The Spark

Fire Starter Festival Newsletter

#FSF2021 Theme and Launch Event Announced

We are probably all aware of the summit on climate change (COP 26) taking place next year. This is a theme that will be explored in depth in the next Creative Bravery Festival but it has led us to think more about power – switching our sources of power and energy, igniting power, relinquishing power, empowering, as well as raising questions about who has power: individually, in communities, systemically, and globally and of course who hasn’t.   

This theme is ignited by our launch and the work of Active Inquiry. We are very excited to be working with Active Inquiry, exploring forum and legislative theatre as a means of democratic engagement around societal issues and power. 

We were so impressed with the #FSF2021 event the ‘Balancing Act’ – an exploration of out of school care provision in this year’s festival, we wondered how we could bring more ‘theatre of the oppressed’ to the festival. Now that the festival is on-line, we are even more curious to see how this theatre comes to life on-line. 

Save the date of the #FSF2021 launch event on 1^st February 10am-12pm.  

For more information on forum and legislative theatre please have a look at this report here. It explains the concepts of the approach and gives some great examples of current work.

More Weekly Campfires - Wednesdays & Fridays @ 4pm

We are now hosting weekly campfires every Wednesday and Friday at 4pm. The new Friday sessions will start next week.
 
The campfires have been incredible. Thanks to everyone for bringing amazing questions, reflections and ideas. These campfire link Creative Bravery and Fire Starter Festivals: opportunities to hear about what’s brewing, what’s been set alight and what connections are waiting to be made. Many people have got in touch saying that they can’t make a Wednesday so we are going to add in a Friday campfire – a fantastic way to reflect on the week, share questions and ideas and build our creative communities. 

The campfires will share the same zoom links and if you are not signed up already, you can do so below.

How to Organise Your Fire Starter Event 

We are currently working on an updated online events calendar which will allow hosts to upload their #FSF2021 event to the Fire Starter website. We are hoping that this will go live next week.
 
Until then, we would like to encourage you to keep planning your event. Ideally, your event should start at the full hour and be around 50 minutes long. Once the calendar is online and you upload your event, the calendar will automatically signal to you whether there is already an event taking place at the same time as yours. This will help you decide if you would rather switch to a different time. Your event will still need to be published on an event-marketing website such as Eventbrite, through which you can gather the details about your event attendees, share joining instructions with them and stay in touch. The link to your Eventbrite page will be inserted as part of the uploading process. 
The online event booking form via which you will upload your event will run you through all the steps you have to complete to get your event up on the website. Please note, that each event will have to be approved by a member of the Fire Starter team before it goes live. The team does this once you have completed the booking form, so please allow a weekday for this to happen.  

Please check the website when the calendar comes online and follow us on Twitter @FireStarterFest to get all the latest updates and stay in touch with Fire Starter Community.

Guest Contribution: The Library of Creative Sustainability

The Library of Creative Sustainability is a resource produced by Creative Carbon Scotland, a charity working on the role of arts and culture in addressing the climate emergency. The Library is a database of inspiring Scottish and international case studies demonstrating the benefits of collaborating with the arts and artists on environmental sustainability projects.  

Each article includes detailed information about how the work was achieved, partners and stakeholders, sustainability outcomes, and funding, as well as tips and links to further resources. The Library aims to be not only inspiring but also a practical resource to inform organisations, campaigns, and practitioners on how to themselves undertake similar work in the future. 

The Library is developing all the time and we welcome feedback or suggestions for new content to include. 

Image credit: Eve Mosher/Creative Carbon Scotland