As host of Sylvia Live I feel very fortunate. I have the honour of meeting and learning from people from so many walks of life. The subject of how important the arts are in society is often mentioned and discussed at length in conversations of depth. I have seen first hand how the arts does in fact expand one’s frame of reference. It creates a healthier acceptance of diversity in society. Oftentimes artists have a lot of wisdom to share. They call out issues that we all need to review and look at in greater depth through their chosen modality. Whether it be a song with profound lyrics, or some kind of image depicting an important subject, or it could be a poem speaking to some topic that people generally avoid because they do not know how to handle uncomfortable topics.
This week Sylvia Live will be featuring Sean Bw Parker. Sean Bw Parker (MA) is a writer, artist and lecturer in art, cultural theory and justice reform. He lived in Istanbul for ten years until 2014 where he lectured at Istanbul University. He gave a revealing TED talk entitled ‘Stammering and Creativity’. He also has published or contributed to a number of books. He has won six Koestler Arts awards (including a platinum for his play The Wolfstadt-Wire) and a Perrie Lectures essay award in 2019.
Sean is Editor of False Allegations Watch for the Empower the Innocent organisation (University of Bristol Innocence Project affiliated). He is published by/in the T.S. Eliot Foundation, Time Out Istanbul, Louder Than War, STAMMA and Cosmopolitan, and appeared at the Brighton Science Festival, on NTV Turkey and BBC Radio Wales. He has interviewed Julie Burchill, Ed Harcourt, Kristin Hersh, Danny MacNamara and Ian Broudie amongst others, hosted shows by Mark Morriss, The Members and Eat Static at his Seafish venue on the Sussex coast, and was interviewed for a Sky Arts documentary in 2016. He was born in Exeter in 1975.
Because of Sean’s variety of life experiences, he speaks and writes about topics that many of us may not engage with. I have to say, it is good to open up ‘foreign’ topics that are outside of our normal daily experience. It helps us to be a better citizen and therefore make better decisions when filling out a political voting ballot. I do think that now more than ever, we need to be very well informed before making our political choices. The world is getting more and more complex in many ways.
Tune in on Friday January 12th at 8pm PST. This is the first episode of a short series with Sean.