Can Art Save Us?

Irish identity, Pilgrimage, Partition, Pain and Poetry.

Cherry Smyth is an Irish writer and poet who lives in London. In 2022 Cherry was nominated as a Fellow for the Royal Society of Literature and she is Associate Professor in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Greenwich. Critically acclaimed, Cherry has had four poetry collections published and a debut novel, Hold Still. Her current work, If the River is Hidden, is a collaboration with Craig Jordan Baker. This has also been developed for performance with the flautist Eimear McGeown, one of the world's most versatile exponents of both the classical and Irish flute. If the River is Hidden, is a shared pilgrimage, over 8 days, Cherry Smyth and Craig Jordan Baker walk the length of the River Bann, Northern Ireland’s longest river. This hybrid work of prose and poetry, is a deeply personal, journey between friends. With backgrounds from each side of the sectarian divide, they explore together their Irish identity, of belonging and not belonging, of the Troubles, trauma and truth. This is by no means an easy pilgrimage and we talk about the pain of partition, of bombings, the Irish famine, deep personal losses but also of compassion, connection and landscape as coming home.
Discover the musical composition by flautist Eimear McGeown, specially commissioned to accompany If the River is Hidden.
https://www.epoquepress.com/cherry-smyth-craig-jordan-baker-if-the-river-is-hidden
Discover Cherry Smyth here: https://www.cherrysmyth.com/
Edit - Courtesy of Katherine Wiley.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com

Follow the Hobo Poet for Unconditional Love.

Tom Delahunt, the hobo poet, is an award-winning academic and an advanced nurse practitioner with years of experience in intensive and emergency care. In 2019 he was awarded Most Innovative Teacher of the Year, by the prestigious Times Higher Education Awards, this was in recognition of his use of poetry to support nursing students dealing with trauma. Tom created the blog Poetic Nursing Heart and he also advocates creating a safe space for neurodiversity in education. He says “poetry fuels my hopes and aspirations for inclusion and a rise in educational wonder.” Tom’s complex dyslexia was diagnosed as an adult and he attributes his survival at school to his autistic tendencies navigating what he describes as the ‘mechanistic and impersonal system that is school.’ We talk about, trauma, addiction, neuro-diversity, philosophies of serenity and pessimism and ultimately love. His new children’s book, The Wandering Lamb, is about unconditional love and acceptance. And then, there's The Butterfly Farmer... Ready to fly?
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Tom Delahunt here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-delahunt-71a1559a/
 

The Courage and Craft of Two Poets.

Both BBC Words First Finalists, Billie Meredith is a poet and performer and Saf-S2E is a poet and rapper and they are active members of Young Identity. Recognised as some of the UK’s best emerging talent, they are involved in the Cities Untold project, a partnership between Young Identity, the Manchester Literature Festival and Danish literature festivals. Their commissions will be inspired by the secrets and untold narratives of a city. Saf-S2E also has an album out now, Ink is Blood and Billie's theatre work has been reviewed as brilliant in the Adhesion of Love, written by multi-award winning playwright Stephen Hornby. Billie played Walt Whitman, America's 'father of free verse.' We talk about destiny, poverty, fear, developing craft, Manchester and Africa and ask whose industrial revolution was it? With so much creative and innovative work coming out of Young Identity, this is their cultural revolution and we should probably take Saf-S2E's poetic advice, ‘Expect the Unexpected.’
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Billie Meredith and Saf-S2E here: www.youngidentity.org/ 
Discover Saf-S2E's album, Ink is Blood, here: https://open.spotify.com/album/08GlLcmCeC4arevzbtDZhW

From the Caribbean to Hackney, from Struggle to the Stage.

Dr Michael McMillan is an artist, author, playwright and curator. His plays and performance pieces have been produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Channel 4, BBC Radio 4 Drama and across the UK. He’s a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Arts, London and an Associate Lecturer, teaching Cultural & Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion. Michael was born to immigrant parents from St Vincent and the Grenadines and his work explores family, identity and generation in a migrant context. His curation and installation of a 1970s West Indian Front Room at the Geffrye Museum had more than 35, 000 visitors and has since become a permanent exhibition at the now Museum of the Home. A new iteration of this 1970s interior was recently included at Tate Britain’s landmark exhibition; “Life Between Islands,” exploring Caribbean-British art over four generations. Amongst the 5 star reviews, The Guardian described the exhibition as ”a mind-altering portrait of British Caribbean life through art.”  We talk about the significance of the Windrush generation, the struggle behind rich cultural exchange, the political fear of art, the vital integrity of an artist, courage when your identity is made a target and the experience that changed Michael's life when he was only 16. Michael is a true educator.
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Images: The Museum of the Home
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Dr. Michael McMillan's Front Room here: 
https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/rooms-through-time/a-front-room-in-1976/
 
 
 

Mischief, merriment and inclusive movement.

Daryl Beeton is a kind of acrobatic superhero. He flies on top of sway poles which includes 25 meters across London's Olympic Stadium. H’s trekked 228 miles across Nicaragua, filmed by the BBC, requiring armed soldiers due to the dangers of bandits and kidnappers. He also performs with the trapeze and could probably hang upside down longer than Batman and he's the creator of joyful and highly imaginative, inclusive theatre. Daryl Beeton creates accessible theater for everyone. He's a performer with a disability and he shows the joy of creating alternative and imaginative ways of performing. If you want to see how many ways a wheelchair can spin, striking, acrobatic shapes, and unexpected choreographies, he's your man. We talk about social disability, taking risks as part of exploring friendship and self-development, owning your identity and not being mis-represented, pushing boundaries and expectations, with plenty of mischief, merriment and fun.
Assistant Audio Editor - Enric Thier
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://canartsaveus.com/
Discover Daryl Beeton: https://www.darylandco.com/
 

Two heartbeats, one world. A Syrian musician’s mission for peace.

Tarek Zaidieh is an exceptionally talented violinist and member of the outstanding Orchestra for Syrian Musicians. The orchestra is described as a celebration of Syrian culture with contagious rhythms, soaring vocals and genius musicianship. Tarek has performed with the orchestra across Europe and at major festivals, including Glastonbury. You may have discovered the orchestra performing with Damon Albarn, famously known as the frontman of Blur, and co-founder and lead singer of the virtual band Gorillaz. Tarek has described some of these experiences as once in a lifetime and that the mission of the orchestra is showing the world that Syrians speak the language of peace. We talk about the violin as his second heartbeat, music as an injection of life when threatened by war and a connection to home when displaced by conflict. Tarek and the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians let the music do the talking, sharing messages of peace across the world.
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians here: https://www.facebook.com/syrianorchestra/
 
 
 
 

Solidarity, sunshine photography and pain.

Joe Howell, also known as Maverick Beyond is a photographic artist working with an alternative cyanotype process from which she also creates sculptures. Her identity is firmly rooted in Sunderland, loyal to her working class roots, Jo is standing up to arts elitism by staying put. Despite the barriers against her as a working class woman in the arts, Jo not only supports community groups into creative practice and learning, but she foregrounds women lost in history. We talk about the 'Sad Countess' as both a victim of shocking domestic abuse and as a ground breaking victor of sexist law. Jo also amplified and made visible the significance of the Countess as a botanist in the Bowes Museum collection. We talk about the contribution of women to the 1985 Miners' Strike and the role of art in banners which she is also making visible again today. Jo talks about the pain she lives with, fibromyalgia, alongside the social wounds in society today but, just like her nana did, with every intention of getting on.
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Jo's work here along with free, creative workshop videos, get curious! 
https://maverickbeyond.com/
 
 
 
 
 

The healing harp - a Syrian heart for one world.

Maya Youssef is known as the Queen of the Qanun, a virtuoso and composer of this beautiful Middle Eastern instrument described as a flat harp with 78 strings and possibly a descendant of the Egyptian harp. Maya honours Arabic classical music traditions with pathways into Western classical, Latin and jazz music. Her music responds to her vivid dreams and spiritual awakening, war and domestic abuse, love and separation. Maya's music is a prayer for peace and healing which she consciously shares with her audiences. In Maya’s words the act of playing music is the opposite of death and destruction; it is a life- and hope-affirming act and an antidote to what is happening, not only in her home of Syria, but in the world. We talk about how she became Queen of an instrument deemed only for men, music and heartbreak, surviving her personal war and finding the universal home. 
Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Maya Youssef: https://mayayoussef.com/

Brighton beats for a community heart.

Bobby Brown is a creative producer, artist, manager and rising architect of community arts and equal access, based in the city of Brighton. He's a game changer in youth work supporting creative projects, including music and radio that changes the lives of disadvantaged and excluded young people. He describes himself as a dream weaver, a bridge builder, an optimist and as someone who relied on youth services growing up to make sense of conflict and creative energy. He's an artist manager for rap duo Frankie Stew and Harvey Gunn and he's already been behind R&B singer Elli Ingram, a household name. We talk about identity, why multi-cultural cities are still ghettoised, Black Lives Matter and cultural spaces, fear and internal faith. Bobby is a game changer in the city of Brighton responding to the ever deepening gap between rich and poor. He shares his ideas and vision for building a society where democracy, equality and a collective voice can flourish together. 
Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Discover Bobby Brown via: https://www.lighthouse.org.uk/
 
 

Islamic architecture and the art of building peace and hope.

Dr. Marwa Al-Sabouni is an award-winning architect considered to be one of the top 50 global thinkers around the world. Marwa elevates the critical role architecture has to play in building peace and preventing conflict through segregation and isolation. She is the author of ‘The Battle for Home’ and ‘Building for Hope' and an international speaker. She also recently co-directed the Brighton festival. We talk about 'uglification' and how badly built environments result in loneliness, violence, suicide and war. We talk about inhumane architecture as a form of siege on our human experience. We talk about hope, how we can re-build for peace and where those examples of architecture have been found historically. Marwa's hometown Homs was destroyed during the Syrian war and she and her family lived as prisoners for 2 years with daily, deadly threats. She chose to stay, to rebuild peace. Her courage is as humble as it is huge, practical, spiritual and very inspiring for a world in desperate need of peace.
During this recording, Marwa had low bandwidth in Syria, very special thanks are owed to the audio editor Barry J. Gibb to make the quality the best it could be. 
Discover Marwa Al Sabouni here: 
https://www.facebook.com/people/Marwa-Al-Sabouni/100001576481506/
Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com
Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb