weaving Voices 01.04.2025 issuu - Flipbook - Page 88
Some of us have Settled Status. Some of us have Pre-Settled Status.
Some of us have Limited Leave to Remain Status. Some of us have
Indefinite Leave to Remain Status. Some of us are visitors. Two of us
are children… (HB) / (TB)
by their legal status. This is particularly important because much of
the work challenges and problematises current legislation regarding
migration and refuge in the UK. (HB)
when you know what you are doing can
O “Only
you do what you want”
Participant feedback:
“I learned about connection in the form of weaving. I learned new
words. I felt a positive energy. There was laughter.”
“I was able to communicate better with people. I now understand
the music in different languages.”
“I learned the value of diversity: embracing difference and learning
from them. Everyone has a voice.”
“I experienced inclusion and engagement in a multilingual
environment.”
“I had a lovely time. I got a lot of energy from the people here.”
“I will take with me the faces and the stories of the people I met.
There is more that connects us than divides us.”
“I escaped the stress and chaos I cannot control and joined in. It has
been really, really good to be playful these few days.”
“When I met these people, they could understand me like I could
understand them.”
s Seeking Sanctuary
Communities of people who have ‘refugee legal status’ in the
UK, or are in the process of seeking asylum, are often referred to
in writing by the abbreviation ‘R/AS’ in the community arts and
socially engaged practices sector. These communities are frequently
considered to be ‘hard to reach’ in the Arts Council England’s
terminology. Use of the term ‘people seeking sanctuary’ can
describe a range of communities without defining groups of people
174
“Only when you know what you are doing can you do what you want” is
a common phrase attributed to Moshe Feldenkrais and used in
the professional Feldenkrais trainings. (See next entry ‘F’ below).
Contrast this idea with Einstein’s (attributed) “If we knew what we
were doing it wouldn’t be called research would it?”146 Collectively these
statements infer important relationships between knowledge and
desire, and knowledge and research. Both ideas seem very relevant
to me on this project. Often in knowledge exchange workshops, I
found myself working alongside practitioners who were super strict
about the importance of, for example, singing in the correct key in
order to honour the traditions that we were learning, or following
particular colour lines whilst weaving. The values and beliefs of
these collaborators informed by experiential knowledge appeared
to privilege a focus upon higher quality outputs. Other practitioners
with a more exploratory sensibility to learning seemed to privilege
curiosity and process over higher quality technical or aesthetic
concerns. (TB)
f Feldenkrais Method
Feldenkrais is a method of creating the conditions for every-body
to tune into the process of learning about how to pay attention to
themselves through moving. Bringing one’s attention to the question
of noticing in the pursuit of making conscious choices about how
to be in the world. The cultivation of the ability to pause and find
presence, and choose your reaction to the world around you, rather
than reflexively acting out of habitual programming, is truly what
this work is about. How do you create vitality amidst challenging
times? Do your habits run you, or can you sit with the discomfort
146 Attributed to Einstein and quoted in the foyer of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the home of
Greenwich Mean Time, London.
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