In Culture of Possibility #40, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview James Thompson, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre at the University of Manchester.
James Thompson was the founder In Place of War, a project researching and developing arts programs in war zones and has extensive experience working with and writing about theatre under such conditions. The project describes itself as “a global organisation that uses artistic creativity in places impacted by conflict and climate change as a tool for positive change. We enable grassroots change-makers in music, theatre and across the arts to transform cultures of violence and suffering into hope, opportunity and freedom.”
Arlene Goldbard, François and James talk about his journey and his work and what we might learn about shifting perspective from eulogy to criticism, to solidarity, to love, consciously valuing what is good.

Practitioner and researcher Sylvan Baker examines listening within applied theatre practices.
Sylvan has worked across applied theatre, socially engaged arts and education for the past 30 years, and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
He describes a process of using ‘headphone verbatim’ to share testimonies with care-experienced young people, and shows how playback and performance change the resonance of the spoken word.

Last month we completed a three part mini-series and asked for responses. To our surprise the ones we got did not propose digital tools but enquired about a comment in the show notes here at miaaw.net.
We noted that “Rather oddly he does not mention Todoist at all despite the fact that it sits at the heart of his attempts to stay organised. He obviously didn't stay organised long enough to remember to talk about it.”
Tell us more about Todoist, you asked, and ask Owen to explain about his attempts to stay organised.
In this episode, which you can think of as a surprise appendix, Owen Kelly explains some more about his personal organisation. He uses a simplified version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, and uses the ToDoist app as the repository for all his tasks. He also uses it to turn tasks into calendar events which he then stores in CalDav calendars on his NextCloud server where they sync to all his digital devices.

Karen Pilkington and Sophie Hope met doing their duties as board members of a community arts organisation.
They want to get to know each other better and so in this podcast Sophie hears all about Karen’s inspiring work as a community activist in Plymouth, the origins of the Village Hub, how they’ve been organising their work through collaborative decision-making, transparent finances, disaster-proofing and how making relationships, equitable collaborations and decent conversations underpin everything.

In Culture of Possibility #39, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about the difficult conditions community-based artists and groups must work under as austerity measures, encroaching authoritarianism, and challenging world problems increase.
They talk about artists’ strengths in building community for such times, and the importance of uncertainty in nurturing a culture of possibility. They encourage listeners to approach the future from the perspective of readiness: what will be needed to face challenges and opportunities, and how can you develop it?
Listeners are asked to offer their own perspectives and ideas by writing a response in the form of an email. You can find the address to write to at https://miaaw.net

Marley Starskey Butler works as a multidisciplinary artist and social worker. They have revealed that art has functioned as a therapeutic tool for them, helping them to process their own complex childhood, as well as their years in social work - and in 2023 they launched their first solo photographic exhibition, “Thirty-Six”.
They work across visual, audio, and written media and explore the intersections between art, social work as employment, and their familial lived experience of social work.
In this episode, Marley talks about workshops as spaces for listening. They describe a project where redacted social work records act as an impetus for recording a new family archive.
They also discuss listening within the context of social work, and how the chronic under-resourcing of the sector affects this.

This completes a mini-series that looks at whether or not we should feel concerned about the digital tools we use and the effects that they have on us. In this episode Owen Kelly looks at some practical examples of changes we can make and tools we can use.
He discusses why he uses Vivaldi as his browser of choice; why his websites all run on ClassicPress; what software he uses to write; which apps he use to access the fediverse; where he lives on the fediverse; and why the fediverse has replaced Big Social in his online life.

Every year some months have five Fridays, and every time this happens we find something to do there: something out of our normal schedule. We try to adopt an annual theme. In 2021 we played music licensed under creative commons licences; in 2022 we found four old radio shows; and in 2023 we looked back to four early episodes of Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse.
This year whenever we stumble into the fifth Friday of a month we will look around us and find a podcast that interests us: one published under a Creative Commons licence that relates in one way or another to our areas of interest.
Where better to start than with a podcast produced by a friend of ours with whom we have already talked? We talked with Agnieszka Pokrywka twice in 2021 about Ferment Radio. Since then she had produced 41 episodes, and the podcast has become one of the projects produced by Super Eclectic, a “a multimedia production house for the world we want” that she has founded with Humberto Duque.
Today we listen to Episode 40, "Show me your kitchen, and I will tell you who you are" with David Zilber, chef, fermenter, food scientist, and author of "The Noma Guide to Fermentation".