Sarah grew up in Edinburgh in a house of pairs: 2 parents, 2 sisters, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 hamsters, 2 mice, 2 rabbits, 2 tortoises and a brother. She spent most of her childhood holidays in Orkney and Fife; left Broughton High School not really knowing what to do and went to Dundee University to study Philosophy. Upon graduating, and still not knowing what to do, she headed to London where she wasted a bit of time having a lot of fun.
For the last 10 years she has been artistic director and producer of a number of arts projects and Director of the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh. Five months ago she took up a new role as the first head of Glasgow’s international art centre, Tramway.
She lives in Glasgow with her partner Billy, two kids and a cat. Passionate about connecting artists and audiences, the potentiality of art, new ideas, friends, family and taking a positive view of the future…
I have a confession.
I’m feeling guilty.
Mostly about not blogging.
So what happened?
Well there I was sitting in Knoydart, from near dawn to dusk; alone on a mountainside; supposedly thinking about my role in the great climate change catastrophe, or whatever; when my mind bowled a total googly in the storm! I confronted my personal demons on that solo and came back to Glasgow internally euphoric. I then just couldn’t blog about the experience.
Why?
It’s complicated. The feelings were so intense I needed time to get my head together. Its pretty personal stuff. My experiences didn’t fit with the words I’m used to using. I was having to draw on a new vocabulary of experience. I wondered if my head was being played with. I wondered if my feelings, thoughts, emotions were real, hyper-real or (di)/(i)lusionary. Blogging is not what I do. Work takes over. Life takes over. Stuff takes over.
But overriding everything, I think it was my sense of vulnerability that took over.
This needs to be an honest process. This is not easy stuff to get into words. I am not used to presenting my chaotic personal thought process through the web wide world. It’s not what I do. But it is what I agreed to do in undertaking this WWF project.
As I get it, Natural Change is about engaging, through direct participation and within a very specific framework of ecological contextualisation (hence the hill for 10 hours), in a process of values based change (grow potato good, more new shoes bad?).
How do I interpret this? As: the world’s in a serious environmental mess; it affects all of us; we are now in deeply unsustainable territory; its scary to think about; we need powerful global solutions; they will happen only if enough of us have the will for them. The philosophical framework is sustainability. The will for change will come if our values reflect our real needs and not those wants as defined by Mark E.T. advertizer & co.
But this is complicated stuff. There is no black and white easy answer that anyone’s pointing out to me. Although, the more I look, the more I realise there are lots of bits of the answer out there. Part of me is resisting parts of the project. Part of me is slightly obsessed. Is it the end result I’m resisting? Or, elements of the process? I crossed a personal milestone, but I don’t know what that will start to look like.
Hey, I like a bit of shopping, don’t know if I’m ready to quit all and take up the Good Life. There are so many dynamics to consider, then multiply it all globally. Agh -what’s a girl to do?
I’ve been thinking about things converging. Large, small, old, new.
Sometimes things happen that have such an impact they cause major social, political paradigm shifts. Obama’s election shifted American politics and society generations overnight; the financial meltdown shifted our confidence and the unquestioning inevitability of the global free market within a near 24 hour period. To see that speed and depth of change, a process that could easily have taken half a century to reach, happen overnight, shakes us up. That can be scary. However a newness has been thrown into the now, that will affect almost everything from this point. I find that a little bit exciting. We maybe in un-chartered water but that doesn’t mean we’re going down. Who knows where we could go if there was enough will for something better?
This shift in big stuff, global change that’s been going on over the last five weeks has been kind of paralleled for me on a very personal level. Alone all day I kicked ass out some stuff that had been bothering me for a long time. I found a place to confront grief; that place gave me back a deep sense of connection. Try blogging that!
I’m thinking a lot about my family, my work, my city. How linked the ideas around changing any one of them are. Maybe I also get the fact that even changing one thing rubs off, knocks on, has a little cascade effect…
We had a big gang, of very old friends and their kids to stay this weekend.
‘So, how was it, we’re all desperate to know‘? one asks.
‘Might tell you‘, I laugh. ‘Why, do I seem any different‘?
‘Hell yes‘, they all shout and laugh, ‘you haven’t stopped dancing’...
Cant quite do this post yet, bear with me. Its good to be back…
The other night I was wondering where it was going to start. On the journey up here, I’m wondering where it’s all going to end?
Knoydart, Knoydart, Knoydart…that’s a name with presence.
What’s it going to deliver, this place with such a name? What’s going to change? My values? We’re told it’s a ‘value based change process’ so what does that mean…exactly? I feel a bit of a fraud. I’m not really sure why I was asked. There are other people that could articulate this better.
Note to self: get over it. They asked you.
I’m up for it, and open to where it leads. I think connections are going to play a big role for me in this.
There are seven of us. 7’s a magnificent number, think of Henrik Larsson when he played for Celtic. Its late, we don’t arrive til after 9pm. I think I’ve already found some late night buddies to share the smuggled brandy. We were told no drink. Rules shmoools I say to Jules…I know she’ll forgive me.
Freaky
Got bit freaked out this morning. Not really my vibe, are my worst fears going to be realised? Is this a scary cult or a smart intervention to start something significant? I’m feeling a bit ‘put upon’ at the moment. But maybe this is just me. I can’t do the happy, hippy thang. Sitting in the tent talking about a buddist monk making a mendala (?) really doesn’t do it for me, come on…
Ok so making Spiral Jetty with Robert Smithson, were he still with us, yes maybe but this aint that. In fact, I feel quite angry when I set off on the first workshop. Am I being manipulated? My own values are pretty legit thanks very much. But, it doesn’t take me long to get something I like out of it. The place is amazing. Mountains, rocks, and sea in that order is truly awe inspiring.
I think I’ll be coming back to this needs stuff again, and again. And maybe again.
But for now, we’ve been told that tomorrow morning we set off at dawn, spend the day in silence and don’t come back til dusk, with no talking til Sunday morning at 8am! My fellow late nighters feel equally freaked at the prospect, mostly of not talking…
But first: can Sarah confront her fear of blogging?
I have a confession, I am a blogging virgin. It’s been my biggest fear since I first got asked to take part in this project.
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for answers and I don’t have them. But I do have lots of questions. If you fancy it, I’d love you to come along with me but I’d better be honest – I have no idea where I’m going…
Maybe you could give me some feedback along the way. Encouragement would be good. Dissent? totally fine, but with charm, gentleness or humour - please! And, if you’ve got nothing nice to say… well, I guess that’s up to you.
The ‘environment’ is not my area but about a year ago my friend got tickets to hear George Monbiot talk about his book How to Stop the Planet Burning. We came out depressed. Yes, depressed at what we humans had done to our world, (he’s a straight talker and I kind of trust him) but more so, depressed that if the answers lay with the point-scoring, bearded eco-intellectuals who seemed to make up 95% of the audience we were as good as dodoed! We were doomed if they couldn’t connect with ‘everyday people’. Change will come from the power of us all and believe me, these guys weren’t talking our language.
In the days after that talk, we thought a lot about how crap it all was. Of the need to change behaviour, but we felt useless, paralysed. It all seemed so totally overwhelming.
So, a couple of months ago, this totally leftfield email arrived at work from a women called Jules, who works for WWF and asks me if I want to take part in this project – Natural Change.
So what’s it all about? Well, I guess I’m about to find out. I haven’t thought about it much in advance, life’s been busy - new job, new house, new city, new people.
We leave in a couple of days - guess i get those waterproof trousers at lunch time. What will everyone else be like?
Is this big brother for guardian readers laughs my pal? They promised no cameras I reply.
Sometimes strange things seem to happen to me - i end up in situations with no clue as to how i got there. This is one of those things….
