Equity's Independent Theatre Arts Committee
 
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A NEW CONFERENCE FROM THE BORDERS OF PERFORMANCE, ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD 
August 21 2011, 11am – 7pm 
Hosted by Forest Fringe, Bristo Place, Edinburgh
Four main questions have been devised to guide the discussion by the curators Andy Field and Hannah Nicklin of Forest Fringe:
  • What is digital innovation in the arts and why is it important?
  • How can we stop making Capitalism?
  • Artists. Audiences. How can we do this better?
  • Why have we failed to convince people the arts are important? Are the arts still important?
A "Pay-what-you-can" conference. The limited tickets are now sold out but there is the opportunity of following the ambient conversation surrounding this event by following the twitter tag #edgelands. If you aren't yet on twitter or unsure how to filter conversation there is a widget at the very bottom of this post to read the activity on.

For more information on speakers, installations and performances, please visit http://bit.ly/edgelands 

Background
In January 2011 as part of the State of the Arts Conference in London we created what we called a Flash Conference – a thrilling, temporary space amidst the busyness of the conference for artists and producers to come together to ask challenging questions and a virtual space online for everyone who couldn’t be present to offer their thoughts and their words and play a meaningful part in the day’s conversations.

The event was unpredictable, exciting and galvanising. Since the success of that first event we have wanted to take this project further. Whilst retaining the same adventurous energy and inclusivity, we want to see if we can create a richer and more expansive flash conference; a real opportunity for people right across the art world to meet at its edge to think about the world we inhabit and how we might help change it.

There seemed to be no better place to do this than at the Edinburgh Fringe. We felt it was important that the flash conference happen in a place where conventional modes of doing things are malleable and in flux; a place where we can think about the structures within which we operate and ask how they might work better.

This day is not about railing against authority or the great institutions of the arts. It is a day for everybody to gather at the edges of those big institutions and organisations, on equal terms. To ask daring questions and suggest implausible answers. To share a spirit of generosity and a galvanising sense of hope; that despite or perhaps because of the political, financial and environmental circumstances in which we find ourselves, the arts can and will play a part in imagining and realising a better possible future.




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