Festivals, Cultural Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability Values: A summary of conversation between Antonio Narciso, Emma Jayne Park, Madinatu Bello, Sami Blomberg, Shelly Wang and Thais Gárciga Escalante. Participants gathered as part of COSM2: COSM is the educational offer of harmonised three courses focused on cultural management and organisational change regarding wide range of sustainability values.

On Wednesday 7th December 2022, Emma was invited to speak at the Failspace Conference, Queen Margaret University Edinburgh, in their capacity as a Failspace Champion. This is the presentation they gave.

Illustration credit Lucy Wright.

Notes from a conversation with and apprentice Movement Director, as part of Wonderfools staging of And Then Come The Nightjars in Castle Douglas. Image by Ruari Barber-Fleming.

Presently in the arts, and likely in other areas of our productivity obsessed society, the misrepresentation of resilience is being weaponised against the most vulnerable. Disturbingly, it feels like this focus on developing resilience is born of well-meaning intentions which makes it almost impossible to challenge in a society that regularly confuses politeness with care.

A sketch of Emma’s creative process, as created during a workshop in Turku (Finland) as part of Keðja 2019 facilitated by Barbara Simonsen (DK) and Susanne Næss Nielsen (NO).