Bristol Listening Circle

As the sun sets on the dusty Gloucester Road skyline and on a flickering, sweaty summer, we can look back contentedly on five evenings doing something defiant in its simplicity, simple in its defiance.  On Wednesday 20th of August we discussed ‘The Purpose of Art’ but, perhaps predictably, floated beyond ‘purpose’ into ponderings and pontifications on the nature, value, beauty, power structures and professions of ‘art’, from Van Gogh to Vin Diesel.    Here are some of the reflections we could (belatedly) recall from Wednesday: Is art necessarily political? Context and historical situatedness of art… pieces that require context and the constructs around those regarded as "beautiful", “masterpieces” outside their zeitgeist What will art of the future be like? The backlash against new movements and genres Art as a form to challenge the status quo, discourses on beauty, notions of reality and normativity. Dialogue between producer/artist and receiver/spectator Pretentiou...

Who’s Gonna Do the Dishes? Welcome back to our account of this week’s listening circle. We say ours because we acknowledge how everyone may remember each session differently, find other points more relevant or may have attributed varying meanings to the words shared in the circle. Every week, when we both try to list our recollection of the session, we encounter these discrepancies.  Perhaps this happens more than we think but we don’t tend to write down a shared reflection of a social event and attempt to agree on what is published. It has been an interesting practice to challenge assumptions, to listen even after the listening exercises have ended and to speak from an awareness that the aspiration for a neutral account of the events is a fallacy. Likewise, actively listening to everyone’s thoughts to remember them and write them down days later is honouring the individuality of every participant, the value of their contributions and the uniqueness of their experiences. The storie...

Reflections on the Reflections (Or: Some Not-Particularly-Original Bonus Content That Nobody Asked For)  By Caspar Montgomery Tuesday’s session was my favourite so far, a perfect atmosphere of openness, playfulness and sincerity. It was inevitable that we would wind down productive rabbit holes and collectively carve out only a few of the infinite aspects of what might be encompassed by ‘Us and Them’. But I think we were onto something, and the themes that sprung up that mighty fine evening have been chasing me ever since, especially in politics.  For instance, this was at the top of my YouTube feed the next day… … and this was in my inbox, regarding the counter-protest protecting immigrants from right-wing protestors, which took place earlier today. And when I arrived at said protest, I couldn’t shake off an icky sticky feeling, the words of a Listener on Tuesday ringing in my ears. This Listener had expressed a felt tension between, on the one hand, wanting to strengthen the...

Another evening at 30+ degrees, another La Ruca Listening Circle with fresh faces bringing fresh ideas and novel approaches to avoiding the glare from the sun. This topic, ‘What does progress look like?’ , was our most ambitious yet, and (happily) we ended up with no firm answers and nothing like a consensus, just more questions and perspectives that will fester and ferment.    “When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.” — Henry David Thoreau “Stick your progress where the sun don't shine Keep your big mess away from me and mine If you leave us alone, well, we'd all be just fine Stick your progress where the sun don't shine” — John Rich Before everyone’s thoughts became intertwined in the conversation, the initial round revealed two main levels at which to engage: collective/political progress and individual/personal progress. While they are inevitably correlated, some parallels became apparent in both categories. What followe...

Somehow a conversation about excess turned into a conversation about community and it made sense. The second Listening Circle (held again on the hottest day of the week but in a much cooler room) was a gradual transition from reflections on excessive and addictive tendencies, to an exploration of some of the reasons and context surrounding and underlying those patterns: being overwhelmed with choice, surrounded by messaging of what we could have and could do, and untethered from community. Rather than narrate it to you, here is a breakdown of the points that guided the discussion so you can go back whenever you want and let your mind fill the gaps with your own thoughts, experiences and perspectives. Balancing extremes, from excess to cutting things out Excess of substances, excess of work, excess of time alone, excess of socialising, excess of going out… Digital media and the multiple possible experiences, lives, professions, opportunities, trips, partners we could have, live, embody,...