Refuge:
- Shelter or protection from danger or distress.
- A place that provides shelter or protection.
- Something to which one has recourse in difficulty.
-Merriam-Webster
We all have our own places of refuge. Some of us seek solace in our rooms. Others hide in the work we do as part of our jobs, in music, in writing, in friends, and, perhaps, in ourselves. The teenagers in Concord Floral escape to an abandoned greenhouse just beyond their suburban homes. Many of us, however, made forts when we were children.
In the first week of November 2017, a travelling fort will make its way to local Kitchener-Waterloo sites and select locations on the University of Waterloo campus. Why? This fort intends to explore a fourth definition of refuge – the act of seeking protection from the secrets one collects throughout one’s life.
We invite you to come visit our travelling fort to further discuss the concept of refuge with select characters from Concord Floral and production team members. You will also be given the opportunity to write, draw, or otherwise express secrets of your choosing on anonymous post-it notes, which will then be displayed as part of Concord Floral’s engagement space in the Theatre of the Arts’ gallery during show week. We hope you join us and help create a collective place of refuge where we all can find solace from the personas we construct in everyday life, especially the identities that constrain us from expressing the parts of ourselves we are told to keep hidden.
Specific dates and locations will be announced shortly.
References
Barr, Chris. Blanket Fort. 18 July 2007.
Refuge. Merriam-Webster, 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refuge. Accessed 21 October 2017.