Since I founded Free Range in 2012 we have worked with more than 807 artists to present over 189 events; we’ve become a registered charity; worked closely with local festivals / universities / record labels / artist collectives; started our own record label; received a Cultural Pioneer award; presented our own festival; made significant contributions to local festivals; presented live broadcasts on local radio and built an extensive online archive of audio and video documentation. Most importantly Free Range has helped to create–and has become a hub for–a strong regional community of artists, audience members, institutions and organisations that care about experimental culture.

Listening to rich, complex stuff like improvised music or modern poetry is an active, creative process of finding and making meaning whilst remaining present and alert to a dense flow of ambiguities and associations. It is demanding, or it should be demanding. It requires openness, patience, generosity, deftness, imagination and discrimination. Such listening is important work: it keeps us awake, keeps our habits of perception pliable and helps us to engage with the world afresh.