ROBYN HAMBROOK
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  • Home
  • PROJECTS
    • Sealine Confidential
    • Clown Congress
    • Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy
    • The Trickster Laboratory
    • Sexual Health Circus
    • Street Art Porfolio
    • Rebel Clowns
    • Canary
    • Arthur's Odyssey
    • The Vampire Rabbit
    • Interactive Theatre
    • Youth & Social Circus
    • The Online Clown Academy
  • COURSES
    • Fool Power Residency
    • Clown Soup
    • The Activist Clown Toolkit
    • Clown Devising Weekend
    • The Laboratory of the Un-Beautiful Online
    • Clown Experiments
    • Bouffon Weekend Intensive
  • Training
  • Clowning & Activism Blog
    • Tools of the Activist Clown
ROBYN HAMBROOK

John Jordan on Creative Activism

John Jordan’s work merges the imagination of art and the radical engagement of activism. He is a writer, lecturer, artist and activist. He set up C.I.R.C.A and works in the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination infamous for fermenting acts of mass disobedience.
 
“We see all history as being created through disobedience, from women wearing trousers to the right to a weekend to being part of a union; all these things happened because people disobeyed the laws. We think that art and activism together can create incredible new forms. We reject representation. We would do an action that was direct and would actually try to change the situation. Our work is organising. It is not representing, it is transforming the world. The role of the artist is to transform the world, not just represent it.”

"We have one foot in the social movement as organisers and one foot in the cultural world. The root of what we do is radical friendship. We work horizontally, we work with a collective spirit, the key is creating friendships. For us we think that is the basis of any politics, the trust, the friendship and the love that is created through those intense moments of working together in disobedience."
 
"We don’t believe that people are moved by the truth. We believe they are moved by desire. Capitalism knows this much better than activism. Capitalism knows that it creates its own truths."
 
“Politics is not solely or even primarily about reasoned thinking and rational choices; it’s an affair of fantasy and desire. People are rarely moved to action, support, or even consent by realistic proposals; they are motivated by dreams of what could be.” Stephen Duncombe
 
"Art washing is this magical slight of had that transforms progressive art into a tool for upholding the status quo."
 
This great video outlines 16 Principles for creating beautiful trouble illuminated the Liberate Tate campaign to remove the BP sponsorship of the Tate Gallery.
16 PRINCIPLES
  1. Abandon your cultural capital
  2. Keep going and never give up
  3. Least effort for greatest effect
  4. Choose a tactic that supports your strategy
  5. Know your cultural terrain
  6. Don’t dress like a protester
  7. Dream Plan and Rehearse
  8. Shift the spectrum of Allies
  9. Do the mainstream medias work for them
  10. Hack (their) laws
  11. Escalate strategically – build it narratively
  12. No-one wants to watch a drum circle – participation
  13. Never forget the power of the unexpected
  14. Stay on the edges – on the edge of art and activism
  15. Put your target in a decision dilemma
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ABOUT ROBYN

Robyn is a Bristol-based director, teacher and performer. With over 20 years experience she is a passionate practitioner of clowning, physical theatre, circus and street arts. She has a MA in Circus Directing, a Diploma of Physical Theatre Practice and trained with a long line of inspiring teachers including Holly Stoppit, Peta Lily, Giovanni Fusetti, Bim Mason, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma, Lucy Hopkins and John Wright.
Over the past five years she has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and a deep desire to address the injustices in the world. This specialism has developed through her Masters Research ‘Small Circus Acts of Resistance’, on the streets and in protests with the Bristol Rebel Clowns and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory.
Robyn’s Activist Clown research has led to collaborations with Jay Jordan (Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, France), Clown Me In (Beirut), LM Bogad (US), Hilary Ramsden (Greece) and international Tricksters; ‘The Yes Men’ (US).
During the pandemic in 2020, Robyn set up The Online Clown Academy with Holly Stoppit and developed a series of Zoom Clown Courses. Robyn’s research, started during her Masters, has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and activism, online, in the real world and with international collaborators. With this drive to explore political edges of her work she has also dived back into the world of the Bouffon; training with Jaime Mears, Bim Mason, Nathaniel Justiniano, Eric Davis, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier.
Keen to explore the intersection of clowning and politics, Robyn is driven to create collaborative, research spaces, testing and pushing the limits of the artform to create new knowledge and methodologies for her industry and strengthen partnerships for future work. Some of her most recent collaborations and teaching projects have included the Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy (5-day Activist Clown Training), The Laboratory of the Un-beautiful (Feminist Grotesque Bouffon Training for Womxn Theatre Makers) and the Clown Congress (annual gathering of clowns, activists & academics collectively exploring what it means to be a clown in this current era)
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Photo by HeardinLondon Photography