Images by Ulijona Odisarija, Ali Wates, Avi Allen & Joanne Matthews
WILD PHILOSOPHY: RAVING, RUNNING, READING (2018)
Artists' retreat, Capel y Graig, Furnace, Wales
I conceived and facilitated Wild Philosophy: Raving, Running, Reading. Permaculture design was used as a tool to fuse together communal living, raving, walking, deep listening, being naked and punk approaches to reading. The work deliberately worked at intersections and edges to find ways of living an creating with intensitiy and vulnerability.
This took place over one weekend and was for people who identify as a women/non-binary. The weekend was somewhere between a residency and a countryside retreat and took place in a converted chapel (Capel y Graig) in the Snowdonia National Park in Wales. Over the course of a weekend (Friday evening to Monday morning), seven women shared a house, a chapel and cooked communal meals. The DIY included experiments in radical listening, naked rambling, collaborative life drawing and accessing “the erotic”, raving, subverting hierarchies and reading woman philosophers and theorists.
Day one included body meditations and a reading from Strike magazine about radical listening. Day two included reading Pauline Oliveros, a silent walk with sonic meditations and wild swimming; raving leading into collaborative life drawing where everyone is naked and everyone takes it in turn to be a model in the pulpit of the Chapel; a reading from Audre Lorde; a reading from Rebecca Solnit and a night walk in a pitch-black forest. Day three included; a reading from Kristie Dotson leading into a naked hike with wild swimming; a reading from Strike magazine about the political freedom of the dancing body; a question was set – “What is hierarchy”, then naked raving and automatic writing; an individual “anti-lecture” from everyone in response to the set question.
Wild Philosophy: Raving, Running, Reading was developed out of the Live Art Development Agency’s DIY programme of professional development for artists and supported by Chapter Arts Centre.
Wild Philosophies Reading List:
“Radical Listening: A Manifesto” by Soofiya and Andry from Strike Magazine Radical Pedagogy issue 19
https://strikemag.org/radical-listening-a-manifesto
“Introduction” from Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice, by Pauline Oliveros
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Deep_Listening.html?id=yzL3QjZpFoUC&redir_esc=y
“Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power” from Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Sister_Outsider.html?id=r3Ct8Qw3de8C
“Walking After Midnight: Women, Sex, and Public Space” from Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/332360/wanderlust-by-rebecca-solnit/9780140286014
“Concrete Flowers: Contemplating the Profession of Philosophy” in Hypatia Journal by Kristie Dotson
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01176.x
“Rhythm and Matter: In Praise of the Dancing Body” from Strike Magazine Body Issue 18, by Silvia Federici
https://strikemag.org/magazine/issue-18
Spotify Playlists: