These are serious times*
Hello
I'm Philip Cowell and I have seventeen years' experience in the arts (Arvon, English PEN, Good Chance), sustainability (Abel & Cole, Futerra) and writing for design (Here.). These are serious times. Which is why - now more than ever - we need more creative thinking, more expression, more kindness.
*My bit:
Art for social change
I am the Development Manager at Good Chance, the theatre of hope that collaborates with refugee artists to connect communities, stories and cultures - and discover joy and creativity, even in the most difficult circumstances. I love working on projects that bring people together in the UK, on the US/Mexico border and across Europe, to share stories and create a different future.
Problem-solving walking workshops
When you learn to love your environment, the environment loves you back. I use David Pearl's incredible solutions-focused Street Wisdom programme - aka satnav for the soul! - to get people back into their wiggly bodies and walking around the streets to ask big questions of themselves and the environment they live in.
Writing commissions & workshops
I wrote This Is Me, Full Stop (Penguin) and Keeping a Journal (Sheldon Mindfulness) and have written for Herbarium (Thames & Hudson), Wanderful (Unbound), Poetry Review, BBC Culture and The Guardian. In my fun and physical writing workshops (I've led them for the Southbank Centre, Free Word and Wilderness) I help people reach into their lives to find new ways with words.
Latest writing:
I Wake to Walk and When I Walk I Dream
from Wanderful (Unbound, 2020)
I wake to walk and when I walk I dream.
High five leaf! Landing back on my feet,
What the street is, is not what it seems.
All roads lead to the Rome of the heart.
I couldn't curb my enthusiasm for kerbs.
I wake to walk and then I walk my dream.
The word street has the word tree in it!
Someone says God says I’m going to hell.
What the street is, is not what it seems.
You never step in the same street twice.
An old man eats an ice-cream with a flake.
I dream to walk and when I walk, I wake.
Something is hidden in every moment.
Here, a girl is laughing behind a lamppost.
What the street is, is not what it seems.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us
Are looking at it, wondering what it means.
I wake to walk and when I walk I dream.
What the street is, is not what it seems.
Call me:
Get in touch for creative workshops, arts development chats and new writing projects.