Folkfuturism became our way forward in a small Saturnalia ceremony of friends and family in December of 2018.
Processional and festal arts, so steeped in their use of puppetry, mask-work, gatherings, music and dancing, can be challenging to individuals who experience sensory and social events differently. And yet these types of public arts gatherings and rituals are integral to almost all communities.
I spent years creating seasonal events and mask-making workshops at galleries around Philadelphia, with creative partner Tucker Collins (an autistic neuroscientist, and mask and puppet-maker). These events were popular, but there was no way to tell who we weren’t reaching.
I began to search specifically for autistic creatives and artists online to find out what made puppet, mask, and parade projects hard for them, and I presented this data at the Winter Festivals and Rituals conference at Oxford University in 2017. In 2019, Tucker and I gave the online presentation “Promoting Inclusivity in Processional Arts” on video for Moving Parts: Newcastle Puppetry Festival.
We were, in both 2019 and 2020, given Seed Grants by the Philadelphia Autism Project. Through this funding we were able to host an all-ages Tardigrade party (a science festival and rock concert featuring a giant tardigrade puppet), and work with Kensington’s WEIRDO festival (sponsored by Fireball Printers) on “Gabriel”, the somatosensory homunculus puppet, at Kensington’s WEIRDO Festival.
By that Winter’s Weirdo Festival, Zach Inkeles, who had been a very inspired and inspired participant of our work with Philly AP, taught a shadow puppet workshop.
Tucker had also provided a quick and dirty globo lantern workshop earlier in the week, to make the communal space of the festival extra beautiful.
We were on the verge of assisting Zachary produce his first full, original shadow puppet production, when COVID quarantine hit Philadelphia.
In late 2020, I was invited to the flagship Advisory Council of the Philadelphia Autism Project. While Tucker pursues his PhD in Chemistry at Drexel University, we continue to help facilitate creative festal and processional opportunities for people who feel too shy, feel that it is too bright, too loud, too late, and try to help come up with ways that anyone can participate and feel like they are part of the procession whether they walk with it or not. Parades do not need to be a zero-sum game, but they should absolutely reflect the talents of everyone whose creativity is involved.
Two people walking together at night with beautiful lanterns can be a parade. They may not even be the same people who made the beautiful lanterns; that already makes it a parade of three, or four, or even more. The more ways there are to include people without insisting that they carry what earlier practices have deemed “their weight”. We are not here to enforce the carrying of one’s own weight. We are here to lift each other up.
Pre-Pandemic projects
- “Promoting Inclusivity in Processional Arts” on video for Moving Parts: Newcastle Puppetry Festival
- “Social Distant Green Man” — May Day 2020
- Find Tucker and Amber in the video for IDLES “Mr. Motivator”