Folk Film Gathering - "Community Under Pressure" Panel Discussion

Sunday 31st May, 6pm / Discussion Event: ‘Community Under Pressure’

What can we do to hold on to our sense of community and stay connected, not only during the Covid-19 pandemic, but once it is over? How can we hold onto our sense of collectivity, and prioritise the ties that bind us all together, rather than the forces pressurising us apart? In a world where the "collective" and the "public" were already concepts under sustained attack, this has become an urgent pressing issue.

Screening elsewhere at the 2020 Folk Film Gathering, Amber Collective's 'From Us to Me' explores what happens a society goes from thinking of itself collectively to thinking of itself simply as a group of disparate individuals. Similarly, Bernie Sanders' recent campaign in the US Democratic primaries used the rallying call of "Not Me, Us", echoing calls in the last British general election to 'think of the most vulnerable person you know and vote in their best interests'. In the Western world in particular, following Margaret Thatcher's infamous statement 'there is no such thing as society', it often seems as if the rights of 'the individual' are more important than those of 'the community', and that we lead our lives in ways which are increasingly detached from those around us. Covid-19 risks to make that worse, placing us in situations whereby we can't go within 2 metres of other people, and where it is difficult to be in the same room and have the same in-person sense of community we have previously enjoyed. Increasingly, we find ourselves in shut-off in small units, looking after ourselves, without the easy ways we have had in the past of reaching out directly to those around us. 

Exploring ways we can connect and stay together in a world where gathering and proximity is a health issue, join Mike Small (Bella Caledonia) and other guests for a discussion as to how might best resist the increasing pull towards individualism in prioritising our sense of community and connectedness, and the role that culture might play within all of that.