Dialogue

Lenny and I went to Dwell Time’s partner (Bibliotherapy) network meetings and found out loads of really relevant things that are happening (successful networking!) I was thinking in the meeting and afterwards about the nature of dialogue in collaboration (following the Compass Live Art development meeting topic of partnerships) and especially the first meeting of potential partners and collaborators. How what we do and have to offer and also what we want/need is communicated respectively. Also thinking about the liminal spaces inbetween the ‘official meeting of informal conversation and friendly chitchat getting to know these new people. At the beginning of the meeting before introductions, we had a conversation and kids going back to school and grown up kids going off to uni. A good ten minute conversation about the education system in the UK and comparison to other countries’ systems ensued. Notably how careers advice conversation go and how ridiculously early children are made to chose subjects of potentially a lifetime. This dialogue is based (or certainly was when we were receiving it) on academic achievement over interests. The options of courses that blend diverse interests was and probably still is limited and the motivation/pressure to go into a financially rewarding careers is huge. A better model would be to be enrolled in further/higher education and pick modules of interest, indefinitely, whilst contributing to society in the process with the learned skills and knowledge. I’m sure similar models must exist somewhere. And this was the dialogue before the 2 hour valuable meeting took place! Maybe every meeting should hold a space for a non-business agenda ten minute dialogue at the start!