Breaks & Joins Podcast: Recent Episodes
Sue Mayo
These chats about repair (our stuff, ourselves and our communities) range from mending textiles to the repair of broken bones, from up-cycling in the pandemic to community conflict in Bangladesh, from home made Punk Clothes to celebrating scars. Growing out of a Community project in Lewisham, South East London the podcasts give more space for longer conversations, and you'll be able to hear Rose Sinclair, textile specialist, Raj Bhari, Peacebuilder, talking with Clare MacDonald, artist and Unitarian Minister, Dr Sylvan Baker, founder of The Verbatim Formula,textile dyer Liz Honeybone from the National Theatre costume department, Theatre Designer Amanda Mascarenhas chatting with Mo Sumah, host of the Mend it with Mo repair cafe, Suzi Warren, founder of Stitch it Dont ditch it, theatre academics Sudip Chakroborthy and Ali Campbell on national identities, and Rachel Ho, ceramicist and creator of the scarred pots.They're interviewed by Sue Mayo, edited by Chuck Blue Lowry, music by Bob Karperhttp://www.suemayo.co.uk/
I’m a gardener by trade and have spent most of my waking moments in the last 8 years, tending to and communing with plants. At the heart of my practice is helping people reconnect with their immediate surroundings, creating green spaces in difficult places and using gardening as a vessel to connect with self, ancestors and other human and non-human beings. I also welcome any opportunity to create food-growing spaces! The questions that drive my work are; what relationships do we need to build with plants in order to address climate and food justice? What do plants teach us about ourselves and others? How do our ancestors speak to us through the non-human world? How can green spaces act as vehicles for connection, rest and therapy?
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Dr Georgia Bowers is a leading Creative Ageing practitioner, academic and pro-ageing activist. Her work explores how theatre making with older adults can tackle ageism and takes place in care homes, hospitals, sheltered housing accommodation, day centres and via online video platforms. Georgia has worked for arts organisations such as Royal Opera House, Brighton People’s Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Spare Tyre and London Bubble. Both her research and Creative Ageing practice has been celebrated and shared throughout Europe and North America. She is currently the Programme Leader for Applied and Contemporary Theatre at the Guildford School of Acting.
http://www.georgiabowers.co.uk
https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2023.2272511
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In my role of Arts Manager for Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust I am responsible for delivering an arts programme to support the health and wellbeing of our patients, staff and visitors. Our projects encompass all art forms, using music, dance, creative drawing, and arts and crafts to provide individuals with the means for creative expression and to help alleviate stress and anxiety. Visual art and design are used to enhance our hospitals, helping to create healing environments where people feel comfortable and reassured. All of our arts activities are underpinned by a solid evidence base which proves the benefits of the arts on health.
https://www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/arts-connect
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Gaynor Tutani (Art Adlib) is a curator, producer and writer who merges her various arts, culture, community and educational passions to produce exhibitions, events and commentaries on art and curating. Her speciality is in Public Programming – of which she extends as part of her practice as the Creative Programing Officer at Museum of the Home. She is the Co-founder of EARTHworks [Artists], a curatorial duo with artist Jean Joseph, that is dedicated to promoting creative collaborations through an intergenerational lens. Gaynor holds a BA in History and the History of Ideas and an MA in Museum Cultures with Curating, specialising in decolonial approaches.
https://www.instagram.com/art__adlib/
https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/
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Following a Masters in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths, Megan completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Limerick in 2023 and received an Irish Research Council scholarship for her research: "Community Solidarity Initiatives as Spaces for Connection, Resistance and Change". This project investigated how people living in Direct Provision and members of the wider community engaged with and experienced community solidarity initiatives that bring both groups together around shared experiences like food, sport and cultural celebrations. Megan currently works at UL as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Mike Quayle on the CON-NET project; employing qualitative methods to explore experiences and consequences of coordinated online misbehaviour.
Megan Vine: Researcher | Linktree
https://www.facebook.com/galwaymeltingpotluck/?locale=en_GB
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Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. He was the Jerwood/Arvon Mentee mentored by Hannah Lowe. Arji’s debut pamphlet ‘Mutton Rolls' was published with Out-Spoken Press in 2020 and his newest book ‘Improvised Explosive Device’ was released in the Autumn of 2022 with Penned in the Margins. This highly acclaimed book was noted in The Telegraph’s Top 20 poetry books of the year, as well as in The Guardian’s best recent poetry section. It was also the Winter PBS selection and Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize. Arji has been facilitating for over 20 years both nationally and internationally. Arji is writing a suite of poems for the new Breaks & Joins film, Can everything be mended? (released May 2024). He hosts the podcast Arji's Poetry Pickle jar
http://www.arji.org
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Merel works as a freelance accompanist and vocal coach besides teaching singing and piano. She is choir leader of the Long Covid Choir and the Long Covid Kids Choir. Merel also works as a Supporting Artist for feature tv/film, such as The Crown. In her free time she takes Art Classes with Lucy Freud. Merel fell ill with Covid in 2021 and has been living with Long Covid ever since. She loves using her musical skills to bring joyful moments to others living with Long Covid.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfZDlE7_gekaPrRl4eDibKg (@merelsmusicroom)
https://www.longcovidkids.org/service-page/lck-choir-all-ages-welcome
http://www.longcovidchoir.org
Latest recording with the Long Covid Choir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkK-oX61Pwk
Long Covid Kids Choir recording in Ukrainian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb7tgxwhdVw
Long Covid Kids Choir recording for Coronation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt7gtBf3Uco
Long Covid Kids Choir Christmas recording 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtMyrSZyTSs
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Amie is a writer, theatre maker, musical theatre teacher and the Director for Fun Palaces.
A Fun Palace is a free event made by local people for their own community. At Fun Palaces people come together to share their skills, passions and interests, and to show the world just how brilliant and packed full of genius their community is. Anyone can make one, anyone can go to one; it's a movemnt, a campaign, a catalyst.
She has written three books for children.
http://www.funpalaces.co.uk
https://uk.jkp.com/collections/author-amie-taylor-pid-226567
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Camille Dawson is a critically acclaimed comedy writer, performer and director. She is founder and Artistic Director of Frisky Arts. Camille has a multi art, anarchic and comedic style. The War Inside is inspired by her experience of struggling with autoimmune disease. The show shines a light on invisible illness, and takes the audience on a wild ride, inside the body. Alongside the show, The Tapestry of Imperfections is a collaboration with the public. This community artwork is a celebration of the growth and strength we develop by going through the imperfect moments of life.
https://www.camilledawson.com/
https://www.friskyarts.com/
Cristina Ottonello is a large-scale installation artist with a developed skillset in participatory projects with communities of interest and young people. She specialises in outdoor art and in the creation of large-scale temporary installations with a strong visual impact and wide-reaching public involvement. Her work is inspired by and replicating objects found in nature and science – fun, playful, animated and atmospheric works, often exhibited as part of outdoor festivals and light trails within heritage, cultural and garden sites and exhibited in many iconic sites throughout the UK and in Italy. Cristina was the designer for The War Inside, and the co facilitator of The Tapestry of Imperfections, the participatory work that runs alongside the show.
http://www.cristinaottonello.art
Insta: @cristina.otto.art
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Maria Amidu is a visual artist and PhD Candidate in the School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art. Her artistic concerns are influenced by the complexities of the relational – between people and between people and place. Through writing as artistic practice she tries to substantiate what might be going on in collective situations, paying specific attention to what is hidden, obscured or unspoken. She privileges fault lines and weak spots as essential components in her artworks – fragility, fracture, instability, dissolve, impermanence, residue, mess, breaks, risk.
Maria Amidu
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Lee is the founder of Positive Carrickfergus and co-founder of Repair Cafe Belfast and Carrick Greengrocers. She has lived in Carrickfergus for most of her life apart from a few years in England and Italy like so many of her generation brought up in Northern Ireland. Lee has worked in the voluntary and community sector for around 25 years mostly in grant making and decided about 6 years ago to try to work out how to make more of a useful contribution to her town and NI. She is terrible at switching off but finds that knitting socks helps.
https://positivecarrickfergus.org/
https://www.instagram.com/repaircafebelfast/?hl=en
https://carrickgreengrocers.org/
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Amahra Spence lives in the UK and works globally. Her practice is one of poetic pragmatism, exploring transformation and iterating change oriented towards liberation. In particular, Amahra engages this through spatial reclamation and social justice, design, performance and storytelling.
In all aspects of her work, Amahra contends with Black Imagination as a framework and the starting point for change.
As Founding Director of MAIA (2013) and Organiser of The Black Land & Spatial Justice Project (2020), Amahra brings a critical analysis of systemic injustice and power, committing to infrastructure building, resource redistribution and platforming radical imagination.
Outside of self-initiated projects, Amahra works to reimagine the governance, models, spaces, systems and practices of organisations across the cultural, public, Built Environment and philanthropic sectors. In this context, she has worked with a wide range of organisations, including Birmingham Museums Trust, muf architecture/art, Clore Leadership, Ten Years Time, Iniva, The National Lottery Community Fund, East Street Arts, Arts Council England and many more.
https://www.maiagroup.co/
https://www.amahraspence.com/
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Madeline Tanoto is a designer-maker & teacher with a 20 year career in fashion & teaching across all things textiles. She is a qualified Mental Health First Aider & combines these skills with her textiles experience to explore the craft of mending within a supportive & inclusive environment. She is the founding Director of Mads do & Mend CIC whose aim is to teach people to mend what they own, creating connections with each other, be creative, and consider the global impact mending can have on the world and the communities who live in it.
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Sally Jaquet is an Edinburgh-based community musician who believes music is for everyone - a human right that helps us connect, care and cherish each other and ourselves. Her projects include vocal and songwriting teaching; choir leading; music & wellbeing workshops for school groups, businesses; and music research and arts projects evaluation. As well as group music facilitation, Sally is a performing musician within a range of styles - Jazz, Blues, Scottish and Appalachian folk, Electronic funk, and Indie Soul. She currently works for Love Music, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Conservatoire of Music, Hear Me Out as well as a range of individual projects.
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Ellen works as a consultant for Seahorse Environmental, a specialist environmental communications agency. In this role she works with a number of NGOs and businesses on campaigns including the Lost Rainforests of Britain campaign. She has a background in research and is particularly interested in the circular economy, the arts and environment and behaviour change.
https://www.seahorseenvironmental.co.uk/
https://lostrainforestsofbritain.org/
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Kay Rufai is a Photographer, Poet, Filmmaker, Author, Mental Health researcher and founder of the internationally acclaimed S.M.I.L.E-ing Boys projects. He is currently the first Artist in residence for West Midlands Police Artist as part of Coventry City of Culture, using creative arts to improve relationships between police and marginalised young people. His work spans the past 8 years in a handful of countries including the UK, USA, Ethiopia, Bhutan, Germany, Scandinavia, Mexico, Nigeria and Colombia. He explores themes of masculinity, identity, mental health, serious youth violence and
community cohesion through art, photography, educational workshops, residencies, training and public events. A great deal of his work has directly engaged diverse communities, young people in custody, at-risk youth, refugee and displaced groups of people as well as collaboratively creating bodies of work with them.
www.universoulartist.com
www.smilingboys.com
www.instagram.com/universoulartist
www.instagram.com/smilingboysproject
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Yvonne Field is a serial social entrepreneur and change agent who has spent more than four decades working with grassroots organisations, front line staff, senior managers and policy makers in local, national and international government and civil society organisations.
Yvonne has worked across more than 20 European countries, the English-speaking Caribbean region, Asia and South Africa. She established and grew a management consultancy and training company for 15 years advising the UK government and regional governments on the development of Black and racially minoritised communities and women’s enterprise.
Yvonne also spent more than 10 years in academia (Goldsmiths, University of London).
In 2014, she established the Ubele Initiative (The Future), a national social enterprise which supports Black and raciallyminoritised communities to develop sustainable communities through intergenerational leadership, community space development, enterprise and social action.
She is a Director of Wolves Lane Centre; a Churchill Fellow, (2012) and a member of the London’s Mayor’s Advisory group on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Yvonne was recognised as a national Pandemic Pioneer in 2021 due to her contribution during Covid.
https://www.ubele.org/
Throughout her decade-long career, Immy has focused on convening and building community, the role of citizens in radical systemic change, and how we together create more democratic, distributed, open source social and civic infrastructure. Through this work she has discovered much about economic justice and broader injustices, the pivotal role of land and social/civic infrastructure in neighbourhoods, and the value extracted from communities through our broken investment models. It’s an ongoing journey of discovery, emergence and learning together. Immy is a Co - Founder and Director of CIVIC SQUARE. CIVIC SQUARE is a public square, neighbourhood lab, and creative + participatory platform focused on regenerative civic and social infrastructure within neighbourhoods. Immy is part of a creative and dynamic leadership team who work alongside the local neighbourhood, to offer a bold approach to visioning, building and investing in civic infrastructure for neighbourhoods of the future. She is also an active member of Project 00. Immy is part of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab Advisory Team, a Birmingham Hippodrome Trustee and also sits on the National Lottery Community Fund Advisory Board. Immy was a founding director of Impact Hub Birmingham, which was open between 2015 - 2019. Impact Hub Birmingham was on a mission to help build a fairer more equal and just city, through people place and open movements. On a voluntary basis, Immy also led and ran TEDxBRUM between 2012 and 2017. Immy’s work has been recognised with a series of notable honours and awards. In 2018, Impact Hub Birmingham was named a NESTA New Radical. For her services to the city of Birmingham, Aston University’s School of Life & Heath Sciences granted Immy an Honorary Doctorate in 2019. And in 2020, Immy was awarded a prestigious Ashoka Fellowship.
https://twitter.com/ImmyKaur
https://twitter.com/CIVIC_SQUARE
https://civicsquare.cc/
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Sarah Pimenta is an experienced artist, illustrator and facilitator and has worked in education for over twenty three years including in over 250 primary and secondary schools nationally and two in Africa. She previously co-directed Arts Charity Cloth of Gold and is now known as Social Fabric. Sarah is highly experienced at leading, coordinating and delivering inclusive, high-quality participatory art/textile workshops in different settings and has created work with groups in collaboration with Schools, Museums, Theatres and Galleries that have told many stories. Sarah co-created and illustrated the ‘Therapeutic Fairy Tales’ a six book series to support children and co-wrote the ‘Storybook Manual: An Introduction to Working with Storybooks Therapeutically and Creatively’ & ‘Rewilding Children's Imaginations – 99 creative activities inspired by nature and folktales from around the world’ with Pia Jones & Tamsin Cooke.
http://www.social-fabric.co.uk
instagram @socialfabric1
twitter @mystudio5
Storybook Manual: An Introduction To Working With Storybooks Therapeutically And Creatively
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Chris Finch is an NHS Mental Health Worker. He has a passion for repair, fixing bikes from his garage, and many more things from his cellar, which is packed with tools, spare parts, and objects waiting to be mended. Chris appears in The Breaks & Joins film.
"My name is Chris and I am in my mid 60s. I have many interests and enjoy using my practical skills in my spare time. I studied Art originally and have had many different jobs but have built a career in the field of mental health support for more than 30 years. I love many things from the past such as bicycles, motorcycles and vintage machines and enjoy the challenges of repairing and renovating things that might otherwise end up in landfill."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTjfvUlmIr8
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Jo Cook is the founder and creator of Meet and Mend and runs sessions and projects within the West Yorkshire county of England. Meet and Mend focuses on textile activities that encourage sustainable methods, such as re-purposing and recycling wherever possible. Meet and Mend ran the Cost of Living Quilt Project in January and February 2023 and is currently running the Reusable Sanitary Pads Project, making cloth pads for women in hardship.. The main focus for these projects is to learn and share hand sewing and slow-stitching techniques, to make connections and friendships, and to resuse fabric for the wider good.
Website: http://www.meetandmend.co.uk
Instagram: @meetandmend
Twitter:@meetandmend
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Award - winning writer Yomi Sode, and artist/activist Chloe Osborne together run 'The Grief Lab' an opportunity to explore, playfully, riotously, experimentally, grief and loss. In this episode they discuss their approaches, the development of this work, and how to continually move the expectations of others and ourselves about how to deal with difficult feelings.
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Professor Hartley Jafine is an improviser, clown nose enthusiast, and Survivor superfan. He is on the faculty at McMaster University and University of Toronto, where he facilitates theatre and arts-based courses. As a health humanities artist-scholar his teaching and research focuses on the intersection between applied theatre, improvisation and health science education. "My work investigates the use of theatre, improv, and serious play to support the enhancement of clinical competencies, wellness, and personal awareness with healthcare students and professionals. I don't know how to ride a bike and believe pears make an excellent pizza topping. "
Tedx Talk
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Professor+Hartley+Jafine#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:31d121c9,vid:R7aKjJ-YdHg
Molly Syrett is a costume supervisor and buyer, currently training in millinery. Molly has worked with a range of theatre and dance companies on UK tours, site specific and immersive productions including for London Borough Of Culture, The National Theatre and on Harry Potter & the Cursed Child. Molly also works with Goldsmiths University of London’s Theatre and Performance department as a costume and set design technician. Molly aims to imbue her millinery with a sense of fun and joy, while focusing on working with pre-existing materials.
https://www.instagram.com/molly_syrett/
Toby is an Award-Winning theatre maker & Associate Director at interactive theatre makers, Coney, where he focuses on making work with, and for, young people & families that spark change through play. He has made pieces that live on National Trust grounds, at The National Archives and landed in schools across the UK.
In 2020, he created Beyond Arts CIC, who amplify stories of life beyond a cancer diagnosis. Their projects empower young people who’ve experienced cancer to find their own language to communicate their experiences to others and together we evolve the cancer narrative. Beyond Arts has a podcast: Afterthoughts, link below
https://www.tobypeach.co.uk/home
https://beyondarts.org.uk/about/
http://beyondarts.org.uk/afterthoughts/
For this episode we made a site visit - a first for us. We spoke to Michael Breakey and Devon Goodrich who host and manage the Rotherhithe Shed, but also to some of the people who had popped in that afternoon to make, mend, paint and chat. Rotherhithe Shed, just south of the River Thames, was set up by Time & Talents and London Bubble Theatre Company, and is based in Bubble's large workshop. The Shed provides a space for older adults to put their practical skills to good use – fixing, making, whittling, drilling, sawing and tinkering, to learn new skills and to connect with each other. They are part of the wider association, Men's Sheds, initially set up to meet the needs of older men, who were much less likely to join groups and activities than women. There are Sheds all over the world - they are amazing spaces.
https://www.timeandtalents.org.uk/the-rotherhithe-shed/
https://menssheds.org.uk/
Rebecca Hayes Laughton has supported the Women for Refugee Women drama groups for 7 years, hosting a space for women who are refugees and asylum seekers, whete creativity, laughter, and finding words for the unspeakable come together. Part of the wider campiagning organisation, W4RW, the group regularly pefrom at events, conferences and celebartions. Rebecca's is working towards her PhD , and is as a documentary producer for the BBC
Olivia Namutebi is a core member of W4RW where she has become a facilitator. She credits her experienec with the group of bringing her form a place of isolation and powerlessness to a n confidence as a campauignner and activist.
https://www.refugeewomen.co.uk/
Tony Cealy is an Arts Development Practitioner, Consultant, Trainer & Producer
Founder, Director & Producer of 492 Korna Klub the UK's only weekly improvised radio drama exploring social issues amongst the black community
Artistic Agitator Fellow Brixton House - connecting strangers & beginning difficult conversations in shared spaces about Brixton and its people
Co-Founder & Curator of 81 Acts of Exuberant Defiance - a ground-breaking grass-roots project, built from the ground up with over 300 people giving their time and energy for free to make a radical reclaiming of heritage - to imagine, experiment and create new futures. Click here on how to get involved: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=287694275664249&ref=watch_permalink
Facilitator & trainer at the Core Learning Group. A project that sets out to envisage how civil society in London might better share resources and power to drive change. https://smk.org.uk/what-we-do/power-project/resource-pinboard/
Founder of http://theblackmensconsortium.com/ a project that supports Black Men affected by Mental Illness.
Parisa Wright is is the founder and CEo of Greener & Cleaner, a sustainable living charity. She left her 20 year career in law to focus fully on addressing the climate crisis by making sure that susatinable living is accessible and inclusive for all. Greer and Cleaner runs The Hub inThe Glades Shopping Centre in Bromley, running classes and workshops, mending surgeries and capaign events, and is engaged in a National Research project with IMperial College, London.
https://www.greenerandcleaner.co.uk/
Gail is an award-winning theatre maker who specialises in creating new work that centres and celebrates Black British experiences. As a dramaturg and director, she has created shows for theatres, found sites (including museums and a derelict school), as well as national and international touring. Recent credits include work with Brixton House, Fuel, China Plate, National Youth Theatre, Talawa Theatre Company and Hackney Showroom. In 2021, she won the Kenneth Tynan Award for Excellence in Dramaturgy and was named one of Alfred Fagon Awards’ 25 Black Champions of Theatre. Gail also facilitates creative processes in community settings and runs the MA in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Alex is a Visual Artist, Director and Facilitator working across the UK and internationally with Children, Young People and Communities. His participatory projects create group encounters for shared imagination, movement, learning and social justice. He is the Artistic Director and CEO of Kazzum Arts, a trauma-informed arts organisation in East London.
http://www.kazzum.org
Molly is an artist who lives and works in London. Her art work looks at negative space with a considered colour palette, and a delicate approach to the drawn line. Drawing from life as well as memory, dreams and imagination, Molly creates work around a sense of place, belonging and time. Molly is also a professional textile repairer and researcher, specialising in delicate fabrics and traditional hand sewing techniques. She has worked as the sole repairer for slow fashion company egg and works in continuous collaboration with TOAST, teaching repair workshops in London and throughout the UK. Her book ‘The Art of Repair’ (published March 2021 with Short Books) looks at the philosophy, history and techniques of textile repair, and is accompanied by her original illustration.
http://www.mollymartin.uk
David is a London-born storyteller, founder/director of ethical agency Good Point, and an artist who writes, makes films, and performs. Currently he's developing and touring a tragicomic one-man show about fatherhood called Pieces of a Man, along with an interactive workshop to help people reconfigure their internal relationships with their parents. David has lived in Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Berlin, and is now based in Brussels.
http://www.goodpointagency.com
http://www.davidlabi.com
Rachel trained as a potter in Belfast and Kilkenny and has developed a unique ceramics practice that explores concepts such as Hope, Grief and Scars. Based In Macclesfield she exhibits in galleries but also in public spaces, entering into a dialogue with those who view and pick up her work.
HOME | RachelHoCeramics
Sudip Chakroborthy recently gained his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London. he is an experienced theatre director who has worked extensively in Bangladesh, Canada and the UK. He teaches at the University of Dhaka
Ali Campbell is Professor of Applied Performance at Queen Mary, University of London. A specialist in collaborative theatre making, he trained with Augusto Boal, and his work has taken him to India and Bangladesh, Brazil, Uganda and the USA. His passion for social justice and his Quaker beliefs underpin his work.
Sudip and Ali collaborate frequently on the Season of Bangla Drama, an annual celebration of Bangla performance in Tower Hamlets.
Designer and Maker Suzi Warren is a co-founder of Twisted Twee, designing, making and upcycling clothes with a satirical twist. Suzi created 'Stitch it Don't Ditch it', initially by setting up a chair outside a fast fashion shop and sitting and mending, to start conversations. This gentle protest has now grown, with lines of menders snaking down high streets across the UK. Suzi is looking for 1000 menders to do 'Stitch it Don't ditch' it along Oxford Street
https://twistedtwee.co.uk/products/the-clothing-hospital?_pos=1&_sid=3d470ef79&_ss=r
https://www.acart.org.uk/post/introducing-suzi-warren
Amanda Mascarenhas is a Theatre Designer and Visual Artist. She specialises in immersive and sensory design, and also works extensively in participatory settings. She is Associate artist with Kazzum Arts a member of the Breaks & Joins team
https://www.amandamascarenhas.com/about
Mo Sumah runs Mend it with Mo, a repair cafe, at the Telegraph Hill Centre, where he is also Facilities Manager. Mo is passionate about mending and recycling; repair as a way of resisting the culture of waste and disposability. Mo is a member of the Breaks & Joins team
https://thcentre.com/mend-it-with-mo/
Liz Honeybone is in the textile department at the National Theatre. She has always sewn, making and adapting her own clothes, and she shares her expertise on dye, on making costumes speak through their colour and texture, on responding to furlough by making scrubs for the NHS and learning about natural dyes. Her infectious energy and enthusiasm make this episode as good as a strong coffee, and my sister Janet, who gave Liz her first job at The National, gets a shout out too.
Liz is part of the collective, the Skip Sisters
skip sisters
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/costume-and-props-hire
Sylvan is a neuro diverse care leaver, practitioner and researcher who has been working across the fields of applied theatre, socially engaged arts and education for the past 30 years. His practice has taken place across the UK and globally in sites in Brazil, and the USA, More recently my work has centred around developing research that allows its participants to be co researchers and not objects of research.
https://www.cssd.ac.uk/staff-profiles/dr-sylvan-baker
https://theverbatimformula.org.uk/what-we-do/
Both Raj and Claire have broken bones, in a way that brought them to a halt . They chat about fractures, doctors, slowing down and slow mending.
Raj Bhari is a facilitator and trainer in Peacebuilding, who works internationally and in the UK, managing conflict and building peaceful communities. Raj teaches on the MA Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths, andis a member of the Breaks & Joins team
Claire is a writer, theatre practitioner, and Unitarian Minister. She founded Impact Theatre Cooperative and is an active member of Culture Declares Emergency, the global community of artists and cultural leaders actively responding to climate and ecological emergency.
We chat to Rose Sinclair, Design Lecturer at Goldsmiths, A textile specialist, she talks about all things mending, and the Dorcas Clubs, where women from the Caribbean traditionally met to sew and knit and chat together. @Dorcasstories
https://www.gold.ac.uk/design/people/sinclair/