François Matarasso

Building a bridge

Suddenly, we are there. In the next six months, a series of performances will test everything we have imagined, planned, organised and created. There are dates. There will be audiences

Art with the experience of age

In the new episode of ‘A Culture of Possibility’, Arlene and I spoke with two old friends, David Slater and Alan Lyddiard. Their work is beautiful, in process as much as performance, and I’ve learned a lot from working with them over the years, in different ways and at different times. Here’s Arlene’s introduction to…

Signal Fires

In another time, I was asked by Fuel Theatre to write the introduction for a book called Signal Fires, collecting texts and images from a brave attempt to strike sparks of community in the depth of the pandemic. The original Signal Fires were lit in October and November 2020, from the Highlands to Cornwall, from…

Life interrupted

Some personal news on my other site:

Innocence and experience: John Fox’s songs

Regular readers (thank you for your interest) will know my admiration and affection for John Fox, Sue Gill and the extended family of Welfare State International. Their work caught my imagination 40 years ago, and remains a source of inspiration, perhaps because of its differences with my own. If you haven’t come across them, you…

Blinkered by my privilege

For decades, longer even, cultural policy in Europe has been imagined as a conflict between two ideas. The first is that everyone should have access to the greatest achievements of art and culture. The second agrees, but says that everyone should also be able to contribute to culture’s creation and evolution. In the language of…