Silent Writing Session

 

Hello, my name is Rikke, I am a Danish researcher, writer and teacher, and I will invite you to join me for a session of silent, reflective writing. A gap, as I call it.

 

The overall offer of this productive gab is to expand the notion of producing or being productive. From seeing it as specific way of being with a tendency of looking ahead at the product, the closure, the final to seeing it as a possibility to find gabs to produce connectivity, silence, friendliness, sensibility, hope, doubts, negotiations, u-turns or deeper breaths.

 

You need a notebook and a pencil to join this session.

 

As a keystroke I would like to read a small text for you. It is from a artistic research conference a couple of years ago in Zürich. In one of their open calls I red this:

 

A gap is a space between things. It can be wide or narrow, huge or small, large or tiny. Often in research projects a big gap opens up between expectations and what is delivered. The gap in the fence for the rabbit to dart through, the irreconcilable gap between disciplines within every interdisciplinary work, the gap of cultures, languages, methods, skills, knowledge, gender, or identity. The gaps in order to identify innovative links between academics and the arts. By welcoming and stressing gaps, how does one learn from “the other”? Where do differences appear and how can they become productive, especially in collaborative and transdiscipinary research projects?

 

 

For the next 25 minutes we will do this:

 

We will write from at specific sentence that I choose for ten minutes in silence. Write in your own language or what ever language that suits you. It is not flow writing where you are not allowed to lift your pen. It is ten minutes of what ever writing that comes out you.

 

After the ten minutes you get an amount of time, about 6 minutes, to READ your own text, recognise it, be interested in it, embrace it, detach yourself from it. And then chose ONE SENTENCE that you would like to start your second round if writing with.

 

The second round of writing is also ten minutes in silence.

 

After that, I will end the session by telling you what to do.

 

We will start now.

The sentence we write as a starting point is:

 

WHAT IF I COULD…..The time starts now.

Walking with Values:

 

1. Take time by yourself and investigate a couple of your most important values – do also research in terms of the word itself

 

2. Choose one core value that you would like to share and talk with your partner about

 

2. Take a walk (or stay at home) with a partner and share the following questions:

 

• What is my basic value if I should name one?

 

• Why is that value important to me?

 

• How do that value connect to my artistic work?

 

 

Time: 45 minutes

 

Let the conversation be as free as possible and let it end as free as possible.

 

 

Examples of values:

 

• Decency
• Sincerity
• Responsiveness
• Frankness
• Justice
• Generosity
• Uncompromising
• Openness