The Story of the Day: Inspiration Exchange, York

We split the Inspiration Exchange up over two days for the No Boundaries 2014 conference in York, with a 'checking-in' half way through, rather than a summing up at the end.

Sometimes there's a quiet hour at the start of the Inspiration Exchange, but not today. We're starting at lunchtime.

I swap TAKE THE CAMERA HOME

For A VERY M1 CHRISTMAS

I swap 01369 870212

For FLINT & CHANCE

I swap AN ESCAPED LUNATIC IN CANNOCK CHASE

For MAMELA

I swap A 6B PENCIL

For THEY MISSED US OUT COMPLETELY

I swap BUILDINGS AS TIME TRAVELLERS

For CHAMBERS

I swap AMPERSAND & INTERROBANG‽

For TWO SIDES OF THE FENCE

I swap THE INSIDE OF A SAXOPHONE

For MONKEY VISIT

I swap 36 DAYS LOOKING FOR STUFF IN THE FRIDGE

For I AM CALLING TO TELL YOU...

I swap DENDROCHRONOLOGY

For INVENTING UNIVERSES ON PAPER (& MATHS THAT DOESN'T EXIST YET)

I swap LETTING GIRLS BE

For "NEVER READ A POEM SITTING ON YOUR ARSE!"

Although punctuated by a short break to eat cake(s) and drink tea, this feels like one long, discursive conversation. A conversation about being able to imagine a different future. About enabling other people to imagine a different future, for themselves, for their environment, for their homes. About enabling change to happen. About not being able to teach imagery to poets (or to anyone). You can't. Imagery is in you. Let's hope you've been paying attention, absorbing what you've seen. A conversation about remembering someone the way you want to, remembering beyond the grief of their passing. About the usefulness of metaphor. About the way artists and scientists do actually understand each other. About the importance of coincidence and how something external can feed into a creative process that changes the direction it is going in and then once the show (or whatever it is) is made, thinking back and wondering if that external thing hadn't cropped up, if you hadn't heard that thing on the radio (or whatever it was) that changed your thinking, what would that project have turned into? A conversation about the value of the unfinished story, about leaving space for questions, questions that can't be answered, about how sometimes you can over-explain something.

We realise that we are way over time, and outside the room of the Exchange, people have left, and the venue is being made ready for a party. Reluctantly, I close up for the night.

The next morning, I talk a bit about all of that (you can hear that - and lots more from the event - here), then I invite people to join me, and re-open the Exchange.

I swap MONKEY VISIT

For GLOOMY SUNDAY

I swap "NEVER READ A POEM SITTING ON YOUR ARSE!"

For THE FIRST YEAR SHE WASN'T THERE

I swap THE IDEA OF A RETRONYM

For TURN LEFT INSTEAD OF RIGHT

I swap THE FIRST YEAR SHE WASN'T THERE

For DYING FOR A FAG

I swap DESIRE PATHS

For THE RACE GAME

I swap AN 86 YEAR OLD AUNT WHO SMOKES 40 A DAY

For I ATE A SHEEP

And then we're done for the day.

The Story of the Day, Aberystwyth

I ran an Inspiration Exchange at Aberystwyth Arts Centre as part of the minifestival SAFLE 1 | SITE 1 yesterday. Here's the story of the day.

We get off to a great start.

I swap AN ESCAPED LUNATIC IN CANNOCK CHASE

for MOTHER'S LOVE

and then it is a bit quiet for an hour.

A man promises that he will come back later and "blow your mind with one of my stories". But he doesn't come back.

The Exchange is often quiet for the first hour. When I choose the stories at the start of the day, I choose the ones I would really like to tell that day. But I know I won't get to tell them all, that's not how it works. Even so, I still "feel bad" for the stories that don't get chosen. Perhaps I need to think up better titles for them.

At noon, the bar opens, and the room feels different. A guy walks past wearing a t-shirt that reads "So far this is the oldest I've ever been" which would connect with several of the stories on the table, but he doesn't stop.

I take lunch early, and then, straight away, the longest conversation I've ever had at an Inspiration Exchange.

S. asks for STOPPING PEOPLE DREAMING  because it is "appropriate for today".

In return she gives me INVISIBLE NOTETAKERS. She can't see the inspiration in it, but it's the "only story she can tell today." I can see the inspiration in it, though, so it goes on the table.

The ensuing conversation includes the stories AN UNBOOKABLE PIECE OF KIT and TAKE THE CAMERA HOME (even though neither of them are on the table) and also moving cities, children, travel, the stories we tell within families, the act of asking people to tell a story. Taking people back to a place in order to enable them to tell you a story about it. What is the mechanism by which a stranger will tell you a story? And then she is gone, back to work.

I swap NOT KNOWING WHAT TO THINK ABOUT POLE-DANCING

for FAILED ATTEMPT AT SEEKING SANCTUARY IN THE BRITISH EMBASSY

I swap AMPERSAND & INTERROBANG‽

for WEAR A HELMET

I swap THE IDEA OF A RETRONYM

for PLAYFUL RUNNING

I swap ARGON GAS

for TRANS- RE- DE- UN- FORMED SPACES

I swap 36 DAYS LOOKING FOR STUFF IN THE FRIDGE

for HELLO MR. WATSON

I swap HELLO MR. WATSON

for WHERE IS MY JUMPER

I swap WEAR A HELMET

for DON'T WEAR ORANGE SHORTS