Active Inquiry

Reflections on Reimagining the Future

25th June, 2021 - Posted by Gavin - Comments Off on Reflections on Reimagining the Future

Pam, one of the actors in our recent Reimagining the Future project, reflects on the project now that it is all over:

Huge thanks to everyone in the project for a thrilling, terrifying, frustrating (at times), but oh so-fulfilling experience over the last 3 months.

Thanks to Lauren and Kathryn for their invaluable contributions – who knew you could stage manage and choose props and costumes on Zoom?   Thanks also to Ray for the work on the documentary – hopefully see you next month for the next stage.  And Lucas – our video artiste supreme – you were wonderful!  The memory of eating my cold dinner from the night before multiple times for my ‘art’ is unforgettable!  Thank you for what you said about the benefits of inter-generational collaboration – exactly as Dot said – we all have so much to learn from each other. Yesterday a 12 year-old who’s only had a phone a few months was showing me (who’s had a mobile since the bricks of the mid-90’s!) all sorts of things I didn’t know I could do!  I’m also glad you learned something about CND – it’s infuriating (again as Dot said) that it’s an issue that’s still here, and absolutely on our doorstep.  The first time I saw your film, I cried – it was so moving.  I think it was the singing, along with the footage – absolute genius.  Yesterday I saw the real Malcolm and Grainne, who’d watched the performance on Saturday – he (convener of the local CND group) was delighted with what we did with the play.  Today I saw a couple more of my friends who watched on Thursday and Friday – both absolutely loved the whole event. 

Thanks to all of the volunteer actors (including those who had to depart the project along the road) who played along – wasn’t it such fun before we started devising?!!  Actually, it was fun all along, although the work got harder and harder as the weeks progressed.  But nothing decent is ever achieved without a hefty chunk of hard work.  Not sure I’ll ever do more ‘acting’, but it was equally scary and exhilarating.

 Thanks to Mel and Val for setting this project up, getting amazing people involved and for throwing yourselves into every session (and even acting!), as well as doing loads of stuff behind the scenes.

 And, endless thanks to Gavin and Liz for slowly, slowly, but so effectively, encouraging, coaxing, persuading and (maybe) occasionally pushing us all to do things we never would have dreamed of doing 3 months ago.  It’s been an amazing and next Wednesday at 11.00 I’ll have to make sure I’ve got something else to do!  So, in a thespy way – I love you all and hope to see most / all of you at some point IRL!

But my final BAFTA has to go, in a joint special prize, to 2020 and Zoom.  Had we all not been in the situation we found ourselves in, with access to the tech that saved our sanity through multiple lockdowns and brought us together from different parts of Scotland, this project wouldn’t have happened, or certainly not in the way it did.  Even down to functionality such as Break Out Rooms – imagine trying to do that in a big hall?  The discipline of being given 5 minutes for this and 10 for that absolutely focused our work-shopping.  It gave everyone who participated equality of access, regardless of location and personal circumstances.  Most of all it allowed some of our further-flung F&F the ability to not just access, but also participate in the Forum aspect of each performance, regardless of their location and time zone and costing them nothing but their time.