PODCAST Levity, trees and the shape of the festival. A conversation with Pippa Evans
The Realisation Festival is five years old, so how is it shaping up? What ways best describe the gathering? And also, what of its distinctive coupling of music and improvisation with ideas and the challenges of today?
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Introducing the Realisation Podcast
The new Realisation Festival Podcast has been launched!
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The festival has been subject to activist pressure this year. Tell me more.
Yes: pressure from what appears to be one activist group and a few signatories from civil society attempting to establish a connection between the festival and the ecological plight of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. What is clear, though, is that ownership of the bed and soil of the Lough does not afford any agency to deal with these problems. What follows is that the demand to ‘give back’ the Lough makes no sense, and will not solve the ecological governance crisis of the Lough. More follows below.
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Why do we have small groups at Realisation?
Small groups are the beating heart of the Realisation Festival. Â When designing the festival, thinking about how we might help people un-imagine and re-learn, we wanted to create spaces for listening, reflecting and discussing. Â The talks and workshops provide varied and stimulating content, there is plenty of unscheduled time for reflection, it is the daily small group meeting that creates the chance to integrate, discuss and play with the ideas that germinate during the festival.
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You Can’t Be Serious!? by Pippa Evans
The Realisation Festival is something quite special. 150 people, all gathered together to reflect on where we are in the world, personally, collectively, politically and so on and so forth. And it is a deep and reflective time and gosh are we going to end up being all earnest all weekend, wringing our hands and self-flagellating?
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Mark Vernon on the Soul
This year, 2024, the Realisation Festival is focused on the soul. Most will have an intuition that soulfulness matters. Many will go a step further and actively seek ways of attending to the soul. But what might be meant by this simultaneously crucial but elusive aspect of ourselves and life in all its fullness?
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More Thoughts on Difference, by Mark Vernon
The overarching theme for Realisation 2023 is Unlearning and Reimagining Difference. So here are a few ideas on types of difference that might seed your thoughts, or prompt an awareness of more types overlooked below.
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Pippa Evans on Improvising Difference
The scene opened and two improvisers began the show. They hadn’t looked at each other when the lights had come up, and when they did to their horror, one of them was putting X-rays on a Lightbox and the other was frying something in a pan.
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