A New Start…
Starting this new blog, I came across a draft, unpublished blog from July 2019. It was for ‘Salt Act,’ a project inspired by Gandhi’s Salt March of 1930, which was eventually supported by Arts Council England through a Project Grant in 2020, with additional support from Metal Liverpool through their Time & Space Residency, also receiving some funding from the Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust.
I never published that research blog, I’m unsure why. But out of the main project, which explored ideas of colonialism, independence, performance and protest through walking, dialogues, deep listening and yoga, and which ended up being documented through Instagram, I’ve reached this point, where I’m exploring the transformational potential of deep listening.
The development research which follows, had it have been successful in capturing the imagination of ACE through the DYCP grant and/or through the recent Liverpool Biennial / a-n commission call-out, would be starting this week, tomorrow in fact. However, the idea wasn’t successful in getting funding through either of those streams (as revealed a few weeks ago for the Biennial and just a few days ago for the DYCP fund), so I’ve decided to continue to build upon my research and see where it takes me.
In essence, the project explores the connection between the practice of deep listening and kombucha brewing, and how this relates to colonialism and decolonisation, all of which will, I anticipate symbolise a progression and shift in my practice.
I feel that, perhaps not getting those pots of funding is a benefit, because now I have more freedom and time to explore and experiment with this and take it at my own pace. And I’m going to be more open minded about it and possibly eschew all the preconceived ideas I had and just literally experiment, to understand and formulate a tighter body of work.
I’ll still bring into the mix all the other disciplines I love as part of this self-funded, self-directed ‘residency’ – sound, moving image, photography etc – and I’m still hoping to form some innovative partnerships around the science of both deep listening and kombucha brewing.
One thing that’s certain, is the joy of taking this process at my own pace (maybe that’s the biggest thing I will learn throughout this process that will create the biggest shift in my practice?), and although I still have the ‘activity plan’ from my DYCP application, in a first for me, somehow I’m a day ahead of myself!
I’ve already booked on a 2 day deep listening essentials course on the 8th and 9th May (more explanation to come) and I’ve been checking out kombucha brewing kits today. I’ve decided, in line with my original plan, that I want to grow my own SCOBY or mother culture from which to brew kombucha – from scratch, so today I bought a few bits of kit; 2 litre mason jar, stick on thermometer, muslin cloth, organic green tea, paddle stirrer, funnel set and I’m trying to find unrefined cane sugar and unpasteurised, unflavoured, raw kombucha starter tea to grow my own SCOBY from.
I’ll talk about the background to all of this, explain what I’m on about and why I can see a connection between all of the things I’m experimenting with and what my interest in them is another time. For now, I just wanted to say hello and announce that I’ve made a new start, that I’m extremely excited – personally and professionally – about where this is going to take me/my practice and that I hope whoever is reading this finds it of interest and can see its metaphorical merit.
I’m looking forward to what I’m going to learn and taking you on this journey with me, and the unlimited possibilities of creating and opening up whole load of new worlds.
To be continued…
