Creating fantasies . . .
An original plan had been to run some kind of semi formal workshops with those participating in the project, in order to foster fully articulated visual fantasies based on their experiences and with their active participation. These it was hoped could then be translated into images, however it soon became clear that mounting these workshops might be more of an obstruction to the creative process than an enhancement of it.
That simply talking to people didn't elicit fully formed visual fantasies had to be set against the fact that people were obviously far more comfortable in talking about their experiences in a more informal setting. Or to put it another way: I was better off having good, spontaneous 'raw material' from which visual fantasies could be constructed rather than fully realised visual fantasies which were stilted and sterile because they had been created by a process which the participants were not happy with . . . Phew!
One of the people whose input has been extremely valuable in helping me to
pick my way through the methodology of the project is Rupert Creed, a Hull
based Playwright and author, with a track record of working with groups and
communities to create theatre productions.
