Some Fun Palaces Makers, along with some of Fun Palaces Support Hub Team will attend the Fate of Britain Convention in London, which follows a successful first Fête of Britain gathering in Manchester in 2024. It’s not too late to join us if you’d like (there is some support available if you’d like to travel from outside of London, but are limited by funds, as outlined below). Alex, from the Fate Team, shares a bit more information about the convention, and an invitation to join if you are able.
So, we’re running this Convention in London on September 11th. It’s definitely for you. How do I know that? Because we’re only inviting brilliant people who get off their bums and get things done. You wouldn’t be reading this if that wasn’t you.
No time for false modesty! I bet the first thing you tell the people you work with where you live and operate is how brilliant they are, and how much they lead the way. Why not hear it yourself?
“But,” you say modestly, “I don’t even know you.” Yet…! Even more reason to come to our Convention! Find me (I’ll be wearing the William Morris sash) and tell me I’m wrong: that you’re not brilliant, that you like sitting on your bumble all day, and that you really, really hate doing fun things with others that builds our common culture.
It’s not any old Convention, either. It’s a Convention on the Fate of Britain.
Boy, it’s needed. We know the real crisis in our country is the disconnection that makes people afraid of each other. More people don’t vote than do, and yet most of us don’t like the direction in which our country is headed. People feel unheard and unrepresented.
We know we need to bring people together. We know that it’s people and communities that must lead the way in creating their culture, where they live. So we’ve set out to convene, support, galvanise and mobilise the cultural space to connect those of us who know we need to build this better world, to have each other’s backs, and make what happens where you live the national story.
Because everyone is looking for something and wants to belong. We think you’re the people who are going to do the work to make that something real.
Why do we think that? Because you’re already involved in Fun Palaces. You’re the people who know the answer to our problems lies in each other — in making culture together. Everything else, including things like politics, comes after what we do together where we live.
Hold on a minute. Who are “we”? Who’s hosting this Convention on the Fate of Britain? That’s a fair question. We’re Absurd Intelligence, or TheAI, which was a bit of a gamble, name-wise, a few years ago! But we know a few things better than that artificial stuff… Because, truly, only humans can be truly absurdist, fun, creative, generous, and loving. That is: cultural.
We’ve a track record in cultural strategy, narrative leadership and mobilisation, mainly in the grassroots, organising, design, and climate spaces. Our team co-founded Extinction Rebellion, designed the Brixton Pound, starred on Reality TV (no, really), and a lot of other things. We’re the people who’ve helped build Hard Art and we put on The Fête of Britain, a four-day takeover of Aviva Studios, bringing culture, people and democracy together.
In doing all this, one thing we know is this: no one can do the work alone.
So The Fate of Britain Convention will be a unique convening of bottom-up organisers, artists and people in politics-with-a-small-p, with a mission to not only imagine but begin living the new story we need.
Our mission isn’t very different from Fun Palaces, as it happens: supporting local people to create their own cultural and community events, celebrating what’s amazing about people where they live.
They could be The Fête of [YOUR TOWN HERE], Recipe of Love workshops with Humanity Project, charter writing games with Our House, building an intergenerational movement, your Fun Palace or anything that invites people to be, and be with, good neighbours.
And we’ll tell everyone that Fun Palaces has got it absolutely right – let’s build a world where everyone has a say in what counts as culture, where it happens, who makes it, and who experiences it.
If we’ve got any magic sauce, it’s in bringing a brilliant collection of people together into one space, to meet, and feel that we all belong and to do this work. We’re quite good at that!
It’s that simple, really. Because we can’t go on like this, with all the decline and despair. We’re not going to fix the old system. We’re going to build a new one. And it’ll be fun.
The Convention is 10am-3.30pm on Thursday 11th September, and there are many ticket options, including £0 for those who don’t have any spare cash, to unlimited donations from those who are rolling in it (there’ll be a few funders in the room, too!). We’ve also got (limited) support for travel and accommodation for those from outside London. Please ask!
Let’s take our fate into our own hands. It begins with our culture.
