ethos

The Big Room is an invitation to the all of us and the all of our community to explore the diverse and disavowed in ourselves and in the other. It is a space where all states of awareness, voices and frameworks of reality are important without exception or exclusion.  


We are aware that bringing such a space into the community requires awareness of our own rank and the privileges associated with it. Rank brings with it many uncomfortable truths about our selves and the communities we live in. 


To disown our rank either though lack of awareness or in the act of handing over our authority to an institutional power, be it lay or religious, perpetuates the abuse of those with less rank and privilege.


The ethos of The Big Room is not based on any fixed ideas of right or wrong, in or out, but in a dynamic that finds its truest and fullest expression in the following precepts. 

• tolerating the tension of conflictual material and exploring it rather than trying to fix an outcome

 

• engaging with feelings and the impact of history rather than excluding these from professional interactions

• developing skills to work with trauma

• bringing awareness to the complex dynamics of rank, power and privilege as they play out between us, rather than trying only to correct or ignore them

• unpacking the intransigence of polarised ‘us’ and ‘them’ perspectives, to discover both what we have in common, and how our diversity is needed for a deeply democratic and sustainable society (i). 

We cannot disown our rank and the privilege and power that comes with it but we can own our humanity.

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i  The world in here and out there: Processwork Facilitation as Therapy and as Worldwork : Iona Fredenburgh and Leah Bijelić

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about the space...opening 1 November 2019

Looking for a space for a class, workshop, forum or other community event? Contact us: hello @ thebigroom.org  

“Where the grown people? Is it us?"

 the character Violet Trace in Jazz 

- author: Toni Morrison.