Last weekend saw my 4th year at Latitude working with The Dialogue Project to present Intimate Conversations at the festival. Karl James pre-records a series of intimate conversations with ordinary people talking about extraordinary experiences. We offer festival goers the chance to listen to these beautifully edited works on ipods in the woods. Each year Karl has chosen a different theme for his sound pieces, and this year the subject was sex (previous years include friendship and pain). Although some of the subject matter is quite tough, and many are graphic (although not pornographic), the conversations revolve as much around themes of loneliness, hope, confidence, and intimacy as they do sexuality. Perhaps because the pieces were longer this year, and so we spent more time with people while they were waiting, it felt like an even more participative and collaborative event this year. People who came to listen generously shared their experiences (of similar stories, of the festival as they were discovering it, of their responses to the work) and as such it felt like we really were adding a small layer of personal intimacy to a festival of 35,000, a far cry from the arena crowds, in the Faraway Forest, somewhere near a lake in Suffolk.
Thank you to everyone who came to listen.
If you'd like to listen to the works go to:
http://www.thedialogueproject.com and click on Intimate Conversations.
I strongly recommend listening on headphones.
