At Last Launch of Emergence Document plus FREE BREAKFAST!!

I’ve just read the Emergence document cover to cover. I’m on an interminable train journey travelling back from Machynlleth to Swansea (you know the one!) after a visit to Centre for Alternative Technology to discuss the next phase of Emergence. It feels like an extraordinary  time, poised between reflecting on Emergence past and planning for Emergence future.

Maybe I should say a few things about Emergence to put all this into some sort of context. Last year whilst on sabbatical from Volcano on a Fellowship with the Clore Leadership Programme I was lucky enough to be involved in developing a project which was a real step into unknown territory – certainly for me! The focus of the project was to create a space where we could imagine and work towards creating a more sustainable society – a society as if people and the planet really mattered. The project also asked ‘what was the role of the artist and the arts in general in all this?’ Emergence began to develop an impetus of its own as myself and my co-creator colleague Rhodri Thomas from Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales started having conversations with others on the same wavelength. These conversations led to a desire to create a space where supporting a dialogue between the arts and sustainability was central. To achieve this we organised three conferences, gatherings, events or what you will in three cities in Wales – Cardiff, Swansea and Caernarfon. To this came writers, potters, storytellers, activists, performers, visual artists, policy makers, funders and venue managers from Wales and further afield. We had those just setting out with their practice and careers and those who had been part of the fabric of Welsh culture all their lives. We looked at ‘Eco-design’, ‘Doing Less’, ‘Zero Carbon Britain’, ‘Greening The Arts’, ‘Resilience’, ‘Kindness and Interconnectivity’, ’Emergence-The Science’ and ‘Emergence- A Way Of Life’. A litany of inspired and passionate speakers and artists shared their experience, concerns and inspirations, including Satish Kumar (Resurgence Magazine), Paul Allen (Centre for Alternative Technology), Alison Tickell (Julie’s Bicycle), Judith Knight (Artsadmin) and Lucy Neal (Transition Towns). After weeks of transcribing, editing, compiling and translating and a bit more fundraising we managed to compile all of these brilliant offerings in one place, then designed, printed and made available on line. If you want to read it, here it is at last. Read, be inspired and pass it on!

http://www.volcanotheatre.co.uk/398/news/emergence

After re-reading it in one sitting (I’m still on the train!) I feel inspired, optimistic and impressed by the amount that is already going on, urged to find out more and absolutely convinced that this crisis through which we are currently living can be turned into an opportunity if as Satish Kumar (and Joseph Beuys) say, we live ‘like an artist’ – that is, cultivating among other things the capacity to be intuitive, spontaneous, creative, flexible and impromptu.

So the document is out at last and we are organising a coming out party, a launch, a celebratory gathering. This is on Wednesday 21st September at Wales Millennium Centre from 8.45 – 11.30. Just turn up if you want to join us. John Griffiths the new Minister for The Environment from the Welsh Government, Nick Capaldi, Chief Exec of Arts Council Wales and Emergence poet Martin Powell will be there. We will be dishing out the real life paper document (it is really very beautiful and feels lovely) and sharing a continental breakfast. After this, there will be an opportunity to organise, find out what new developments and taking place with venues, companies and freelancers and planning ways to get together to do more.

And Emergence future…? Volcano and myself will be continuing the project and we’re now working with the Centre for Alternative Technology to dream up and bring into being the next phase – the 2012 Emergence Summit. We are in the early planning stages. Everything is possible. Watch this emerging space….

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Comment by Tom Beardshaw on September 22, 2011 at 9:04
Argh! Gutted I didn't read this until today - I would have come! Will read the document with interest. I'd really like to see where this work goes in the future, and would love to see more stories, links and insights shared online.

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