The Convivial x Lauren Gauge

We live in systems that value completeness. They beg for finished things, and often place the onus of finishing upon the individual. We can become so focused on the end product that we can forget to give our love to the process itself. Racing through research and play, it is often tempting to always be looking ahead to a time when the thing is Just. Bloody. Done. The shame of not finishing can be truly ruinous. But what new worlds might open up when we resist completion? When we invite presence, play and community into the process, and learn how to dance with the art of unfinishing?

In this talk for The Convivial, writer, theatre-maker and performer Lauren Bibby Gauge will take us through a series of (unfinished, incomplete, evolving) thoughts on how we might bring community and compassion into the inherited shame of unfinished, perpetually in-development or abandoned ‘things’. We will swap tales of half-done projects, play with them, hold them up to the light and re-invite play back into the process. In doing so, we will take a foray into the joy of co-creation, taking the spotlight off of the individual to remind ourselves that we were never meant to be doing all this alone.

Come along to the talk with an unfinished thing in mind (you know the one) and be re-enchanted – or else gain permission to lovingly K*ll your darling.

Speaker

Speaker

Lauren Gauge is an award-winning actor, writer, director, and performer of poetry and plays. She has been developing her creative performance practice through play and co-creating with interdisciplinary theatre artists and companies over the last fourteen years and facilitates in schools, colleges, Universities and civic spaces to create inclusive Arts for all. Lauren is a queer woman and mother from a working-class background and often creates performances with and to celebrate the marginalised communities of which she is a part. 

Her debut gig-theatre play with beat-boxing, The Unmarried, which won multiple awards, is a rave and riot challenging societal expectations celebrating female sexuality. Lauren was one of four commissioned writers on attachment to The Minack Theatre on their Emerging Playwright Programme 2023. Her play The Point, directed by Simon Harvey, was performed last October and remains currently ‘unfinished…’ or rather, in-development…

What to expect

6pm - arrive

6.30pm - talk begins

7.30pm - dinner (vegan) is served

8 - 9pm - talks, drinks, socialising

A range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be available to buy on the bar.

Venue

Three of Cups Vintage, 20 Lower Market Street, Penryn

Please get in touch to talk about accessibility and your needs in the space.

The Convivial

The Convivial is an interdisciplinary symposium or talk series based in Penryn. We hope to provide a hospitable space for imagination and creative discourse that is accessible for the community to attend for free or for a donation. We are driven by the desire for open-access knowledge and tools for imagination in a world that desperately needs both. The Convivial wishes to break down institutional walls and share the wisdom within them with those who are best placed to use it – the community itself.

Host or Publisher The Convivial