Quite a momentous year personally, 2015. We started the year wrestling with whether to move or not, and, if so, where to: Denmark to be nearer family; Spain of Greece to be nearer the sun; anywhere that any successful academic job application took us... After much ado, we decided to stay put because of affective and political links to this community and this place, our house, village, Aberystwyth and Wales, most particularly Cor Gobaith!. Our decision contributed to me giving up on any academic ambitions of paid employment. The geography department of Aberystwyth University will evidently never give a job to someone so out of tune with its politics, no matter how long my list of publications or evidence of impact... In truth, giving up on academia was both agony and ecstasy: through participatory geography, scholar-activism and working with a number of inspiring colleagues I thought maybe I'd found a home with others. Water under the bridge may be a poorly chosen analogy given what is going on around Britain as the Lords of Misrule continue their apocalyptic reign, but it now feels good to have moved on and to focus on a new project: 'visionary fiction' (see previous posts), which for me will encompass forum theatre and other forms of public engagement with social and environmental justice as their aim. Creative highlights of the year include: writing 'Who cares?' with Kye Askins, whose proposal that we do an anarchist academic book chapter as a piece of forum theatre was literally a life changer for me; writing a song, 'Tout Changer', the tune as well as the words (!), and working on it with Lotte; writing a two-handed play for radio (or stage), 'Friends on Facebook', and watching my friend Cath bring it to life... Any road, January looks busy with various funding applications, story submission and performance deadlines. So happy new year to you, and hopefully I'll have something moderately interesting to post ocassionally in 2016. I love a convivial (hyggely) new year's message, don't you?
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AuthorI am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together Archives
December 2022
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