Poacher caught in man trap

This project is an experimental, catalytic hoard of chewy facts, historical ponderings, stories and anecdotes – personal and poached – that came about largely as a response to the polarity and hypocrisy stirred up by Brexit and my penchant for truth telling. The initial story grew out of my final project on the Boyeond Words course and tells of the community resistance to the Witch Trials in the French Basque country, based on a historical anecdote in the book Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici. The second story covers the land enclosures in Gloucestershire and the people’s resistance to it, largely based on events described in the pamphlets by the brilliant Bristol Radical History group. The third story is set in Kenya and captures the fight against colonialism there. This story was built from an essay I had written during my degree – a satisfying process of taking something off the dusty shelves of academia and making it more accessible.

I brought these tales together in a box and toured festivals over the summers of 2017 and 2018 with We the Uncivilised and have subsequently shared them in a variety of events.

Scold’s bridal

The stories aim to highlight the processes that got us to where we are today, to sift through he capitalistic fall-out we live with; they are accompanied by a box of materials to open the neurons and invite dialogue and exploration of themes still affecting our lives in present society.

I tell the stories, stir in some facts and juicy quotes, then open a discussion with the audience asking ‘how do these processes from history still bear relevance to society today? Where do we see similar processes taking place today? Where do we carry these legacies within ourselves? How might we face the difficult things of the past in order to heal and move towards a fairer world?’