about

/enthusiasms for, the world. Maybe this closeness helps them to

develop, discover and appreciate mutual understandings, skills and

interests – part of them creating a shared family culture.

I don’t think any one event or interaction is purely civic or personal.

They meld and mix, form and inform one another. They are not always

beautiful, calm and enlightening. They can be uncomfortable,

argumentative and bold. They can be sticky and spit-y and messy.

And, the mess is needed. It’s where the most fun, interesting, useful

stuff happens; where people can use creativity to be vulnerable, to ask

questions, to solve problems, to create change. In lockdown I have

been deeply, desperately, missing creative intimacies of every kind

and wondering why/how the hell we might “do” social practice in a

socially distanced world. Very quickly that “why” disappeared. Horrific

inequalities, starkly illuminated by the pandemic answer the “why”

with searing, brutal clarity. So, I’m left with the “how” and… I’m

working on it. Alongside fellow FIELD ecologists I have been

discovering simple, practical stuff that can allow creative intimacies

to happen with physical distance, yet great emotional, ideological

closeness. I’m interested in finding and sharing tools and actions that

tenderly incite and fiercely care for these delicately unfolding and

most precious connections.

6 2

2. Unfolding FIELDs ideas, questions, possibilities, excitements for

Care Manifestoes – making them, being them, sharing them, living

(by/in/with) them.

I reckon groups and organisations that build themselves around

care, will be able to offer spaces in which creative intimacies can

happen all the time. Those are the spaces I want to be in.

For me, a manifesto is a live(ly) document. It must be. It is by, for

and about people. We are messy, complex, joyful, questioning, funny,

hurting, dying, living. Second by second.

As ever, and as never before.

I want a manifesto that is danced, and drawn and cooked and rested

with. Sung and signed and slept with. Sewn into, and through,

everything we do and are. I want a manifesto that reflects and

supports things we may have (re)discovered during lockdown. Carefilled,

not careful. You can’t shut this document up in a dusty old

drawer.

I want a manifesto that helps us to ask:

Do we need to have Best Practice? Or can we work through better

practice(es)? Practices that are porous, growing, generous?

Do we have Safe Spaces? Or are we ever building and inhabiting

safe-er spaces? Brave, complex, rich, grainy, and humane.

Do we protect? Or do we offer space, support and love for wild

sorrow, absurd playfulness and spectacular failures? Does care run

through us, enough that we can provide for and celebrate these

uncomfortable edges of making?

Do we have to have products? Or can we instead offer collaboration,

exchange, togetherness, barter and mutual support?

Are we products? Or can we can be what we need to be? Can this

space be a place for us to find out what that might mean?

6 4

Where is the cost of what we do? Is it in the bones

of the buildings we cling to? Hard to manage and

to heat, gruelling to access, impossible to

navigate. Is it in the bones of the people we make

for and with and alongside? Do they ache with

labours undervalued and unknown? Do we serve

food that exploits? Do we travel ferociously,

addictedly? Burning up resources to find beauty,

no more exquisite or full of worth than what is just

here. In our own hands.

Where is the value of what we do? In awards and

reviews and networks and international acclaim?

In creative intimacy with our communities around

the corner and around the world?

Do we need to ask “what can you give us?” Or can

we ask “what can we share? And what,

collectively, are we prepared to give up?”

Are we fast-paced, relevant, boundary pushing,

world leading? Or can we build a beat of pauses

into everything we do? As slow as we need to be,

leaving no one behind? Can we be present? Is

there room here for soft and quiet boundary

teasing? Can we be world building? World

changing, sometimes one kind word at a time.

This manifesto is a live(ly) document. It must be.

You won’t shut this document up in a dusty old

drawer.

This manifesto is danced, and drawn and cooked

and rested with. Sung and signed and slept with.

Sewn into, and through, everything we do, are and

can be.

This manifesto is my fantasy, but it doesn’t have

to be. We can make this, together. Right now...

6 6

Alister

Lownie

C O M P E T I T I O N

F O R

F U N D S

Alister creates art with liveness at its heart, sometimes for stages

and sometimes for other kinds of places entirely. He began with text

and actors, found that people communicate well without either, and

now uses what each piece needs. His interest in intercultural

dialogue is a foundation of Two Destination Language, where he is a

director. He also works with other creative practitioners and in

education settings.

1 . There will be people sitting next to one another.

2. There will be strangers sitting next to each other: old and young,

people who live alone, people with families, people who have

moved recently, people who live where they were born, people

who are not disabled yet and people who always have been.

3. There will be people coming to see art. People who are curious

about their society, the people in it, the way it became like this

and how else it might be. People who want to look, and use the

art to see; who want to listen, and use the art to hear; who want

to feel and think.

4. There will be people coming to see art and sitting next to each

other in village halls and in converted butchers’ shops and in

galleries and in purpose-built fun palaces and in school auditoria

and in libraries and museums and in houses.

5. There will be people coming to see art, even though they might

have to stand, in town squares and forests and lay-bys and train

stations and gardens and office blocks.

6. There will be people coming to see art in lakes and swimming

pools even if they have to get their kit off and swim.

7. There will be towels and warm drinks because, wherever it

happens, it will be done with care.

8. There will be people coming to experience something about the

world that they don’t often get to feel or see or hear.

9. The art will shift time.

1 0. The art will shift knowledge.

1 1 . The art will calibrate perception.

1 2. The art will shift identity.

1 3. The artists’ work will be to invent and steer and sustain a

curiosity. They will hold that curiosity open and clear and true.

1 4. There will be honesty.

1 5. There will be truth speaking to power, and not just one truth but

many truths and identifying these truths and those powers will

be the work of the artists and their society.

1 6. Sometimes the art will feel like a shock, and sometimes like a

gift.

1 7. The art will deal in joy and sadness, in anger and fear, in surprise

and anticipation, in trust and distrust.

1 8. The art will deal with injustice and inequality and the causal links

between them.

6 8

1 9. The art will deal with choice

and responsibility.

20. The art will deal with illusion,

manipulation and fact: it will

use them, it will recognise

them, it will distinguish them.

21 . There may be words and there

may be music and there may be

furniture and there may be light.

22. There may be writing and there

may be physical residues and

there may be irrecoverable

changes to bodies and spaces

and there may be endurance

and pain.

23. There may be challenges and

things the people didn’t want to

hear or see or think about.

24. There may be joy and beauty

and poetry (including but not

limited to visual, verbal and

sonic poetry).

25. There will be synergies and

contrasts and juxtapositions

and things you see coming

early on and the unexpected.

26. The honesty will endure despite

any artifice or magic.

27. There will be bravery in it.

28. There will be space for your

ideas.

29.

30. There will be parties with music

and dancing, where strangers

meet and the threads of lives

are interwoven.

31 . There will be no pandering to

things as they are. Shakespeare

will not be set in inter-war

Vienna to make it seem like

racism is a problem for some

other time or place.

32. Everyone will know that this is

about today, tomorrow, our lives

and our futures.

33. There will be no use of

‘everyone’ as if every person in

the country, or the world, shared

the same histories and beliefs

and values.

34. There will be some people who

have no use for art at all and

wish it didn’t have to be there,

like school.

35. The use of songs asking “Do

you hear the people sing?,”

“How do you measure the life of

a woman or a man?” or

asserting that “And you, and

you, you’re gonna love me / Oh,

you’re gonna love me” will be

accompanied by proper sociohistorical

context. (see 26)

36. Unnecessarily prolonging the

use of binary oppositions (see

33) will be called out as lazy.

37. Any appearance of “There’s no

business like show business”

will be accompanied by detailed

production accounts to support

the assertion, with exploitative

practices identified by an

independent examiner.

38. The use of catharsis, happy

endings and royal marriages

will be carefully considered to

avoid any suggestion that

7 0

things might be OK as they are,

particularly in work intended for

young audiences, who will be

encouraged to change the

world.

39. There will be spectacle, but only

to highlight injustice, within

budgetary constraints. It is

public money, after all.

40. There will be work which does

not depend on familiar narrative

or sentimentality; although

these will appear, audiences will

view them with suspicion.

41 . There will be conversation. As

part of the art, and afterwards

over drinks, and days later with

friends: conversation about the

art, conversation about our

society.

42. The conversation will lead to

significant social change, with

stronger democracy and sound

self-knowledge.

43. There will be recognition that

art is how we explore why our

society is the way it is, who

benefits, who does not, and

what the boundaries of ‘our’

society are and who put them

there and who that benefits and

who it does not.

44. As a result, there will need to be

more art, reflecting the new

society and enabling it to

change itself too.

45. Everyone involved in making the

art will feel secure in their work,

knowing it has value.

46. There will be no need to worry

about earnings and money,

because everyone will have

what they need.

47. Some people will have more

than they need, but like hermits

they won’t know what to do with

it.

48. There will be equality between

the people working together:

the people who run buildings

and the people who make art

and the people who cook and

bring drinks and the people who

clean and repair the wall after

the thing that the artists did.

49. There will be no competition

between artists for audiences.

50. There will be no competition

between venues presenting

work and artists creating it

51 . The producers working in the

arts will be working for the art,

ensuring artists create their

best work and that it reaches

people whose lives and

thoughts it speaks to.

52. There will be no producers who

work for venues to minimise

risk at the expense of artists.

Those jobs were a silly idea,

caused by a misconception of

the arts as a market economy

despite all parties relying on

public funding.

53. Nobody will have done their job

by under-paying anyone else. It

just won’t happen.

54. The money saved by not having

producers whose role doesn’t

contribute to the arts ecology

will be spent on art.

55. Tour schedules will be

determined by the skilled

matching of arts and audiences

(see 51 ), in large British cities

and small ex-mining towns in

Poland, in large auditoria and

tiny rooms (see 4–6).

56. This will require producers to be

interested in the art. Training

will be available.

57. Marketing teams will support

producers in their work, helping

to identify audiences and routes

to them.

58. This will require marketing

teams to be interested in the

art. Training will be available.

59. There will be no marketing

professionals who say, “I’m

sorry, you weren’t really a

priority” to artists whose work

is in their buildings.

60. Artists will not compete with

one another to be the voice of

the working class, or migrants,

or anything like that. They will

be respected as individuals

skilled in unpacking the

complex histories -- including

but not limited to the personal,

social, political and military --

which form identities.

61 . Artists will have career paths,

with mentors and opportunities

and changes of direction and

sometimes they won’t be artists

so much any more, but their

artistic sensibility will help them

do the new work they’ve

chosen, and it won’t be giving

up because it’s just recognising

the direction their skills and

interests have taken and

sometimes they’ll come back to

more directly making art a bit

later on.

62. Artists will not think they have

to start a business in order to

make work.

63. Funders won’t expect artists to

start a business in order to

make work.

64. The artist will not be a brand.

65. There will be no independent

artists, because there will be no

dependence, except in the

sense that art is tied into the

very fabric of what society is,

and so the concept will not

make sense.

66. There will be art made for lots

of people, and art made for a

tiny number of people.

67. There will be art made with lots

of people, and art made with a

tiny number of people.

68. There will be art made with

professionals and art made

with people who’ve never done

anything like it.

69. The buildings in which it all

happens will be the hearts of

communities.

70. Arts buildings will not operate

restaurants to earn income. The

7 2

provision of accessibly priced food, from community kitchens using the

produce of community gardens for example, will be greatly enjoyed.

71 . Scones will be available with both clotted and squirty cream. A

(frequently disappointing) non-dairy alternative will still be provided on

request.

72. There will always be time for tea, because if art is not about having time

to reflect and think and take a break, what can it possibly be?

73. Artists will have breaks too. Because they will have income and normal

holidays and pensions and things, it won’t even seem like a thing anyone

would have to mention.

74. There will be residencies where artists go to rest and think and dream.

75 There will be short rests and long sabbaticals.

76. There will be opportunities to try ideas without feeling they have to work.

There will be a recognition that some good ideas just aren’t what they

seemed and won’t work after all and that’s OK and not a failure.

77. There will be R&D to make sure of this; spaces and facilities and

producing support which enable something to be tried without worrying

about whether it has a future until it’s been tried.

78. Arts buildings will be examples of sustainable architecture, inspirational

adventurous spaces, where extraordinary ideas are brought to life just in

the fact of the building itself.

79. There will be gardens planted together for generations unborn.

80. International touring will be by rowing boat, aided by sail when possible,

until such time as better emission-free transport is available.

81 . There will be long periods of touring, moving only short distances

between places, while the artists recover from the calluses caused by

rowing to their destinations and reflect on how valuable they really find

the experience of international touring.

82. There will be travel, out of curiosity about other places and their cultures,

and a desire to learn and understand. From this, there will be more art.

83. There will be belonging, a recognition that art is at the forefront of

questioning, exploring and designing what our society will become, and

that its practitioners are vital.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

90.

91 .

92.

93.

7 4

Krissi

Musiol

1 0 N O T E S

F R O M F I E L D

Krissi is an artist and mother based in Manchester and Preston. At

work, she lectures in contemporary performance practices. At home,

she lies on the kitchen floor listening to the gentle sound of the

waves lapping around the washing machine. Her performance work

focuses on time, wellbeing and the maternal body.

One

I’ve been thinking about leaving the arts. I’ve been wondering if it’s

something a person can quit. I’m pretty sure other artists think about

quitting all the time too. Do people in other jobs want to quit as often

as I do?

I began lockdown immersed in a performance practice from my

kitchen, exploring motherhood, the maternal body and labour (birth &

work). l was unsure as to how my practice occupied a theatre space,

and so made a commitment to reclaim my practice for myself and

whoever observed it, instead of attempting to fit into a venue. It

became an immersive exploration and I welcomed the blurring of

artist and mother, with my sometimes collaborator Little A. The

reality is that my life locked down long before the world as we now

know it closed in on itself. A combination of caring responsibilities

for my child and ill partner created an insular space and often a

disconnect with the world around me. But performance practice

was always there, settled against my bones. I contemplated the

notion of quitting my smallest and largest commitments and

concerns. But I think it was art that kept me going.

Mid-pandemic, I’ve been thinking about loneliness and how it’s

different to boredom and monotony. I’m thinking about how isolating

and lonely solo arts practice and motherhood can be. This residency

is an opportunity to connect, to think, to share. It’s what I need right

now as an artist and mother. This residency is a daily commitment

to listening. What if we all made a daily commitment to listen?

In the residency, we ask ourselves: Who cares? Does anybody care? I

privately have been asking myself the same question for years now.

In difficult times, where is the support?

I’m wondering: What is the opposite of loneliness? Is it community?

Is the opposite of loneliness a space where you are seen and heard

and understood and valued?

In uncertain personal and professional times, I’m trying to make

space for self-care.

7 6

To practicing kindness daily,

towards myself and towards

others. Kindness and sharing are

fundamental qualities we strive to

instil in children. I’m teaching Little

A how to wash his hands, now

more than ever. I want to do it for

him, I want to do everything for him,

but I realise he needs to be able to

do it himself.

Two

Small changes: what if we showed

someone how to do something so

that they were able to do it

themselves? What if we shared the

knowledge we had? What if we

made a commitment to recognise

and care for each other’s needs?

Big changes: what if the

government prioritised the arts?

What if Boris was interested in the

arts? What if everyone was an

artist? What if the country was led

by artists? What if everyone had

the chance to realise their creative

potential? What if the education

system prioritised the arts? What if

the creative play so encouraged in

children never ended; what if it just

grew and developed and became

more sophisticated and thoughtful

with age? What if more students

wanted to study the arts in Higher

Education? What if those who were

interested in the arts weren’t put

off studying it, because there was a

viable and achievable career path

for them all, not just for the few or

the lucky? What if the arts were not

a risky business? What if working in

the arts was not a financial and

emotional risk? What if the arts

were a stable industry to work

within? What if the arts made

artists feel safe?

I am not a risk taker.

I am not spontaneous.

I am cautious.

I am a procrastinator.

I am afraid of the unknown.

Three

In the kitchen, we talk about

swimming in the sea and wading

through rivers.

In the evening, I watch the Ken

Loach film Sorry I Missed You and

then I cry.

Four

Cuddle. Teeth. Toilet. Hands.

Dressed. This takes longer than it

should as Little A learns to do it

himself. Both feet in one trouser

leg, jumper back to front, tricky

socks. PRETEND CAFÉ. Put

washing on, wipe down kitchen

counters, breakfast, wash hands,

wipe mouth, wipe table, PAINTING,

wash hands, clear and wipe table,

snack, wipe hands, wipe mouth,

WALK, wash hands, make lunch,

wipe mouth, wipe hands, wipe

table, washing up, wipe down

kitchen counters, PLAY, hang out

the washing, WATER FLOWERS IN

GARDEN, TOY CAR WASH, snack,

wipe hands, wipe mouth,

DINOSAUR BATH, dry kitchen floor,

change wet clothes, BIKE RIDE,

wash hands, PLAY, make dinner,

wipe mouth, wash hands, wipe

table, washing up, GŁOWA,

RAMIONA, KOLANA, PIĘTY on

repeat, MAKE IT LOUDER MAMA!,

run bath, clothes in the basket,

brush teeth, wash hair, wash body,

dry body, pyjamas, story, story,

story, a song... Both the pleasure

and pain in repetition and routine.

I hope my story is someone else’s

story.

Yao Liao says he is “trying to enjoy

the art of life.” Yes, I like that. I

perform acts of motherhood daily.

Art becomes less like work and

more like life.

7 8

Five

The last time I was at home like

this was during maternity leave in

201 7. The BBC news channel kept

me company. News would roll in of

Grenfell and the Manchester Arena

bombing, knife attacks and acid

attacks, Trump and Brexit, it was an

overwhelming time. In the end I

turned the news off.

At home now, the news silently

rolling in the background, the death

toll rising, the politician’s bullshit.

This time too, I had to turn it off.

How are we to sustain our practice

during this?

Six

A new Field conversation. Artists

speak. Artists listen. Are these

conversations a pause in my day,

or a moment of action? As

someone talks, we show our

solidarity with fist pumps and

thumbs up and nods of approval

and encouragement. But perhaps

we need to talk to people not like

us. My social media feeds are

flooded with pictures of

#SaveTheArts and it’s great, of

course it is... but for me, it’s just

artists sharing with other artists.

It’s screaming into the mirror. I

learnt the hard way, first with the

Tory election, then with Brexit, and

by Trump I was no longer

surprised. No one on my feed was

supporting the Tories, Brexit or

Trump. And yet...

I don’t follow those who don’t agree

with my views. Perhaps I need to

be willing to open up to

conversation, to discussion, but

only if both sides are willing to

listen, me included.

How do we contribute to the fight

against the devastating acts

happening right now? By telling our

stories, by making art. Quietly or

loudly. From the theatres or from

our homes or from the streets. But

we need to be sharing it with

everyone. To declare it doesn’t

mean it is. It’s about action. Quiet

action and loud action. Beyond the

hashtag. Every day. Always.

Seven

Tea drunk out of a ketchup mug. A

dog. An insight into people’s homes

and thoughts. A connection. Where

are we when we’re not in the

kitchen?

I carry a chair to the sink, I teach

which way round is the safest. I

teach how to make the tap go hot &

cold, fast & slow. I teach how to

hold things, where fingers go, how

to grip. I teach how to observe your

own hands, the space in between

the fingers, the resting place

beneath the nails, I teach about

wasting water.

I’ve been thinking about the

students I teach, how to better

prepare them for industry in terms

of care, self-care, prioritising their

needs, how to carve out a space in

the rehearsal room and a space in

the world for them to think & a

space to feel. We foreground the

importance for them to build their

own voice. Perhaps we need to

make space for listening also. I

think about Toni and how articulate

and eloquent she is, certainly much

more than I was at her age. I listen

to her and I learn.

Eight

I don’t think being an artist is

something I can quit. I feel it inside

me. It’s a part of who I am.

Sometimes I do it quietly. Less

frequently, loudly. But it’s always

there — it’s how I engage with the

world around me. I’ve been an

artist for 20 years. Even when I was

working in bars and nightclubs, I

was an artist. Even when I am a

mother, I am an artist. Without art,

who am I?

Nine

It’s not radical to be an artist.

It shouldn’t be risky to be an artist.

I reject making art for capital gain

or as a safe investment for a

venue.

I reject making art with the

preoccupation of wondering if it

will sell well.

What is my labour (art) worth?

What is my labour (birth) worth? If

my life is my art? If my practice is

part of my broader life, then I own

it. And I cannot be owned.

This residency is a call to action, an

opportunity to share our

understandings, our collective and

individual experiences, to inspire

change. It’s a conversation about

how to restructure the arts. We talk

about burning it down and building

it up again, a fairer system.

Burn it down. Burn it down.

If not us, then who? If not now, then

when?

This is not the time to be passive.

Prepare to act. Are these

conversations a preparation for

action? Galvanized. I’m ready. Join

me.

THIS is an opportunity for change.

This pandemic has disconnected

performers from venues, but a lot

of us were already disconnected

and adrift. What if post-pandemic,

we prioritised people and

relationships over buildings? Can

we build a theatre centred around

people? I want a theatre that feels

like home.

I hear a strange sound from my

kitchen.

Little A is dragging a chair from the

kitchen table to the sink, he takes a

8 0

moment to look at it, then he turns

it round so that the back of the

chair is against the counter. He

climbs up, he moves the soap

dispenser nearer, he pushes his

sleeves up above his elbows, he

lifts the tap. It comes on too fast.

He laughs and turns it off. He lifts it

again, more carefully this time. He

rinses his hands underneath, he

pumps the soap onto his hands. He

rubs them together, frothing

between his fingers, he holds his

hands under the flowing water,

rinsing them. He turns the tap off.

He waves his arms and says

“shake off the excess.” He turns to

me, where I am standing beside

him, I didn’t know whether he knew

I was there.

He hadn’t acknowledged me once,

he was so absorbed in the act, but

it turns out he was just expecting

me to be present, to be with him,

and I was. He dries his hands on

the towel I am holding out for him.

He jumps into my arms to be lifted

down. He could get down himself if

he wanted to, but I am here, and he

likes to leap and I like helping him.

I wonder if he realises that if he can

drag the chair to reach the sink, he

could also drag the chair to reach

into the chocolate cupboard...

Ten

The opposite of loneliness is right

here in the Field

A community

A friendship

Based on commonality and

The ability to listen openly to

difference

To different perspectives,

viewpoints, identities, experiences

All of which will always make up

any community

To the future

The future

To being able to reach into the

cupboard and help yourself

A cupboard everyone can reach,

everyone can access

A cupboard with enough for

everyone inside

A Community

And there’s a place for me in it

And a place for you

If you want it

Join us.

8 2

Tonidee

paul

C R I S I S

C H A N G E

C A R E

Toni-Dee is a queer black neurodiverse independent artist based in

Manchester. Occasionally she is a writer, workshop leader,

collaborator, and ‘thinker-in-the-room’. She makes works with kids,

messy food and sometimes with her dad. Her most recent body of

work made with ‘infectious warmth’ (Exeunt) is a series of

performances & installations exploring identity politics. Currently,

she works for Selina Thompson Ltd as Artist Access Assistant and

is making work for children and families with One Tenth Human.

‘a time of intense difficulty or danger’

‘to make or become different’

‘to look after and provide for the needs of’

It is day 71 and I am laid on my back on the floor of my bedroom in

North Manchester, sticky warm from an attempt at yoga, which is

meant to centre my mind before another work-related zoom call. My

phone is glued firmly to my hand, my thumb assuming its automatic

up motion, scrolling on endless timelines. A combination of news

outlets and social media platforms leave me exhausted and

consistently in despair. Amongst its mess are screenshots of death

tolls, adverts for home workouts, articles on how astronauts survive

isolation in space, links to relief funds for those with no work, and

memes about our pitiful leadership.

A day later, the video of the death of George Floyd floods my timeline.

He is pinned down by a Minneapolis police officer, for over eight

minutes. Another stream of grief is added to my feed.

Crisis has long been in motion for most of us, even before a global

pandemic.

This Climate

This Country

This Industry

This Economy

Catastrophe, calamity, disaster. The precariousness of it all, the

violence of it so arresting and relentless it sometimes feels like the

end of the world.

A series of events that cause so much havoc we cannot turn back.

But we are not the first to experience ‘the end of the world’ and we

will not be the last. Because an apocalypse is not one big

occurrence, pasted on newspapers and shouted about in parliament,

or in one cinematic event with the sky turning red. It is lots of small,

complex upheavals, usually happening all at the same time. But

when I think about those upheavals, I am reminded of one of the key

lessons of past revolutions: the power of solidarity. I remember our

8 4

fluidity, the elasticity of our morale, our creativity that pushes back,

and all the radical art that is born to combat depleting hope. Art that

is made and moves alongside the crisis, inside it, offering us

something new — leading us from despair and drawing us to

radically re-imagining the ‘impossible’. Looking into the archive of

how to walk through intense difficulty is how we find hope for

change, and we cannot separate history from right now.

It is day 84 and I am laid on my front, body pasted to my bed, routinely

fatigued from too much screen time. My phone is still glued firmly to

my hand, my thumb assuming its automatic up motion, scrolling on

endless timelines. Minutes later, a video of protesters throwing a

statue of Edward Colston, who was responsible for transporting

enslaved folks to the UK, into Bristol Harbour. Another stream of joy is

added to my feed.

Change is often inconvenient. Whether it is a storm instead of sunny

weather, a rise in price or an unexpected reversal, things changing

can be troublesome, uncomfortable, and occasionally unjust.

Change does not always happen with ease, especially not the kind

you want to stick, and be durable. The kind of change that is truly

transforming one thing into another is not easily won, and it does

have to be won; because for the kind of change we need for things to

become equitable, it will have to be fought for.

Our new normal will have to be collective, fluid, built with trust and

radical transparency and our current structures, top down,

hierarchical, benefiting the few instead of the many are not going to

bring that kind of transformation. We will have to wrestle away from

the ease of doing what we have always done — to find solutions to

problems by plastering over gaping holes. To use one person in

power to speak for a majority, or to think that one person can solve

the inequalities of so many. To hand out spare change and all it a

commission, or hide the money trail, through shame, guilt and fear.

Being at the vanguard of change, of doing things better, means doing

thing differently and that is uncomfortable, but we cannot flirt with

the idea of change we have to commit to it. Be attentive to it,

immerse ourselves in it, fall in love with the idea that we can do

things a different way, that radical change is all our responsibility.

8 6

None of us can divest ourselves from the obligation to do better. We

are all in charge of change, we all possess the means, and if we can

create a series of events that cause so much havoc we cannot turn

back - maybe our world can be transformed.

It is day 1 05, and I have participated in more zooms, google meets,

skypes and jitsi meetings than I can count. All my work is digital now,

so I have put a cap on how much time I spend in meetings, because I

read that screen fatigue can damage sleeping patterns and I have

enough trouble sleeping and waking as is. There is an app blocker on

my phone, to limit how much endless scrolling I do and I do not

punish myself if I can’t do yoga in the mornings. I find solace in

articles about astronauts surviving isolation in space and scream

from my bed in solidarity with those protesting on the streets. I start

an email thread with a friend, a commitment, a pledge, a manifesto:

We will embrace care as a strategy for survival

We will take care, for ourselves and be caring, for others

We will take breaks when we need to

We will make the most of our self-care but we will not use it as a

remedy for hyper-productivity

We will produce and apply care despite it not being seen as a priority

We will use care to untangle ourselves from normative assumptions

We will use care to bind us together in common causes

We will care for our communities

We will make care the first thing we bring into the rooms we lead

We will encourage those who resist care, to challenge themselves

We will lead with care in times of conflict

We will take the time to acknowledge that care is sprawling and

takes different forms

We will take care of our environments

We will use care as an act of defiance

We will use care to transform

8 8

Katherina

radeva

M U T E D

Katherina Radeva was born in the Thracian Valley, Bulgaria. A first

generation migrant since 1 999, Kat is an award winning theatre

maker, space maker (set and costume designer) and visual artist.

She is Artistic Director of Two Destination Language, an award

winning theatre company making bold, unafraid political work for

stages and with communities around the UK and internationally. She

fosters dogs, which is the closest she comes to being a parent.

Chloe

Smith

A F I E L D

T R A N S F O R M S

Chloë is an artist, a performance maker and an all-year-round sea

swimmer based in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the town where she grew

up. With a practice that spans dance, live art and contemporary

performance, her work is often shifting in form and between

disciplines. Almost always working in non-traditional spaces, Chloë

has worked in old shops, art galleries, empty buildings, parks, care

homes and on the beach.

I am standing at the edge of a woodland, alone and enclosed amongst the

trees. In front of me is a field, empty except from a herd of cows lying at the

far end. I close my eyes, spend a moment feeling the sun on my face and

then I take a deep breath and walk into the field.

The others begin to arrive one-by-one, some of us already know each other,

some of us are strangers. We enter through gates and, for now, we close

them behind us.

We begin, together, from a place of care.

As we build a fire, on which to boil the kettle and keep us warm, we start the

process of getting to know one another, to begin with its small fragments,

but as our time together expands, so too will our knowledge of each other.

We sit round the fire, mugs of hot chocolate and tea warming our hands and

we listen to each other's needs, to our experiences, to our desires.

It is easier to be kind when we know one another.

We ask ‘how are you?’, we make space for the answers and, as we listen, we

begin to build. We don't know what it will become until we’ve made it, but

this is our skill as artists: we are led by questions, curiosities, conversations

and intuition.

We are building a multitude of spaces that can contain a multitude of

people, accessible to all and carbon neutral. The first structure we create is

a place to live or stay. There are bedrooms big enough for families, rooms

for those who are solo, a duet, a trio or more. There are large beds,

underfloor heating, a kitchen big enough for all, a long table to share food

and stories, rooms for reading, rooms for watching things, rooms for play,

rooms for listening to music. Outside there is a vegetable patch, an orchard,

a large garden, shared access to bicycles and cars. Most importantly, this is

a place where we can afford to live.

Across the field we build a space for art, for making, for communities, for

eating, for laughing, for thinking, for anger, for tears, for reflection, for

conversation. There are studio spaces for moving our bodies, spaces to sit

and write, stages and spaces to perform on / in / around, a library full of

novels, maps, academic texts, picture books and artists’ documentation, a

9 2

crèche, a soft play area, a sensory room, a café, a community garden, cosy

nooks for naps and rest, shared work spaces, computers to use and spaces

that are open to whatever is needed. It is a place for all. A place that says

welcome in. A place for exploration and play. A safer place.

Whilst we are building, we make time to rest. To ask ‘how are you?’ again

and to ensure we are still listening to the answer. We make time for being a

caregiver, a partner, a friend. We make time for holidays, for birthdays, for

fatigue, for all the things that are not work. We ask our communities, what

do you want, what do you need and we ensure this is heard, we ensure this

informs the process. We make sure that we are caring for ourselves, for

others and for the environment.

In this place there is universal basic income, equal salaries, housing co-ops,

working co-ops, free performances for schools, pay-what-you-decide for

every show, a sharing of resources and knowledge to our own communities

and beyond, a commitment to unpicking structural racism, an abolishment

of the term BAME, a care manifesto, financial transparency, an

acknowledgement of our privileges. There is space for all those who have

not been listened to. Space for those who are disabled, queer, black and

brown. There is space for babies, for children, for teenagers, for adults, for

older adults. There is space for anger, grief, frustration and sadness. There

is space for joy.

When, finally, the building is complete, and by this we mean structurally, for

there is space for constant change, we take a moment to rest. We gather

together, round a table and share a meal. Perhaps someone tells us a story,

perhaps someone sings us a song, perhaps we weep. We remember that

this is just a building, that it’s nothing without the people inside it. We

commit to ensuring that the work takes place in other spaces too: in tower

blocks, car parks, beaches, gardens, residential streets, city centres and

village halls.

Someone puts a song on and we dance.

We dance together.

Then we walk to the edge of the field and we open the gates.

9 4

Hannah

Sullivan

Q U E S T I O N

A N D A N S W E R

Hannah is a pale child of an Irish/English lineage brought up at the

table of nursing and construction. From Devon’s gorse bushes, via a

West Midlands petrol station and Bristol mould, she lives in a West

Yorkshire valley. Love-struck education in performance the BA the

MA, eight years as one-woman shows within the embrace of

collaborator-pals, survivalist shapeshifter to which some have said

“what are you doing here?” She is currently loitering.

A list of questions that arose from complex conversations.

Questions that I used to reflect on the present and the past, and to

challenge myself to think in an applied and transformational way

about the future. These questions are followed by a non-exhaustive

glossary for assembling possible answers. With love, Hannah.

What is the relation between care and power?

Is safety/security/stability possible?

In this transition, what am I letting go of?

What are my attachments?

What are the opportunities of my locality?

As an artist, where do I place myself in my work?

What do I want to spend time with?

Who has faith in me?

How do I defy the narrative of capitalism?

How do I reclaim/restore/rescue artistic practice?

What are my ecological rules for working?

What have I been taught?

What is expected?

Who is vulnerable and how?

Who is considered independent and

what are they independent from?

Are we, or could we be, interdependent?

9 6

Acceptance, Access, ACE applications, Action, Activism, A game, Alone, Allowed,

Allow others, Ally, Anger and rage, A place for the quiet artist, A short hand, A

symbolic event, Artists, Basic needs, Battle against confines and expectations,

Beautiful mess, Being ‘awarded’ or ‘successful’ feeding a bad habit of only feeling

valued when a winning medal is in my hands, Black, Bloom and flourish, Boycott the

unethical, Build upon, Capability, Care, Celebrate, Choice, Chosen family, Clean,

Cliques, Collaboration, Collectives, Community practice training, Companionship,

Complexity of people and their stories, Connection to locality, Conscious action

without depleting, Constant inadequacy, Control by visibility and likability,

Conversation, Corner for convergence, Create common fertile ground, Curiosity,

Dancefloors, Declare, Defend against the unnecessary, Deliver in person,

Democratise, Dependency, Depth of engagement with people, Depth of engagement

with site and subject, Desperation, Destroy, Disabled, Disco, Disparity, Distrust,

Divergence, Dominant forces and ideas, Do not let the title artist be weaponized

against me, Doubt, Economic potential, Embrace, Embed environmental awareness

into the process, Emotional geography, Emotional labour, Erotic power, Exit

strategies, Equality, Folk, Forever accountable, Fundamental needs, Funding, Friends,

Friendship activism, Galvanise, Generate, Gender, Gift giving, Global Citizens,

Guarantee, Guerilla, Greed, Groundedness, Hand it over, Heal, Hear themselves,

History, Humanise, Humour, I am, I do, I do not always need to fly to meet the world, I

have a migratory story that stretches back, Imbalance, Inequality, Inside of the

sector, Interest, International, It is not all in the computer, It is safe, Invisibility, JOY,

JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY, Justice, Knock on the door, Know your, Land, Leadership,

Lifestyle, Literature, Loneliness, Lost in professionalism, Love in action, Loving

attention, Mainstream, Maintaining presence, Margins, Middle class, Migration,

Money, Mothers, Music, Mutual recovery, Navigational skills, No, Non-hierarchical,

Not, Notice what is important, Not with, Not without, Old ways, One enables the other,

One does not guarantee the other, Opposition, Orgasmic yes, Pain calls attention,

People, Pivot from which to rest and rotate, Pleasure, Politics, Poor, Possibility, Pull

apart centred defensiveness, Precarity, Previous aesthetics and systems and notions

of success, Private/public events of presence and/or process, Profit and accolade,

Queer, Radical thinkers, Read, Redistribute, Replace, Resistance, Resources,

Resourcefulness, Rigour, Rural, Sacrifice, Saying no, Saying yes, Scared, Scarcity,

Second hand, Self belief, Service, Share, Show me something I don’t know, Sing, Slow

working, Small publications and media, Sooth, Social work, Starting again, Stay

grounded, Stay longer, Talk about, That which exists beyond the arts sector, The

ability to clarify and complicate and capture and expand and feel and communicate,

The arts industry is a graveyard, Theatre, The body, The establishment, The

democratic part of the work, The hands to the work, The inherent connection, The

poetic (imaginative, sensitive, emotional, sensory), There is not one point of loss;

there are several, Thinking, Time, Tiredness, To be fearless, Trans, Trust, Truth telling,

Unity, Universal Basic Income, Value, Value the art and shift the power, Waiting, Want

and need a welcome, Warmth, We, Wealth, We need the answer to be yes, We never

had any money, White, Wisdom, With abstraction, Witness, Women, Work, Working,

Working class, Write, Yes, Yes and, Yes but, Yes with.

9 8

Jo

verrent

I T ’ S T A K E N A

P A N D E M I C T O

R E I M A G I N E

T H E A R T S

Jo is the senior producer for Unlimited, a commissions programme

for disabled artists. Jo believes that ‘different’ is delicious not

divergent, and works in arts & culture at strategic levels embedding

the belief that diversity adds texture, turning policy into real action.

She also makes jam, works from bed a lot, bought a bubble machine

in lockdown and will always want to be resuscitated, whatever the

Government guidance might be.

We won’t all make it through — arts organisations, venues,

collectives, artists — however much our governments, arts

funders, or our local communities, chip in. It’s not going to be

enough. Not now. Not in the years it’ll take to recover.

That doesn’t mean we don’t fight. We must fight, shout,

influence, call in favours, do everything we can. The bigger the

pot, the more we can save. But we can’t save everyone.

And here’s the rub — nor should we.

We have built an arts sector on privilege. We have favoured

some over others — as managers, makers and audiences. We

have placed buildings and the work of administration on a

pedestal and allowed artists to become marginal to our

industry. We have systemically excluded those who are

different, difficult or diverse.

We have moaned for the last 30 years, things should change.

Now is our chance. It will take leadership and courage.

The arts sector of the future should be centred on:

Artists — their creativity, genius and perspective is the reason

the sector exists. Artists should be on all boards. Paid and

protected by all arts organisations in much larger numbers

that currently is the case. Equity of pay between artists and

administration, anyone?

Diversity — our intersectionality tells the best stories. These

resonate with the most people. We have to be representative

and to draw widely on a range and depth of talent not just on a

narrow pool of who we know.

Access — for all. The pandemic has shown that the

‘impossible’ is possible. It was a choice, we chose to exclude.

Any and all reopening should include options for those who

cannot physically attend and extended provisions to ensure all

that is offered is offered to all.

1 0 0

This is my request: if you run an arts organisation that does

not have artists at your beating heart, is not built around

diversity, and systemically excludes people, please stop now.

Don’t compete for funds in the future landscape. Your day has

come and gone. You are not wanted or needed in the future.

Put down your power and privilege. Let others better placed

take their turn. That’s leadership.

If you are an arts funder, decision maker, someone in control,

use these principles to determine choices over who you

support. You cannot save everyone and everything. If you

spread resource thinly, everyone suffers. Strategically invest

in artists, diversity and access. Do it now. Use this

unprecedented time to make unprecedented choices. Do not

be led by commerce alone. The arts are worth more than

money and will easily pay their way. Build the sector we

should have, don’t save the one we had that wasn’t working

for all. That’s leadership.

If you are an artist. We need you. Show us myriad reflections

of now, the past and the future. Fill us with hope, hold our

despair, engage our humanity. You have done this throughout

history. Your unique skills and talents are vital.

We have undervalued you within the structures meant to

support you. Upturn the tables, it’s time for you to lead us all.

1 0 2

rich

warburton

I N S T R U C T I O N S

F O R P L A Y I N G

G O J I R A

Rich is the Artistic Director at Theatre in the Mill. TiM is an artist

development space based at the University of Bradford. We believe

that artists should be supported to interrogate the world and make

art that reflects how they see it. Rich is optimistic about being

optimistic.

Dear Kat & Alister,

I’ve been thinking about a game that I wanted to make a few years back that

I dug out when thinking about FIELD.

The idea was about an incomplete co-op board game in which you

redesigned arts infrastructures, resources and provision. The game had

pieces and cards missing which reflected my own inability to articulate

which aspects were broken etc. The central idea of the game was that

Godzilla (Gojira) has emerged out of the Humber and trampled on everything

art related in the North creating a new ground zero. The aim of the players is

to create a new one. I particularly like games where discovering the rules

and the edges of what’s possible is part of the design. But maybe this

pushed too far at that: how do you play? What are the cards and pieces?

How do you win?

I offer it now by way of apology for not being able to quite articulate how I

think we need to rebuild the arts post-COVID. As I think I said during the

residency, the most depressing thing would be if we went back to how it was

before without improving or changing how the sector supports, nurtures and

develops artists and their ideas.

THE GOJIRA THEOREM

(Blurb on the back of the box)

Gojira City

4pm, British Summer Time

Gojira (The Gorilla-Whale) has

struck. The City has been

destroyed. Every arts building has

been flattened, every infrastructure

wiped out. As part of the UnFuck It

Committee (UIC) you and your

team have been tasked with

rebuilding the city’s arts provision.

What will you build? What will you

provide? Where will all the money

go? Can you prevent Gojira from

striking again? In this fast paced

game you get to decide the future

of North City. Will Opera be a

distant memory? Or will live art be

banished to a few pages in the

crumbling Library of Arts? Play

your cards right and be the first to

see your plans to fruition. This new

updated edition of The Gojira

Theorem includes the new

Computer and Networks cards.

1 0 4

So obviously this isn’t a particularly

subtle way of asking the questions

about what do we have around us

that works, that is valued by the

majority of artists and audiences

and what is there out of lineage,

that we don’t have the courage to

defund or pull down but that we

might not build again if we had the

opportunity.

Player Cards

Player cards (Max 6). These are

missing. What are the roles that

need filling?

(I imagine the box would come

with cheap props for the players

including things like moustaches

and monocles.)

Setting up the board (for those

that care I will post mock-ups

online somewhere)

Lay out the board as shown in fig.1

Place the ‘Gojira' playing piece on

his hexagon. Roll the dice to

decide who is appointed [missing

text]

The cards are dealt out clockwise.

Each player is dealt three resource

cards, two mental health cards and

two artistic freedom cards. After

each turn a new card is picked up.

Starting the Game

09:00 BST The third meeting of the

UnFuck it Committee tasked with

rebuilding and appropriating funds

for the Arts....[text missing] You

have requested to sit on the board.

Announce your one line manifesto.

Choose your ethos: Eg Great Art

for Everyone,

Obviously in returning to the game

now I would definitely use terms

like Crown Jewels.

Turn One

Using the cards dealt decide your

master plans, using the

suggestions found in the Let's

Create handbook (pp. 2–5).

At the end of this round players

can choose to do one of the

following:

A: Amalgamate Master Plans

B: Discard their Master Plan

C: Keep Plan

Turn Two

Play your first resource card and

any two artist cards. You can on

this turn play the first of your Event

cards. Once all cards have been

placed and funds distributed, then

the turn repeats as before but now

all cards are playable and the

Gojira is now live.

[text missing]

Winning the Game

The first player to make a

successful plan within the £1 1 .9

billion budget. The plan must be

1 0 6

approved by at least two other

players. (See handbook pg. 1 1 :

Successful plans.)

Network Cards

How the network card works.

Place this card on top of a building

or artist. Any cards with network

cards attached will be [text

missing] you can use this to [text

missing] and amalgamate budgets

[text missing]

Chance Dice and Accompanying

Dice Explained

Grants Symbol Roll the thick

envelope/thin envelope dice to see

if your grant has been awarded.

Chance Symbol Pick up a chance

card. With the exception of the

HMRC audit card you can still play

your turn after playing a chance

card. (See Budget Points page 1 0)

Redtop Symbol According to the

tabloids your plan so far is causing

outrage. You can counter this card

if you have picked up an ‘Our Brave

Fighting Boys’ Artwork Card. (see

handbook pg 1 1 ). If you have

played any contemporary art cards

you will also have to roll the Pinko

dice (See handbook pp. 1 1 , 1 2 &

1 5)

Gojira Symbol Roll to see which

part of the city Gojira has

destroyed. This will destroy any

infrastructure in this hexagon

Landlord Symbol Rents Hike. You

will have to remove all artist cards

from the affected hexagons.

Budget points are doubled for

anyone that has played the Coffee

Shop card. (See Budget Points

page 1 0)

Press Launch Symbol Announce

your plans to the press and board

so far. This can trigger a replay of

turn one.

City expansion packs

South City and International City

are both available in all good

stockists in London.

1 0 8

Ben

wright

F I L A M E N T S

Ben Wright is an independent director and choreographer and

teacher working in dance, opera and theatre. He was Artistic co-

Director at Candoco Dance Company 201 7–2020 and Associate

Artistic Director/Choreographer for Skånes Dansteater 201 4–201 7.

He continues to direct his own project ensemble bgroup. Recent

work includes The Lost Thing ROH/Candoco Dance Company, A

space in the Dark Black Box Dance Theatre and the film of his

production The Feeling of Going distributed by Arthaus Musik.

Over the last few months I have been doing a lot of sifting; ferreting

through troves of memories, scribbles and footage of past work, to

better understand how I arrived at this place, now. Although I read

constantly and words play a pivotal part in my creative process, my

work predominantly stems from a physical exploration of sensorial

perception, energy and transformation. I weave threads of ideas

within movement, space and time and I’m never happier than in the

act of associative thinking. Something of this practice may be

reflected in the less familiar act of writing.

In 2008 I was awarded a commission by The Place Prize to create a

work for my pick-up company bgroup. The piece – This Moment is

Your Life — began with a wry lecture on interdependence, paying

specific attention to disco dancing as an “inclusive and radical form

of non-verbal communication.” I’ve been thinking about this piece

and particularly the opening lines that I wrote for the work: “We are

now communally in an instant that is latent with a potential for life.

The unoccupied space in front of you is positively vibrating with an

underlying offer to give existence to something. Do you sense that

audience? The symbolic value of this emptiness? It calls for a rise in

our consciousness.”

Something about this resonates.

Over the ensuing years This Moment is Your Life re-emerged in

various iterations, culminating in an epic-sized version for Skanes

Dance Theatre in 201 5 at Malmo Opera House in Sweden. The lead

character Howard, a lab coated, bespectacled ‘social scientist’,

humorously persuaded audiences to consider learning to dance

together. He proposed that by conquering fears around participation

(audience members volunteering to dance there and then on stage)

we could publicly celebrate the truism that “we all desire and gain

value from a sense of belonging and that being part of a social

group is a basic human need.”

Howard passionately extolled moving en-mass as a means to find

deep connection. He asserted that by aligning our movements

equitably with those around us, we have the best chance of

countering the increasing global trend of self centred individualism.

1 1 0

But, as an aside, he recognised that this opportunity and invitation

existed “outside that of normal life.”

In writing that, I now realise that I weakened the very sentiment I was

attempting to heighten. What Howard should have said is that

dancing together is an experience that is entirely normal, a normal

miracle that we have forgotten at our peril.

I created the work with joy in mind but its foundations lay in a more

serious consideration. What possibilities might emerge if we awoke

from this epidemic illusion of our separateness?

One of the many lessons this time is teaching us, is how irrevocably

interwoven our lives and livelihoods are. As the 21 st century

blunders forth, defending exponential growth and the superiority of

capitalism, we detach further from the truth of our dependency on

nature and one another. We normalise living beyond our means,

ruthlessly mining our planet of finite resources, unaware of the

complexity of systems that provide, and through scarcity fail to

provide sustenance for billions of people.

In the radical uncertainty that many of us are experiencing due to the

pandemic, finding reliable signposts for a journey ahead is a

persistent challenge. Personally, I feel that I am halted at the end of

an exhale, weighted in some liminal expanding state. I am

developing a new sense of space around me. I am intent on

listening, educating myself, not rushing, I am in alert pause. It has

taken three months to surrender to a lack of familiar ‘productivity’

and instead embrace the gifts of not knowing how to proceed. I am

thinking about values; foundational qualities and questions that

might better cultivate meaningful connections, more equitable

inclusion, more sustainable prosperousness. I am thinking about

what hope and solidarity look like, what shared space for shared

experience could reveal. I am hoping for wisdom.

And I keep reminding myself to trust process and to be unashamedly

idealistic.

1 1 2

There’s just no time for cynicism, we need to open our hearts and

minds, drop expectations of reconstructing the old (destruction of

climate, gross inequality, systems that have gratuitously thrived on

prioritising profit over human life etc) and identify with the

indispensable truth that everything is connected and everyone

matters.

Finding a sustainable path forwards from this defining moment

requires the stimulus of questions. Many questions feel

unanswerable right now but questions without answers need to be

asked very slowly and we need to listen even more slowly to find

workable responses. This is a time to imagine and perceive.

As an artist I keep wondering how I can continue my work in the

shadows and suffering of this pandemic, of racial and economic

inequality, rampant nationalism and eco system collapse. Why

persevere? - because I believe that art and creativity have the power

to build meaning, to reorientate, to unite, to change perception, to

reveal truths, offer solace, invigorate and awaken spirit. Artists offer

invitations to think and converse. How we support evolution from

this point will of course depend on our personal resources and

resilience but also the quality and flex of our imaginations and our

relationship with others. Right now are we dying or being born?

Idealistically, I am dreaming of dancing on top of the fresh ruins of

old norms.

There’s a proverb attributed to the Mayans that says that when

walking together and one of us falls we help that person up and

everyone subsequently walks a little slower. If we look around, we

see so many have fallen. Hands are stretching out towards others in

an attempt to acknowledge threat, to hold one another, to ask for

reassurance and rescue, to feel the whisper of wind between our

fingers, the breath of the possibility of change.

We can’t squander this. Like Howard’s brazen invitation, we are being

asked to perceive ourselves anew through respect, equality,

curiosity, relationship, fierce protectiveness, loving kindness. “How

lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now,

start slowly changing the world.” — Anne Frank

1 1 4

Lisette Auton | Emma Beverley | Umar Butt |

Kate Craddock | Brendan Curtis | Emma

Geraghty | Adam York Gregory | Ellie Harrison

| KAtie Hickman | Lady Kitt | Alister Lownie |

Krissi Musiol | ToniDee PAul | Katherina

Radeva | Chloe Smith | Hannah Sullivan | Jo

Verrent | Rich Warburton | Ben Wright

FIELD notes - Two Destination Language

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