NEWS: ‘Bridging the Void’ Festival to cap four-year collaboration

We are excited to share news of an upcoming online festival, ‘Bridging the Void’, exploring the challenges of life beyond crime and punishment. The festival is the culmination of a four-year project in which CRITIQUE Co-Director Dr Oliver Escobar was one of four Co-Investigators, in partnership with Glasgow University (Principal Investigator Prof Fergus McNeill), Vox Liminis (community arts social enterprise, directed by project Co-I Alison Urie), University of West of Scotland (Co-I Jo Collinson-Scott), and Edinburgh University (Co-I Oliver Escobar).

The project, ‘Distant Voices – Coming Home’, has been exploring crime, punishment, and reintegration in creative ways. It blurred the boundaries between art, social science, and participatory research to explore and change justice in Scotland and beyond.

The ‘Void’ mentioned in the Festival’s name is the separation, alienation, and exclusion that both crime and punishment create. While it starts out exploring the dimensions of that void, most of the festival is about what the team has learned about how to build bridges, not just for and with the people affected, but also between a dysfunctional present and a better future. So, the narrative arc of the festival is from alienation to solidarity.

There are three evening events: an opening music gig, a film premiere, and a closing gig, and three lunchtime conversations that explore these issues.

Please register for the Festival here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/bridging-the-void-35249107553

The Distant Voices Project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Council.

More info: https://www.voxliminis.co.uk/projects/distant-voices/