Global Arts Collaboration
I became fascinated with bringing groups of artists together to create projects that worked differently because of the collective.
41 artists from six cities getting all mixed up in each others' creative process. Artists from Beirut, Cape Town, Istanbul, LA, London and Medellín. We had local shows in each city, and global shows at Camberwell Arts Festival, Istanbul's Space Debris, Cape Town, and LA.
The Airmail Project was a global art experiment: 16 artists from 16 countries, collaborating by post - with artwork travelling 260 000 miles. Each artwork was started, worked on and completed by a different artist. I started the project in 2014 with Lara Salmon - we had shows in LA, Beirut, London, and Istanbul.
I co-founded this Shanghai based cross-cultural poetry exchange in 2011. Running for five years, UV / 译站 brought together Chinese-language and English-language poets to translate and perform each other's work.
A 40-person cross-genre creative collaboration in response to the Pen Paper Pause sketches. We had a project showcase in January 2011 for all the wonderful work – from illustration to upholstery, from sculpture to song.
"All's Well"
I became fascinated with "All's Well", the slogan for Camberwell (South London) since 1901. In summer 2016, teaming up with Istanbul starlet Göksu Gül and Shanghai creative director Ben Weldon, we created a 30 foot re-expression of the Camberwell coat of arms as a creative rallying cry to finding wellness in turmoil. In 2017 I took part in Leoni Bullcock's Camberwell Art Trail with 'The All's Well Poem': designed by Anoushka Woodhouse, cast into bronze, and installed in York stone outside Mono Caffe. In 2018 the Camberwell Arts festival took inspiration from my public exploration of Camberwell's slogan and made "All's Well" the festival theme. My company currently sponsors local under-11s side AFC Camberwell whose slogan is... "All's Well".
Music collaborations
Into Pieces
With Hannah Kendall
Acclaimed composer Hannah Kendall used six of my poems as inspiration for a new work in six movements.
Into Pieces was premiered as part of the CoMA national festival of contemporary music on 4th March 2016 at Kings Place – performed by London Sinfonietta & Contemporary Music for All, and conducted by Gregory Rose – and the poems are read aloud as part of the piece. Hear us discuss it on Resonance FM.
Also performed and recorded by Phaedra Ensemble.
Love Songs For Friends
With Ali Mackenzie
A project with my friend, folk musician Alistair Mackenzie, where we write love songs about our friends.
More coming soon...
Living well in a complex world
I have a long term interest in how humans fidn their way forwards and contend with how to live well.
The Wayfinder
There are many ways to approach personal growth - and it's easy to get a bit lost in the different schools of wisdom - especially as we often feel pulled in different directions at the same time. The Wayfinder is a framework for what it means to thrive as a human - and a way to come to make sense of the different sides of yourself that make you one complete messy whole.
Rage Club
I co-founded this Shanghai based cross-cultural poetry exchange in 2011. Running for five years, UV / 译站 brought together Chinese-language and English-language poets to translate and perform each other's work.
Animal Constellations
There are many ways to understand yourself and most encourage you into abstraction and reduction. This denies the very visceral and complex way in which we inhabit the world. Animal Constellations is a playful yet profound way to understand the different sides of yourself by using metaphors from the animal world. Inspired by the work of "Internal Family Systems" and the ease with which we imbue animals with human characteristics and traits.
Social Processes of Religion
A lot of conversation about religion circles around the helpfulness or truthfulness of the ideas and stories. But a religion is also a set of social processes - shared activities that help humans thrive - from communal singing to confession, from supportive touch to service. I am building a system so we can understand these and apply them to our lives, whatever we believe. This is rooted in my ten years exploring with The Borough Common.
