2BU Productions

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Silvaliningscareplan/ Twitter @SilvaCareLining

And on this website: https://2buproductions.org/silva-linings-care-plan-podcast-the-story/

I am now alumni of the fabulous National Arts Fundraising course 2021!

Silva Lining’s Care Plan, our podcast play is undergoing another edit, it’s starting to sound really good. Can’t wait to show off about it! Thank you Arts Council England and our other supporters, we’re so grateful for your help in making this happen.

Delighted to announce that our play ‘Out Like Fudge’ will be translated and performed in Denmark in November 2021 (postponed from last year due to Covid). The play is called: Ikke mere udenomsnak in Danish! More about this here: Out Like Fudge

How things go around and build, once we’ve been on this planet for a while! Work from years ago continues to reappear and be rekindled, especially if it was fun and of value.

I’ve been teaching at Durham University and University of Bristol this last week, sometimes on the same day. Quirks of lockdown! Really wonderful actually to see lots of young faces on my screen and to hear their thoughts. At Durham, I ran some workshops on narrative for about 50 Anthropology students, for Professor Andrew Russell and his Tobacco module. Very fun and interesting and took me back to my Anthropology degree in dusty old rooms in Cambridge. Also I was taken back to setting up and teaching a narrative module at (what used to be called) Norwich University of the Arts for Suzie Hannah. God I loved that job.

It’s been great getting into that material again from a different perspective. Andrew and I were both involved with Life of Breath Project up to 2020, and hope to continue to build a collaboration. 

The Bournville Tapestry brings together a series of stories inspired
by Community Connections, a creative social prescribing programme
developed with and for this locality.  The stories span the time before
and after the COVID-19 emergency and lockdown of Spring 2020.

The Bournville Tapestry represents a fraction of the stories that
could be told. The stories were gathered through a series of individual
zooms with writer, Elspeth Penny, in August and September 2020. Often
vibrant and passionate, the Bournville Tapestry is about different
points of view, sometimes entertaining and always illuminating.

It is a tapestry of a seascape with lots of loose threads,
unfinished. As time goes on more threads can be gathered. Not all
stories have been able to be included, so there may be holes in the
tapestry. Perhaps by continuing to listen to stories from different
perspectives, we may mend some of those holes, and perhaps avoid a fixed
ending, at least for now.

Find out more about the Bournville Tapestry 

We’re honoured to have received funding from Arts Council England, to further a number of projects. One of these is to make our play Silva Lining’s Care Plan into a podcast. The play is about carers and care, so is highly topical – and a hugely important area to explore in these tricky Covid times.

May 2020

April 2020

Sending you all our warmest wishes for this tricky time. Keep safe, be well.

Here’s our last new newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/f34a48e18617/lockdown-and-the-coming-out-of-the-red-shoes

January 2020

Here’s a January blog post, featuring all the latest for Catch Your Breath Bristol including a virtual walk through of the exhibiton:

Catch Your Breath Exhibition and events, Winter 2019-20

2019 Nov

Script-writing: wonderful to be working with clinician Barny Hole at Bristol University to create script material using original data, and to direct them into short, acted vignettes, to act as focal points for discussion. These have been performed by actors at two events, a PPI day (patient and public involvement) in Fishponds, and a clinical conference at the Wills building in central Bristol. For more, see our Project page.

Catch Your Breath exhibition and workshop programme https://catchyourbreath.org/catch-your-breath-moves-to-bristol  has had a vibrant present in Bristol since September, for Life of Breath Project, starting with a launch at Southmead and many other activities. Some lovely feedback: 

‘A brilliant range of events, inventive and intelligent’. 

‘You were a great speaker – audible, succinct, interesting and measured (steady presence).’

‘What a rich, diverse and interesting array of exhibits and stories!’ 

Graphic novel: Elspeth’s own creative practice as an artist has recently been on her graphic novel, working with the steadying second opinion from graphic novelist Rachael Ball. She presented her work to 35 artists at the Laydeez do Comics meeting in Bristol in October. For more, see our Project page.

2019 July

In July, we ran a workshop, Elspeth, along with Dr Gene Feder and Dr Alice Malpass at the Storytelling for Health conference in Swansea. On display at the festival was “Suspended Breath” by Louise Jenkins, an art work which has been inspired by our Letter to the the Breath project. There was also the launch of a new paper by Alice and Elspeth freshly published in a special festival edition – Storytelling, Self and Society.

2019 June

Over Spring, Elspeth has been fortunate to have been nourished on a series of creative residentials, with storytelling as an ongoing theme. All of these have brought here own creative practice together with a wider storytelling for transformation theme.

1. The first was Arts and Health South West’s Spring School on Storytelling and Young people’s mental health – an intensive residential school for health professionals, researchers and arts practitioners in a beautiful location in Dorset. Time for collaboration, action learning, and experimental practice.
2. The second was Storyworks for film makers, at Cherry Orchards Bristol looking at the stories that tell us, “the descent”, then restorying the World with Kanada Gorla and Tina Sharman, organised for women film makers by Bristol film maker Esther May Campbell.
3. The third was a graphic novel residency, run by Laydeez do Comics – which supportive critical feedback and clear direction from a small focused group. This was an inspiring, fun and creative weekend in the countryside near Grantham with graphic novelists Rachael Ball, Charlotte Bailey, Lou Crosby, Wallis Eates and Nicola Streeten, and Corinne Pearlman, Editor in Chief at Myriad Editions.

2019 April

Elspeth has a new temporary role, as one of two Exhibition Consultants for Life of Breath Project’s end of project exhibition ‘Catch Your Breath’ at Southmead hospital and beyond. She will be working part time alongside Dr Catherine Lamont Robinson, artist, researcher and honorary lecturer in the School of Social and Community Medicine at University of Bristol… we’ve had a number of wonderful first meetings. We can’t wait to get deep into the discussions, plans, ideas and practicalities of bringing them all into being along with other artists, clinicians and academics and staff at Southmead hospital.

2019 Delighted to announce that a new paper written by Elspeth Penny and Dr Alice Malpass, is now available Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17533015.2018.1555178. (Taylor Francis online). This comes out of our work with Wellcome Trust funded Life of Breath project. It is also due to be published in an issue of Arts & Health. 

2018-19  We’ve won funding from Life of Breath Project to pilot Letter to the Breath creative workshops in 3 schools.

2018 We won Arts Council England National Lottery funding to write, direct and preview a theatre play – Silva Lining’s Care Plan. Based on anonymised diaries kept by paid home carers who work with people with dementia, the work explores the world of the paid carer with the help of live music, plenty of mischief and a dose of tenderness. Special thanks to our partner Professor Justine Schneider at Nottingham University and all our wonderful cast and team, it’s been such fun. Onwards now to the next phase….

See trailer: Silva Lining trailer