Tel:07772600153
I am a Radical Creativity Theorist, Conceptual Art-Activist, Social and Political Philosopher, Sociologist of Art, Revolutionary, and self-proclaimed genius. I am a former Dr.Barnados boy, Adoptee, Homeless Person, and Prison Professor.
I escaped the narrow, selfish, and short-sighted false world of institutionalised corporate money makers, justice takers, and political fakers by relying upon no-one except the organic processes of my own inner mind, self-consciousness, body and being, after I was thrown into solitary confinement for resisting the limited life-path the State tried to force upon me as a child from the age of nine. During this period of extreme adversity I came to understand the complex nature of individual, human and social consciousness, and the competing duality of maculinity and feminity, ying - yang, good and evil, the essence the individual self-concept and the social communal apsect of humanity..
From within the cold, dark, dank, dungeon, the proverbial pit of harrowing punishment and tortuous despair I resolved myself to survive the dehumanization process of naked solitary brutishness, and seek recourse within my core sense of self which I knew to be good, just, compassionate, caring, kind, and worthy, having been taught these values, and given this upbringing by the love, care and tenderness of female carers who provided for me as if I were their own child during the first nine years of my life, before the State intervened aged ten and ripped me emotionally and phyiscally from my childhood environment of caring tenderness, feamle love and support, child centred openness, play, and freedom with communal responsibility to other children around around me. (Insert story of Nov.5th)
During my period of incarceration, I missed not the lack of sunlight, nor breath of wind or raindrops upon my skin, for I was immersed in colorful inner visions of consciouness and light, feelings, and sensations not easily gleaned from rushing about in the outside world of mass reality. Such fluid notions of thoughts filled me with a sense of wonderment at the vagries and depths of mind and self. From such inner journeys I would return from each night renewed with vigour, and self-purpose to escape the State dungeon of myself, or future predictions that those with fixed stereotypes in mind of prisoners future life-paths would suppose.
Thus, when they came for me one morning a dozen strong in their dark uniforms holding batons and bunches of keys hanging like wicked medieval nail-balls of swishing around on chains during knightish combat, I took myself to my childhood Dr. Barnardos' Home "Pype Hayes Hall", and mentally surrounded myself by those who had previously protected me from all childhood harm and woes, immersed in human warmth, love and deep female affections. No pain could touch me there, for I was David of Pype Hayes Hall, and these brutish oafs had not the mental wit nor physical withall to penetrate the beautiful layers of my existence.
I awoke the next day knowing I had broke them, for they had tried their best and failed to dent my protective inner core of earth-fire surrounded by the flaming memories of child-self, enclosed in a diamond shell of unpassable fluid core earth steel. They had failed to understand that I was never once truly confined behind thier ridiculous prison walls, nor could they see I had never once been under thier control, how could they understand or see, for they were human mice blinded their own existence of spending years working in a concrete box.
I was in a new space now, undiscovered and far from of their brutal institutational roles of the dead. I was in a different place of time and space, of future, of now, of innate beautiful design which had emerged organically somehow from between the twilight world of unconscious and conscious mind. From within or without, from here and there, from where? From nowhere.
It was from this point I emerged into a new life, and as I walked towards face uplifted, bathed in the golden warmth of a July Sun. I meandered wistfully for several hours in the Sun, ther was no where to go or return to for I had no home, until I saw many people entering a large building, so I followed out of curiosity in th hope I may find food or a place to stay, and asked a fellow where was I? he perused me strangely, as thought I were an alien of some kind, until eventually he replied "The University", I must have been looking at him slightly perplexed for he then clarified for me " "this is the University of Stafford." Is it indeed, university I thought to myself now thats something no-one would expect of me. I left and made my way to train station wondering if I could get into in Oxford or Cambridge, If you can't beat them I mused, fight them from the inside of thier own well-fatted stomachs.......to be continued.
Theoretical and Applied Creativity Interests:
The Lives and Creative Processes of Artists
The Creative Unconscious
The Politics of Art, and The Art of Politics.
The Relationship(s) Bewteen Art and Society.
Individual and Group Creativity in Relation To Social Dynamics within Organisations, Networks and Communities.
Creativity 1995-2010:
Conceptual Curator of The Turpin Prize (Outsider Art Event in honour of Dick Turpin)
Former member of the 491 Gallery
Co- Founder & Curator of Vertigo Arts Cinema at 491 Gallery
Curator of The Blue and White Exhibition (See: Blue period on http://www.creativityparty.org/)
2nd Place Award, Northern Poetry Competition
Former member of the British Society of Criminology (Instigated the Re-Launch of The Northern Branch)
Founding Organizing student-led Learning Resources Centre at Manchester University (Sociology Dept)
2002-05 Performative Curator Vertigo Arts Cinema London.
Along with a documentary filmmaker, artists and activists we turned an empty, derelict building into a thriving Community based film and arts venue with a 20 seat cinema, a stage and social area, and several niche art spaces, which a variety of artists, filmmakers, and photographers from across London use for exhibitions, workshops, and filmmaking at the 491 gallery Leytonstone, East London.
2000-01 Project Co-ordinator:National Mentoring Consortium; University of East London
The development of a pioneering Young Offender Mentoring project, in liaison with prison personnel, probation staff, and the Home Office. The Home Office offered me a job, I declined.
1999 Education, Training, and Employment Officer Apex Charitable Trust Ltd (non-profit org)
Supporting young offenders into education, training, and employment as part of a pioneering multi-million pound Home Office crime reduction program within a multi-agency partnership working with voluntary and statutory organizations across London.
1998 Information Officer Manchester Educational Resettlement Centre (non-profit org)
Implementation and organisation of an information resource service for educational and social welfare agencies across Manchester. As part of this process we initiated an innovative Internet information and training course for practitioners to facilitate inter-agency communication.
1998 Research Assistant: The Audit Commission
Semi-structured interviews with members of the public as they left Police stations as part of a large-scale survey on “public attitudes to police service received at station enquiry counters”.
1995 – 7 Learning Resource Centre Co-ordinator: The University of Manchester
Organic role in setting up an innovative Student Learning Resource Centre .The Centre became financially self-sustaining, and is used as a model for other departments and universities. It became a social catalyst supporting several student organizations, the production of newsletters, and ran a series of forums and workshops incorporating guest speakers.
Education
Independent Courses: Philosophy of Aesthetics; Creativity Theory, Socially Applied Creativity.
Post-Graduate Courses:
Middlesex University: The Design Process (Creative and Cultural Industries)
The University of Salford: Conversation Analysis (Sociological Reseacrh Methods)
The University of Manchester (94-97)
B.Soc.Sci.(Hons) Sociology 2:1 (Hons)
Dissertation:" The Social Construction of Art, and The Revolutionary Aesthetics of Beauty".
Courses:
Sociology and Psychology; Culture, Modernity and Society; Sociology of Deviance; Research Methods (I, II, III, IV) Psychology of Perception, Criminal Justice Social Policy, Police and Penal Studies, American Culture and Society, Interaction and Social Order; Sociology of Art;
Bournville College of F.E (92-94)
‘A’ Levels: Psychology, Sociology, English. (A, A, B)
Other Courses and Training (97 - 06)
The Design Process (Middlesex University)
Social Enterprise: University of East LondonArt and Business ( Waltham Forest Adult Education)
The Body Politic: Environment, Art and Activism (Platform London/Birkbeck University)
Mediation Management and Conflict Resolution (Manchester Mediation Services)
Person Centered Counselling (Manchester Education Services)
Drugs, Crime and Society (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Mental Health Awareness Training (Afro-Caribbean Mental Health Services)
No comments:
Post a Comment