A space to share and air...
What is FANN?
Right now, we don’t know! It’s in its infancy. It’s developing. But what we do know is this…
We are in constant awe of the incredible female artistic talent that we see in our home cities of Leeds and Manchester
We want to learn from these women
We want to collaborate with these women
We want to champion these women
THE ‘HONESTY’ BOX
With support from Oldham Coliseum and Left Bank Leeds and before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we invited women in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire to a relaxed ‘meet up’.
We wanted to do some research. Amongst many other things, we invited them to drop their thoughts anonymously into an ‘HONESTY BOX’ - we asked them to tell us their worries, their fears; we wanted a true sense of how they were really feeling at this point in their lives - how they felt about their careers, their families…
The word cloud above was the result.
The idea behind FANN…let's look at Japan for a minute...
What?! Ok…ok we know what you’re thinking! But please bear with us.
We love a bit of philosophical reading here at RedBobble HQ and a recent favourite was ‘Ikigai – The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life’ (check it out, it’s fab!)
Did you know? Japan has the highest number of centenarians (people aged 100 and over) in the world – currently a whopping 69’785! And guess what? 88% of those are WOMEN.
Along with a good diet, simple exercise and finding their ‘Ikigai’ (their reason for getting up in the morning) creating a MOAI is said to be a significant contributing factor.
“‘MOAI’ (/mo,eye/)
“Meeting for a common purpose”
or
“Social support groups””
Originating on the Island of Okinawa, Moai’s were traditionally created with an emphasis on community and for villagers to rely on each other in times of need; providing varying support in social, financial, health or spiritual interests.
Together, can we increase our longevity in the arts?
We had a thought. By creating our own ‘Moai’ can we increase our longevity in the arts? Can we be more sustainable? Can we be happier? Can we be healthier? Can we have more fun? Can we create a space for womxn to share and air their thoughts? Can we collaborate more? Can we learn from one another?
Time for some RedBobble honesty…
Like for so many other artists, 2020 promised to be an exciting year for us. We had just been made associate artists at Oldham Coliseum, we were planning the next show and we wanted to build FANN with the support of the theatre and Left Bank in Leeds.
Well…we all know what happened next!
And so now we suddenly find ourselves in 2021 and unfortunately FANN has had to take a temporary back seat whilst we manage planning for the next show and a new RedBobble baby. We appreciate your patience and we’re so grateful to all the wonderful people who turned up for our research gathering sessions - your input has and still will be invaluable as we think about the next steps.
For now, we just want you to know that we’ve not forgotten you.
The future
We still want FANN to be a place that connects, inspires, celebrates and supports women in the arts.
Please bear with us whilst we try to source funding and resources to make this happen.
In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas or if you’d like to help us out in any way! Also, we’re always here for a good old chinwag! We’d love to meet for a brew online or in person.