Rebecca Hillman, 25 January 2015

I am co-organising a festival to celebrate and share tactics for making art that acts as a tool for facilitating grassroots activism and political change. It's especially

interested (but not limited to) the fruitful collaboration of artists and trade unionists, and

in making/strengthening existing networks of politically motivated artists.

I am working on this event with members of Banner Theatre and other artists and

speakers (inc. musicians, spoken word artists, photographers, filmmakers, Reel

News… ). The festival will be funded by the General Federation of Trade Unions

(GFTU) and will take place in Quorn in Loughborough in 2016.

Thanks to everyone who attended the discussion on this - it was really useful to hear

your thoughts, concerns… and most importantly your hopes for what this event might

be. I am really looking forward to working with you :)

People who attended the group discussion thought that specificity would be crucial to

the event (focusing on particular victories, tactics, struggles etc).. However, there was

also a strong sense that we must acknowledge the fact that so many of our

struggles/experiences today are intrinsically international. In relation to this it was

pointed out that there are extremely active and strong trades unions and other

grassroots movements in different parts of the world (using creative tactics), and that it

would be sensible to draw on those. I loved someone's point that it is crucial that we

use histories and current stories to make an emotional connection with the future, and

to be wary of a simply nostalgic connection with the past :)

Please get in touch if you're interested in any of the above, and

there was guy from Warwick Uni doing an interesting project on Battle of the Beanfield

but I didn't get your name/contact details - I'd love to hear from you!

Email me: [email protected] or find me on Facebook (Rebecca Hillman,

University of Reading)

Many thanks D&D organisers - you're great.

Right, off to the pub…