Reflections: Valuing the arts, valuing ourselves
And so we come to the end of Season 2! And what a season it’s been. I would normally have another wonderful guest to come and share their process with us, but this time I wanted to do something a little different. I feel like I had some real personal awakenings that I’m going to share with you. Using excerpts of interviews from across the season, I’ll be talking about the value of arts in society and why it’s so important to value ourselves!
There is a great line in the Jane Campion film Bright Star about the English poet John Keats where his friend, writer Charles Brown says to Keats’ love interest Fanny Brawne, something along the lines of, ‘please don’t disturb us if you see us lying on the grass staring into space, we’re actually working’. That line resonated so much with me because so many of my ideas come from ‘lying on the grass, staring into space!’ This episode is about not only giving yourself permission to do just that, it’s also about why it’s so important to have the space to do so!
All over the world, the arts is used to give voice to our cultural, political and social histories, some are celebrated (in the Middle East, for example, poets are considered to be like rock stars, they fill stadiums) some are loathed, some are ignored, some are even killed, many are lauded posthumously. Yet if we understand the importance of art in a society that seeks flourishing over commodity, connection over capital then art and its artists become a bridge. As my guest from last week Shruti Kumar said, artists are ‘orators of our history.’
So thank you to all the fabulous guests who have shared their processes with us this season - it has been a real art imitating life, imitating art for me! And a huge thank you to Suzan Kibirge who has been managing all the social media and analytics but mostly to you all for listening. Until next time!
Guest: Yours truly! @matshidisomusic
Title: ‘Reflections - Valuing the arts, valuing ourselves’
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Eliud Kipchoge running 26.2 in under 2hrs
Music I’m listening to: Midnight Mischief, Jordan Rakei; Bach Motets by The Pygmalion Ensemble with Raphael Pichon; my Spotify playlist - 'Songs for roadtrips and daydreams'