‘Write this down’
It was the end of a long day. We’d run out of time and the guards needed to get us
Category: Traction
Building Capabilities: Rethinking the social value of culture
Today will see the third performance of O Tempo (Somos Nós) , “Time (It’s Us), this time at the Gulbenkian Concert
The meaning of risk in community art
Three days ago, anticipating the first performance of the Leiria prison opera, I wrote that I didn’t expect to see
This is special
In the dusty hall of a disused prison workshop, 30 people shuffle into a big circle. Silence falls. They draw
Reflecting on ‘El Cabaret de la Gata’
A long journey needs resting points It is a surprise, in my sixties, to find myself working on opera, as
‘Cabaret de la Gata’– Traction takes off
As the pandemic recedes—or perhaps becomes normalised—it is becoming hard to recall the strangeness of those lockdown months, and the
Building bridges
It’s just over two years since I met the people involved in the Traction co-creation opera projects, in Donostia, at
Without access, nothing is possible
For decades, longer even, cultural policy in Europe has been imagined as a conflict between two ideas. The first is
Between Beckett and Homer: excellence in co-creation
There are moments in every good community art project when you watch, suspended between wonder and terror, as it takes
The difference between a professional and a non-professional artist – Part 2
What does ‘professional’ mean? Like many words, professional has changed its meaning over the course of history, adapting itself to society’s evolving
Regular Marvels 