I did an interview with @conch.fyi and it's online here.
Conch is an online platform for artists and artist-led collaborations - they present weekly interviews with artists around the world, all of whom have been selected based on a recommendation from another participant...
‘The whole method of surf-riding and surf-fighting, learned, is one of non-resistance. Dodge the blow that is struck at you. Dive through the wave that is trying to slap you in the face. Sink down, feet first, deep under the surface, and let hte big smoker that is trying to smash you go by far overhead. Never be rigid. Relax. Yield yourself to the waters that are ripping and tearing at you. When the undertow catches you and drags you seaward along the bottom, don’t struggle against it. If you do, you are liable to be drowned, for it is stronger than you. Yield yourself to that undertow. Swim with it, not against it, and you will find the pressure removed. And, swimming with it, fooling it so that it does not hold you, swim upward at the same time. It will be no trouble at all to reach the surface.’
In June I attended the opening of Manifesta 12 in Palermo thanks to the support of a Biennial Bursary grant from a-n. Here are some of my reflections on the event.
I meet a man who doesn’t approve of umbrellas or sunglasses.
The artist lets everything in, he says.
I tell him I feel soaked even when it’s not raining.
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An afternoon bicerin in a little cafe opposite Il Santuario della Consolata.
Coffee, chocolate and cream. Bitterness, sweetness, in equal measures.
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In the church there are hundreds of paintings depicting human misfortune - sickness, accidents - presided over by Mary - invocando protezione - painting as prayer.
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The blinds in my room don’t keep out the sun. I’m woken at dawn.
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I hear there is white magic and black magic in Turin. After a few days in the city, I feel I know what this means.
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During a thunderstorm I visit the Museum of the Holy Shroud. The shroud on display is a replica.
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I join a group of women cleaning the condominium garden. There is sweat and dirt on my skin. A snail crawls halfway up my bare leg before I notice it’s there.
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Late at night I converse with my shadow. She is larger than me and usually dancing.
Her gestures are an invocation, a magic spell.
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It rains and I dream myself in the broad brown river, trying to halt its flow.
A writing-for-life exploration with Charlotte Du Cann and the Natural Beekeeping Trust
What do the lives of honeybees have to do with the well-being and creativity of ourselves?
In the 1920s Rudolf Steiner said that the fate of the honeybee colony was inextricably tied to our own. Since the first case of ‘colony collapse disorder’ was recorded in 2006 the tale of the vanishing bees has been told all over the world.
What does the crisis mean for us as human beings, as writers, as caretakers of the natural world around us? Are we still able to garner the sweetness of life for the benefit of the whole collective? Or have we, like the bees, been so cramped, doused with chemicals, controlled, that we have lost our way back home on Earth?
This weekend retreat is designed for all those who ask questions about the way forward and what we can do as human beings, as writers, to help restore the planet and re-imagine our relationship with a species we have lived alongside for thousands of years.
Just before the zenith of the honeybee year, we will gather and pay attention, tuning into the time of midsummer when the queen bee takes flight as the bee families divide and swarm to form new collectives. We listen to what the bees have to relate to us and discover how we might write their story anew, as well as our own.
The course is suitable for all those who have an interest and engagement with writing and the natural world, and who wish to deepen their craft and have a closer relationship with the fabric of life. This will be a creative non-fiction course but writers and artists of all genres are welcome.
Cost: £145 Â
Dates: 4pm Friday 25th May - 4pm Sunday 27th May 2018
Location: Forest Row, Sussex, England
The workshop fee includes writing workshops with Charlotte Du Cann, talks and apiary visits with the Natural Beekeeping Trust, and all meals and refreshments. We will provide organic/biodynamic vegetarian food. The fee does not include accommodation. A range of local accommodation is available - please ask us for suggested camping, b&bs and rooms.
To register your interest please send a short paragraph about yourself and your creative and/or natural world practice and why you wish to attend this weekend to Carrie at: [email protected]
Charlotte Du Cann is a writer and editor and one of the core team behind The Dark Mountain Project. She teaches collaborative writing and nature dialogue and has given workshops for Arvon, the School of the Wild and Transition Network. She is the author of 52 Flowers That Shook My World - A Radical Return to Earth (Two Ravens Press), and recently edited Playing for Time - Making Art as if the World Mattered (with Lucy Neal, Oberon Books). charlotteducann.blogspot.com
Places are limited and we encourage you to register promptly to avoid disappointment.
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