THE 2021 FESTIVAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
RUNNING 1-30 NOVEMBER 2021
RUNNING 1-30 NOVEMBER 2021
After four and a half years of research, we aim to present key aspects of our learning in the Distant Voices project through a series of events. This will include: Three evening performances (featuring songs co-written with justice-affected people); two of these will be in the format of ‘house-gigs’ online (i.e. a small song-circle of 3 musicians, with a host, will play and discuss a short set of 8 songs from the project); one involves the premiere of a filmed version of a work originally devised for theatre called ‘A Giant on the Bridge’ which combines stories and songs in an innovative exploration of punishment, reintegration and restoration. The three performances will be pre-recorded but then live-streamed to allow engagement and dialogue online (e.g. via chat functions in YouTube, or similar). Three lunchtime ‘conversations’ in Zoom webinar format, where members of the research team, and invited guests, will discuss our learning – mainly focused on the alienation, separation and distance that punishment creates, and on what we have learned about how that ‘void’ can be ‘bridged’ through creative community development.
Distant Voices has refined and developed our understanding of the shape and scale of the ‘void’ that punishment creates; and of creative, prefigurative practices that might help us ‘bridge’ the void. That is the key focus of the festival. The running order of the festival is aimed to start with our analysis of the ‘void’ and then work towards our understanding of ‘bridges’ and bridge-building.
Building Bridges
A Giant on the Bridge used (creative) practice as research to explore disintegration and reintegration, and also explored similarities between song-writing and restorative practices. As such, it points not just to the need to find a path to ‘resolution’ (both in the senses of clarity and of closure), but to how that might be approached.
Fergus McNeill
Lucy Cathcart Frödén
It is open to all, but probably not suitable for children.
Criminal justice activists, practitioners, policymakers, service users, students Media Those interested in popular music and theatre
