Christmas lunch paid for by the Life Outside the Box puppets

With funds raised from the sales of puppet project books and puppet notebooks, the puppets brought some of the people involved in the project out for lunch. Unfortunately, not all members could make it.

Thank you all those who have funded our work through buying our books/notebook. They are still available! (click on the links above)

Puppet project members:
(from left clockwise) Corina, Ann, Margaret Ann, ... John,
...,  Paul, ..., Pat
(... are IWA staff )

We had a great time at Crew's Restaurant in Dungarvan, and were very well looked after.

I had not seem some of the members for a while, so it was lovely to catch up with them about their lives and hear the continued enthusiasm for the puppet project.

Ideas which came from the members for further use of the puppets.

• Talks at schools?
• Make more puppets?
• Longer film?
• Use of puppets in advertising?

WE ARE OPEN FOR SUGGESTIONS! CONTACT CORINA IF YOU HAVE IDEAS.

I updated the members/makers where their film has been shown since we last met, and where the puppets have brought me personally. 

That the film has captured the imagination of researchers in the field of puppetry and disability worldwide, and from the public in general.

I also shared the new puppet design I am working on, which will make it easier to manipulate a puppet while seated in a wheelchair, and for those who have limited strength in their hands.

Proud, so proud of all who were part of this project. And hopeful their story is far from being finished!

From all of us at 'Life Outside the Box' we would like to wish you a wonderful year ahead, and thank you for your company along this amazing puppet adventure! X

desert was 'plate-licking'good!

and there is always a way to indulge in the
once-a-year-glass-of-wine!

Attending the Puppet Symposium - an account in images

A visual account of the Puppet Symposium at UCC, Cork, last week

Johnny being taken out of his box
by Corina and Pascale
photo © Nik Palmer of "Noisy Oyster"

Persphone Sextou with Johnny Dwyer
Love at first sight

More photos by Nik Palmer see HERE

Other photos of the speakers at the symposium see UNIMA facebook page

Johnny, taking it all in

Corina Duyn giving her presentation at the Symposium
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Corina Duyn giving her presentation at the Symposium
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Puppet gathering at the Symposium.
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Most of the speakers and puppets at the Puppet Symposium.
images from UNIMA research committee  Facebook page

Film screening at the puppet festival

The Broken Puppet: A Symposium on Puppetry, Disability, and Health

Corina Duyn, facilitator of the Life Outside the Box Puppetry project 

has been invited to give a talk about her experience of making puppets 

throughout her life and during illness, 

as well as sharing the empowering aspects she encountered 

during the creation of puppets with her fellow members of the 

Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA),

 at the upcoming international symposium 

The Broken Puppet: A Symposium on Puppetry, 

Disability, and Health

1st and 2nd of August 

at UCC, Cork, Ireland 

Connolly Complex (adjacent to the Granary Theatre) on Western Road, 

directly across from the River Lee Hotel. 

Rooms ConnA and ConnS4 will be signposted on either side of the building. 

Click HERE to register/book tickets

The Life Outside the Box film will be screened 

on 1st August during the Puppet festival in Cork
on the ground floor of the Village Hall.

Johnny Dwyer is ready to travel to Cork!!

Details from eventbrite: 

"The UNIMA Research Commission in collaboration with Cork Puppetry Festival, University College Cork, and Mary Immaculate College, is delighted to announce a two-day symposium exploring the ways puppetry intersects with disability and health. Academics and practice-based researchers will present papers, provocations, and presentations of practice-based research.

“The emergence of a disability culture is difficult but tremendously liberating. Such a culture enables us to recognize the pressure to pretend to be normal for the oppressive and impossible- to -achieve hurdle which it is. Most importantly, this culture challenges our own prejudices about ourselves, as well as those of the non-disabled culture.”- Jenny Morris

“The object offers itself to the individual as an extension of his being in the surrounding universe, and augmented affirmation of his total existence.” - Roger Daniel Bensky"

image: Research practice based on "Pupa" by Emma Fisher.
Ceramic puppet made in collaboration with Sheila Stone. Photo Emma Mac.

Registration for the event, held on the 1st and 2nd of August at UCC, Cork, can be done HERE

Schedule of speakers rom the UNIMA website:

Tuesday August 1st 2017

• 12.30 Registration
• 1.15 Welcome and introduction (Cariad Astles)
• 1.35 Keynote: Dr Melissa Trimingham: Puppetry and autism

WELLBEING PANEL

• 2.25 Moira Jenkins: Puppetry as a human right: relational citizenship
• 2.50 Andrea Markovits: Puppet therapy and traumatic memory in Chile post-dictatorship
• 3.10 coffee
• 3.30 Yasuko Senda: Heart-warming Smile Puppet Association
• 3.55 Oscar Goldszmidt: Social inclusion through puppetry: a case study with cerebral palsy
• 4.20 Caroline Astell-Burt: Closeness, touching and kinaesthesia
• 4.45 Antje Wegener: Therapeutic puppetry in Germany
• 5.05 Questions and discussion

Wednesday August 2nd

• 9.00 Registration
• 9.30 Keynote: Dr Persephone Sextou: Puppetry in hospitals, clinics and healthcare settings

Disability panel

• 10.35 Emma Fisher: The Broken Puppet: puppetry and disability
• 11.00 Corina Duyn: Life outside the box: puppetry, ME and disability
• 11.25 Roberto Ferreira De Silva: puppetry with disabled participants
• 11.45 Questions and discussion

Hospitals and care settings panel

• 1.10 Riku Laakkonen: Performing objects in palliative care
• 1.35 Matt Jennings: Acts of caring: puppetry in person-centred nursing
• 2 Gibdel Wilson: Puppets talk, communities listen
• 2.25 Poupak Azimpour: Listener dolls: a case study of women recovering from cancer
• 2.45 Questions and discussion
• 3.05 coffee

Mental health panel

• 3.25 Marisa Latimer: Shadow puppetry and dramatherapy
• 3.50 Kate James-Moore: Puppetry as a creative tool: struggle, control, power
• 4.15 Joni-Rae Carrack: Objective and Subjective: puppetry and mental health
• 4.40 Aaron Jean Crombé: Self-acceptance and puppetry
• 5.05 Lesley Burton: final reflections
• 5.30 Questions and discussion

Update 18th August:

• Story of puppets in the life of arts facilitator Corina Duyn
• Images of the symposium