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You're listening to that I Am A Storyteller podcast from Inspire Culture, Learning and Libraries.
This podcast is hosted by Annie Warren.
During the series, Annie talks to a storyteller or storytellers from the project and also members of the Inspire team in a bid to share valuable insights and learning gained from the project.

Hello and welcome to episode 1 of the I Am a Storyteller podcast.
I'm your host, Annie Warren, and today I'll be talking to Laura Mabbutt and Beccy Dye.
Laura Mabbutt is a multidisciplinary artist working with a fusion of traditional craft, digital media and interactive experiences.

Her practise blends handmade techniques with contemporary technology, exploring materials, processes and participation in creative and accessible ways through interactive experiences.
Her approach is adaptable and exploratory, encouraging participants and audiences to engage with her work through craft, play and digital tools.

She's delivered hands on creative experiences including installations and workshops in diverse settings from galleries and museums to community centres and education settings.
Working with the diverse range of audiences for I'm a Storyteller, Laura was excited to expand her participatory practise incorporating elements of collaborative creativity and storytelling.

She's particularly interested in exploring new ways to engage people, leaving a lasting legacy through both physical and digital creative outcomes.
Laura worked with the Oasis Community Centre in Worksop.
Becky Dai is a storyteller, podcaster and game maker.
She works with people of all ages, helping them to tell their stories, develop games and to have fun with words.

Her work has Co creation, empowerment, engagement and playfulness at its heart.
Becky has created audio dramas, worked with communities to develop story walks, written musicals with the elderly, built alternate reality games and explored magical worlds with hundreds of children.
She believes that stories build empathy and ultimately make us better people.

For I'm a Storyteller. Beccy worked with Blidworth Memory Group and was excited to build and hear stories with communities across Nottinghamshire.
Hello Laura and Becky.
Hello hi, welcome to our podcast studio that we that we love to be in.
So I thought we would kick off today by talking about continuing professional development sessions or CPD that I know that were delivered by Darrell and Co and also the Alzheimer's Society.
So can you tell us a little bit about the kind of training that you received and how it helped you it?


Was excellent, wasn't it?
It was.

Really good.
Yeah, I think probably you feel the same, but it's not often that you get a chance to do CPD within a project and have that time built into a project and have such good training as well.
Like the the training with Darrell and Co was amazing it.

Was it was exceptional training?
Yeah.
I, I don't think I've ever received diversity training that was that comprehensive that well conceived, you know, that well thought through in terms of how to help me better understand.
It was just amazing.

I've been recommending them to absolutely everyone that I know ever since.

And really relevant for future projects as well.
That's the thing that it was specifically set for the work we were doing here, but a lot of what we were learning about was, you know, generally exciting and useful for projects going forward.

Like things about communication through the dementia training, but that's relevant to everyone.
Like how to better communicate with audiences and better communicate with people sort of in groups, that kind of thing.

Yeah, so useful for future projects and like for life.

As well.
Yeah, yeah, completely.
And the accessibility and inclusion training was all things that made sense.
It was all common sense really, when it came to it.

Yeah, but it was.

Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. And So what kind of topics and what things did you cover in the training itself?

What I find interesting in both of the training is that the the parts that really hit than me, but I think probably for other participants too, were bits where there was some shared storytelling around experience.
And so I was really hit by the stories in the training from Darryl and Co, from the artists about their experiences and and about what works for them and what has not worked for them.

And thinking being a good ally and voice for and with and being taking a step back and listening, I think was just being receptive to what anyone needs, but finding a way and scaffolding that in so that people can express what they need comfortably.

Does that make sense it?


Completely makes sense, yeah.
And, and giving that opportunity to people so that they don't have to speak up or be the the person that has to sort of say, can we just stop a minute so that I can have my needs met like that?
You, like you said, having that time at the start of a project or at the start of a session or even before a session to build that in and that always becoming part of what you do.

I think that was another thing.
It's like making these things that we've learned part of how we now work going forward and it not being a kind of added on oh about one thing.
It's like it becomes part of how you then work and how your practise works.

It's integrated, isn't it?
Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.Yeah.

Yeah, that's really interesting that obviously even though it's like specifically Alzheimer's training or like diversity training, that these are things that actually everyone can do for, for any kind of workshop even, you know, for anyone with any kind of accessibility need.
Just things that, as you said, you would just integrate from the very start.

Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I know you mentioned or it's not, you said you don't always have CPD on kind of freelance projects like this, which I mean, I know from a freelancer as well.
I think I've not had paid training before so.

Yeah.
And I think it's probably the first project where that has happened where I've not had to sort of set it up myself.
So I've done sort of funded projects where I've written the funding and and written that in.
But in terms of being sort of employed by another organisation, I think this is the first roject I've worked on where that was built in lenty of time for it.

And not only the training being paid for, but you being paid to go and do the training was like, wow, you know, yeah.

Yeah, Yeah, it's really, really unusual.
So often you find yourself sort of, well, I don't know if you perhaps both find this you, you bounce from project to project.
And it's not that you don't have the investment of time and integrity in each project you do, but the space to really give it the depth of thought that you would really like to be giving it often just isn't there.

And, and, and there's the questions that arise through the project that you hadn't known because you don't know what you don't know.
Yeah.
And having this training front and centre, but also having the the concept of us as storytellers and our experience being important.
Yeah.

And our growth being important gave that a kind of front and centre which most projects don't get.

I mean, it feels like, yeah, not, not to use, you know, business jargon, but it does feel like a real investment in you guys as artists and like as storytellers moving forward as well.
Like specifically for this project.
But in general, moving forward, it sounds like it's it's been really good for, for professional development, which I think is something that, you know, people often get in nine to five PAYE jobs back outside in freelancing, it's not.

I know.

From not heard of Yeah.

It's an Hurd of yeah.
And I know that you mentioned that you thought the training was really high quality and you enjoyed it.
Did you find it specifically useful for working with your particular group?
So maybe you could tell us a bit about your your group specifically that you worked with and whether or not the training was useful going into the workshops?

Yeah, so sort of mentioned before about the the dementia training being very sort of much about communication.
And whilst the group that I was working with, none of the participants had that particular issue, there were times when I kind of found myself leaning back on the things that I've learned in that in that session.

So, you know, going into a new group where people don't know you, they some people aren't sure why you're there, being able to appreciate that and step back for a second and not feel like the pressure was taken off a little bit.

I think after that training to sort of get in there and be be on, not be on top of people, but try and always have people engaged.
And this kind of, I need to have everyone like all the time, sort of having a good time or like engaging.
And that idea that you can just let someone sit for a second and, you know, let them know that you're there.

Yeah, but you can step back and give them space and time.
And that's, that's the thing that you should be doing and it's OK to do.
And there was one particular participant that I did that with who at the start of one particular session was very much wanting to get on with something that she'd been doing in a previous week.

And, you know, don't not interested in in what you're doing at all.
So I kind of said that's that's completely fine.
You know, you're not under any pressure to to do anything that you know, I've brought in.
But the materials are here.
I'll be working around, we'll be working around you.

And then by the end of the session, she was really engaged and had created something with me and was saying how much, you know, she'd enjoyed it and was speaking about the object that she'd created.
And it was one of those moments that was quite emotional for me by the end of the session because it taken that training, Yeah, and put it into practise.

And then I could really see how it had helped.
Yeah.
And helped both of us, not just her, but me, you know?
Yeah.

It's that shift, isn't it, from with workshops, when you're employed to go in and do a workshop, there can often be that emphasis on product.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
But in this project, the emphasis is on process.

Yeah, yeah.

And person, Yeah.

Such a good way of putting it in.
Yeah, throughout the whole project, I think that's been the case, hasn't it?

And so do you feel like that shift away from away from the specific outcomes and more towards like Co creation and process kind of gave the space to sort of allow for anything?
It allows for all kinds of reactions and all kinds of responses and gives you guys a bit of space to to, I don't want to say go with the flow, but to go with the flow a little bit, I guess is that, would that be reflective of your experience, would you say?

I think so.
I think it helped just kind of having these mental shifts really of realising just how important it was to the team and inspire that this was the experience of everyone involved Certainly made me think that means if that's the case and I believed it believed it was it is the case, then then I can spend quite a lot of time here in session thinking about what everybody here needs to just be here in the first instance.

So I could, I could just take a bit of a it took the pressure off of off of product.
Yeah, but it, it created a better product.
Yeah.
You know, ultimately because because the pressure wasn't there to try and push that, You know, I, I sometimes I go into schools and do some work in, in those spaces and there's all the pressure is always on products in schools.

Never, ever, not on that.
And I thought I had a, a kind of methodology of let's just take the gas off on that and, and, and try and focus on these individuals more.
And I have a very playful learning approach anyway, which is, is completely counter to how we tend to force learning.

But then it doing this project taught me that actually I I need to slow down a bit more too for for my group and for their sake sometimes and really, really just be there with them.

Yeah.
And just go with what comes up I I guess and let everyone have the reaction that they will have to it, I suppose.
So in terms of this idea of Co creation, which I know this project is really is really based around people creating things together.
And as you said process.
I'm wondering, I know you mentioned it a bit now Becky, actually when you came to this project, did you have a specific idea of what Co creation is or was and did that change over the course of the project at all?

I've done Co creation projects before and I think to me it depends completely on the project and who you're working with on what Co creation means.
Yeah, because you're coming at it with your background and your things and then you're this group or this person you're working with comes with their expectations.

And I feel like you kind of have to be quite flexible in what that idea of Co creation is.
Yes, but also with getting a balance between it being partly the artist and partly the people that the artist is working with.

I think with every group it is a matter of what do they need from me, Yeah, in order to enable them to achieve what they want to achieve.
Yeah.
And that, that hasn't changed as a as a way of going into the project.
But I think the tools to better understand the group and their needs definitely.

And that has probably changed some of that process around Co creations.
I was working with the Blidworth memory group, who are a group of people supporting one another in early stage dementia.
Although in in actual practise, people are in all stages in a in a wide range of stages of dementia.

And I went in sort of he, he this is a memory group that focuses on talking about memories.
But one of the first things I learned in the dementia training was try not to ask people directly about memories.


Because that.
Yeah.
Because that can be quite daunting, can't it?
Yeah. And triggering or yeah. Yeah. So I had to try and find a way to kind of not do that, but do that because I'm working with a group whose goal is to do that and then, you know, to ask about memories.
And I'm like, yeah, how do I do that in a way that isn't really, you know, counter to the training that we've just.

Received and is that because kind of asking people directly what do you remember can be quite upsetting if people then can't access those memories?
Is that thinking behind?
Yes.

Essentially, yeah, so.

To find other ways in.

Yeah, yeah.
So we created memory boxes instead initially.
So it's just these big like nice cardboard shoe boxes.
And I brought in lots and lots of materials, some of it literal material and like comic books and memorabilia and things.

I went to my local antiques shop and said, I've got this much budget today.
What can you help me find that would be good for a group of this age who I might be suffering memory loss, you know?
And then they were amazing.
They went round with me and we got spoons and like old cigarette cards and things and beer mats and all sorts of stuff.

And I brought that in and people could get whatever spoke to them, put it into their box, and then take their box away and add to it.
And that was super successful because it meant if they couldn't share something that day, they weren't feeling able to.

There was always something in their box.
Yeah. And that was wonderful.
It's like a safe space. The box made a little safe space for the rest of the discussion and conversation and.

It's really lovely.
It's lovely.
And like you, something that strikes me about that as well is like you can't be wrong.
Like you can't, you can't get the wrong answer.
You can't put the wrong thing in the box, but you've always got something to fall back on.
So it's not, it's not a test or it's not like, yeah, it's not like memory retrieval or things that might not be available to you at that time.

You've always got something to come back to that you can talk about.
That's that's not wrong.

Yeah, yeah.
In essence, what you've got is an adult fidget device, yeah as well.
So yeah, I didn't realise how important, not necessarily a fidget spinner, but something that is a fidget item might be for somebody who has dementia.

And then what?
The other thing I learned is if you go to to shops and places like that and you're trying to find tools to use and you say to the people who work there, these are the groups I'm working with.
It's surprising how many people have lived experience and immediately want to help and have suggestions of their own to offer to what they think would be useful based on their experience.

And can you tell us a little bit about your group as well, Laura, like the kinds of things that you did with them and the kinds of people you worked with?

Yeah.
So the group changed pretty much every week that I was there.
So that was something that quite sort of quickly I had to sort of get to grips with maybe creating something that wasn't going to be developed through lots of different sessions.

There were a couple of people that came to most of them, but yeah, each week the group was different and had different people.
So it was kind of developing a way that I could make these different activities for us to do that gathered these like pieces of stories, I suppose, that then came together at the end that could still be interesting for people that had been to previous weeks.

Yeah.
So I couldn't repeat really the same or I felt like I couldn't repeat the same kind of thing each week because we had those continuing people.
But then there also had to be something each time that a new person could easily kind of access as well.

So like the tension between having a through line for people who've always been there, but not leaving behind new people here.
Yeah, yeah.

That's that's exactly it.
So yeah, we created story bottles was the first one and they're now hanging in one of the trees in the garden at Oasis Centre.
So they were lovely because we were using some ready made objects, but some things that were crafted that we were crafted ourselves to create either a story from the person's life or a completely made-up story that they wanted to to create

So we had these layers in the bottle and it was like the start of the story, the middle of a story and the end of the story.
And it was really lovely like sharing those with people at the end as well.
So when people had finished them, we took them out into the garden and we're showing other members of Oasis that weren't in the sessions.

And that was allowing me to almost like record the stories without it being this like intense experience of like, right now, explain your thing that you've made or tell me your story and I'm, you know, going to record it very seriously.
It was a really nice opportunity to just take them out as a group and ask them to, oh, explain it to this person here that we've met.

And yeah, it it became part of a conversation rather than me trying to sort of gather these bits of story that that I wanted to gather.

It's so interesting how I feel like we've mentioned it a couple of times, but in lots of ways that taking the pressure off or allowing a bit of space in lots of ways can sometimes make for potentially a better artistic outcome or a more truthful artistic outcome.
But I guess not always.

And that's not the point, but it does sound like it.

Definitely worked here, I think.
Yeah, Becky, I think you said the same, didn't you?
It was better because of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.
And I think perhaps it is always going to be maybe because we're looking for it, but also if you're taking away the things that get in the way of the people you're trying to work with and you're making their opportunity to share easier.

Then you're always going to get something that is beautiful at the end of that process, aren't you?
Yeah.
And that doesn't feel, I was about to say that doesn't feel forced.
I don't.
I don't really think that, you know, my other projects like Force and Outcomized, but I think this project just emphasised experience to such a degree that the comfort we had as artists to kind of go, they really mean this.

So I think sometimes you you feel not in conflict necessarily with a Commission, somebody who's commissioned a project, but you feel like you're saying, no, we need to give space to to this group.
Whereas here, you know, that that was already a completely on boarded concept where everybody was.

Yeah, no, you do.
In fact, we're telling you that I'm going to give you some training to make sure you do that.
And so it it just felt very supported in that.

So again, I know we've talked a lot about process and how important it is and how the outcome is not necessarily the most important thing.
But I do have a question now about all of the outcomes.
So completely switching tack, but I know that there will be a publication and there's going to be an exhibition as well.
So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the the kinds of things that your groups did end up making and what might be in the exhibition or what we can expect from the publication.

Have you got a range, Laura?
Yeah.

There's a few a few things.

Haven't you?
And they've got you story.

Yeah, thank you.
Yeah.
Then we've got the story bottles.
Yeah.
And we did some clay work as well.
And some printing.
I think the the printing was one of my favourite things.
It was one of the most simple, I think.
And it kind of stemmed from a conversation I had with Nicky, one of the other artists, where it was in one of the group sessions and she was saying how she wanted to sort of take a bit of inspiration from how me and Becky work where we take objects or we craft with people.

So she wanted to take more with her when she did a workshop because normally she she would take, you know, her, her pen and they would just tell stories together.
But I kind of felt the opposite where I thought I need to take less, you know, I was.
So that was a really interesting like thing that I learned on this project because I'm very like craft heavy and what I do, it was going, no, you don't need to take these things with you.

You can use the resources that are in the room and you can, you know, people have things in them that they will draw upon.
So yeah, the the printmaking was a fairly simple one where we carved into foam, made a print and then passed that to the next person in the room to develop a story from what they interpreted from that picture.

Still very much craft based, but it was just that fairly simple idea of a simple image.
What do you think that image means?
And then we'll, you know, create a new story from it.
So yeah, in the exhibition, there'll be some of the prints.
We won't have the clay work, but there will be a piece of augmented reality art that will involve people being able to scan a QR code and then on their phones they'll be able to see some art that has come from the centre, but that will be in the exhibition.

And we're also going to have a bit of audio of the stories that came about from all of these objects.
So people will be able to listen to me reading those out to you that's.

Amazing full sensory experience.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah.
It's something that I try and build into my work.
Is that like idea of experiencing things through different senses and different ways for different people?

I love the way Laura works.

I just want to be.

One of the workshop members.

Connection, I think no, we've met on this project and I think, you know, we've, we've talked a few times and there's so many little like things that yeah, connect us so yeah.

It's a few little links there, isn't it?
Yeah.
I feel like, you know, we must, we must work together somehow.
But I love what you do, as you it.
What part of what you seem to do is to create lots of opportunities for conversations in multiple ways.
Like, you know that that print piece from I've printed a thing to you tell a story about, it's a conversation, isn't it?

It's you developing a a thing and how delighted each participant is in that process because you've made a piece of art that has then got a story that somebody else has spoken into it.
It's just so affirming, beautiful. I Love it.
I meant to talk about the other things.
I can't wait to see it all, Laura.

And the same with I love the cranky theatre.
I've had a.

Little.
A little.

Sneak peek of it when you when you brought it in the other a few weeks ago.
I love that interactivity of it.
Really looking forward to seeing that like in the show and having a go on it.

Yeah, I think us about it and.

How it how it works and?

Well, yeah, I have a bit of an obsession with cranky theatres.
So I mean, when I started this project, I wasn't necessarily thinking we'd make a cranky theatre, but it just, it made sense as the projects evolved because we were using these objects from the memory boxes.
And I'd seen some of the other projects when I realised that continual artwork can be very helpful for groups of people who have dementia because it's a doodle opportunity.

There's no wrong or right thing.
And you can use these long scrolls of paper to tell a story, and it can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
And that seemed to work fairly well in concert with the memory boxes.
And so that it made sense to go for a cranky theatre because we were making scrolls at that point

A cranky theatre is just think for puppet theatre, Yeah.
And then imagine 2 spools in that puppet theatre.
And on the spools you've got some form of fabric or paper that is a scroll.
And then you turn 1 spool and then the scroll scrolls and you have this visual landscape or or story passing before your eyes.

It's essentially early cinema and you'd find them a lot in theatres, like really fancy rich theatres before cinema and then travelling storytellers.
So I, I do quite like making them an our Cranky Theatre for Blidworth community group is in a dollhouse.

So the idea being that you know every room, there are rooms in your mind almost that you might go to with your memories and experiences.
And every room has different stories associated with it.

House in memory at some point in life may well be a shared space as well.
And so our dollhouse is a shared story space.
Each room has more than one story in it and you crank you, you, you turn 1 of the the crank handles and you get maybe two or three stories turning at the same time.

And at least just visual expressions of, of different stories that people have created that range from fantastical stories like the, the journey of Medusa.
You get a hard rap constantly in interpretations of her story and it's very upsetting.

This is putting it to right slightly.
And then there's a mouse searching for cheese in one of them.
There's a journey some some of the people in the room were were had been farmers.
So this is the journey of wool, you know, from shearing the sheep to knitting the jumper, the journey of the harvest, from putting all that work into the harvest, getting it loaded up on your pony and trap, taking it off and he's half the crows eating as much of the.

Harvest as they possibly can.

There was a wonderful one of the gentleman remembering taking his grandchildren on walks along the Thames.
He kept that one.
So that one's not in our cranky theatre, I'm afraid, but you know, memories of, of going on trips and outings on buses and things like that.

So it's just a, a beautiful collaboration of lots of different memories.
It feels a lot like how the group was.
And we would share our stories with one another.
And it's just this room full of people.
And now we've got a little house full of stories.

That sounds so honestly, both of them, they just sound so stunning.
And I'm so excited to see the exhibition.
And I just love, like, I love what you're saying about the conversation.
And these do really sound like pieces that were conversations between you and the participants, but not only that, also with the people who can interact with these artworks as well.

And I just think that's such a lovely idea.
And I think it's just a real testament to you guys as storytellers and artists and well, you know, to the willingness of the participants here to get involved that you've made these lovely pieces of work.
And I have read the publication, so I know it's very good.
So I can speak from experience there.

And I thought, yeah, just before we wrap up, I just wanted to talk a tiny bit about, obviously you guys were two of the storytellers out of five, and it seems like you've learnt a lot from each other.
You have like a really wonderful relationship, friendship, professional relationship going forward.
And yeah, just wondering about in terms of working like being part of a team of storytellers, have you found that useful?

Is that something that you've kind of had experience of before on other projects or is it something that's kind of unique to this one?

You have experience, don't you have?

More collaboration than me.
I do quite a lot of collaborative projects.
I think that's probably why I enjoy Co creation as well, because I like that kind of collaboration with other people.
But it is normally where we're kind of working on on one thing together.

But I've not worked on a project like this where you've got these almost like separate projects happening, but then the group comes together to discuss and, and share advice and learn.
And that was kind of encouraged in this.
Whereas it, it might happen through other projects kind of naturally where you don't realise it's happening.

But this one, I feel like it was encouraged.
And you and I took note more of what I was learning from people as we were going along.
See, I mentioned before about the idea of like tearing back things that I take with me.
And then also we had a session where we came together to sort of share what we'd done so far.

And Ling, who is the musician?
Like I'm, I'm not a musical person.
I really love music and I appreciate music, but I'm not a musician.
I, I don't play an instrument.
I, I, I've always wanted to, but never felt like I've, I've got the knack of it.
So to see someone that uses music and instruments to do the thing that I've been trying to do as well, and that was fascinating for me to see.

And provides just this other opportunity, doesn't it, for all your participants to play with sound and to see words of sound.
And it's just, it's just great.
It was so cool to see all of the items that Lynn had and how fun she makes it.
Yeah.

Because music can.
I remember at school feeling extremely daunted by my music teachers because they were really exact and and it put me off if anything because I thought well I I don't know how to do this strange language that is called music.

So I just like kind of the language, isn't it?
Because you've got the notes that you have to learn?
But yeah.

But Ling just makes it fun.

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to learn from Ling, but yeah, I, I, I tend to wind up doing quite a lot of solo projects and not necessarily by design.
I think that's just how funding or commissions tend to kind of work out.

Where possible, I try and work with others, but this has been just lovely.
So I'm part of a storytelling network anyway, where you get to kind of meet up with and talk about best practise and process with storytellers, and that's really good.

But being on a project where you're all working, yes, with different groups, but you're having some shared experiences as well, and you can learn from one another in that.
That has been wonderful.
You really do value what you're hearing from.

Yeah, The other artists in the room, you can feel quite lonely doing this sort of work sometimes.
And you do have this voice in your head saying, am I doing this right?
You know, is this working?
Is this OK?

Yeah.
And it's, it's wonderful to then be with other artists too.
And actually not just with the other artists team, but with the with the libraries team, within the Inspire team, be with the entire group is valuing what everybody is doing and what that means.

That's very unique.

Yeah, I'm really glad that, yeah, it's turned out to be such a lovely, a lovely storytelling team, inspire stuff very much included in that.
And so my final question for you guys is whether you have any advice to either an individual or an organisation who might want to like do a similar project to this or who might want to pursue Co creation.

Is there anything that you would would advise them in particular?

I think I feel like it kind of stems from the idea of like learning from the other people in the team as well, but that idea of like communicating.
And then there was a lot of points where we were having, we were reminding each other that it can be like a slow process and it isn't necessarily a finished article that that is going to come of this.

And I think we're so used to, like you say, creating a product or having, you know, being commissioned to do something and there being this very definite thing at the end of it.
So even in a project where you know that that's not the case, you we still have to keep stepping back and going.
No, this can be experimental and it will be better for that.

So I think that maybe is some advice to take away is if you're an artist that is doing a project like this, whether it's Co creation or something experimental, it is that idea of keep reminding yourself that it's OK for this to take time and for you not to know what the end result is going to be.

Because we're, you know, not only artists, but in life we're all sort of geared towards an end product and something and what what's going to be happening at the end of this.
And sometimes you don't know and actually the end result is better for that.
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's spot on really like project and the way funding tends to work requires a this is what will be achieved.
Yes.
And that can be really hard then, can't it, for any organisation to sort of say take your time and and, and, and allow the group to to evolve.

But if you do, it will always be a more complete thing.
Yeah.
And oh, this is such a, OK, this is one of those phrases that is, I'm about to say that it's just, it's one of those phrases that is quite easy to roll your eyes over, trust the process.

And it's easy to roll your eyes over because immediately the folk who, who know what this kind of work entails and that you do need to be able to tick boxes at the end of it will kind of feel, yes, it's all well and good to trust the process.
But, and I, I get that.
But what that actually means in trusting the process is trusting the people.

And sometimes we just don't trust the people enough.
That's all the people you know, It's the artists, it's the team who in inspire and and facilitate the artists.
It's the people in the room in the group that you're working with.

It's the people facilitating all of those people in the room.
It's the people who opened the doors of the building in the room.
Trust the people is what trust the process means.
And if you do that and you give them space, then you'll you'll get something better.

And actually a good example of this is every game ever made, because that's what is usually at the core of that.
It's about experience of player.
And if the games industry is the biggest industry in the world, which it is, then it must be doing something right.

And part of that right is enabling space.
That's.

Perfect.
Yeah, Yeah, completely agree.
I haven't got anything to add, I don't think.
Yeah.

I just think that is what both of you said, just amazing advice for this project and for projects like it and also just like for life in general.
So I didn't, I didn't mean to get so deep on this podcast, but it turns out that's a great life philosophy to end on.
So yeah, thank you guys so much for coming in.

It's just been fascinating and inspiring talking to you.
And yeah, I've just loved it.
So thank you for thank you for talking to me.

Thank you.
Thanks so much.

Thank you for having us.
You've been gorgeous, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's been really lovely.
Yeah.
Thank you everybody.

You've been listening to the I Am a Storyteller podcast from Inspire Culture, Learning and Libraries.
I'm a Storyteller.
It's the third stage of our I'm A Creator programme which is funded by investment from Arts Council England for our status as a national portfolio organisation.

Find out more about the project as storytellers, the audiences who took part and the outcomes.
You can visit our website inspireculture.org.uk/iamastoryteller.