Speaker: Meredith Lewis
‘Throw away the light, the definitions, and say, what you see, in the dark.‘ —Wallace Stevens We have all been jolted out of time and psychosocial space due to Covid, climate and natural emergencies, growing inequality, and their attendant disruptions and griefs. What does this mean for us? The Bewilderment Game is a ‘choose your own adventure’ narrative building workshop. It uses reflexivity, imagination, and storybuilding as a transformational exercise in sense-making. Following a series of creative prompts and visualisations, participants will be allowed to construct their own richly-imagined story before being invited to share it with the group. The Bewilderment Game opens up a shared transformational space, allowing participants to build bridges between their individual inner world to a group discourse. Past participants have fed back that this is creatively generative, inspirational, and emotionally resonant. Level of participation: Before: If required, a brief creative prompt can be emailed to participants before the event to provide inspiration. During: This is a highly interactive event, first giving individuals time to create a story by being guided by creative prompts from the facilitator, and then by inviting participants to join group discussions about those stories. There is no passive learning. Following: A 1-page summary of the quotations and prompts used in the session is emailed to the participants and / or shared via Zoom at the end of the event. This is so participants can revisit the creative exercises at any time. About time: Based in Melbourne (AEST), I have nominated an evening time-slot for an online event as past experience has shown me that I can attract audiences from across a number of international time zones then. However, I am happy to deliver any time between 6.30am and 11pm AEST.