The People’s Palace of Possibility began as an installation and a conversation, inviting people to explore together how we might find energy for change despite our collective fear and anger about the future. It is rooted in the idea of ‘utopias’. After a period of R&D, it was going to begin life as a touring performance installation, but then Covid-19 struck.

We reimagined the Palace as a national postal project, which ended up being created by artists remotely and engaging over 600 people across the country, over several weeks, through the postal service. It was a story told through letters and parcels - building a dystopian world, introducing a revolution, inviting people to be part of it. The key part involved receiving a parcel which contained an MP3 player loaded with an audio walk, as well as a stick of chalk, a camera, and some other objects. People were invited to take part in the audio walk where they lived, and engage in quiet protest - chalking a change they’d like to see onto their pavement, or putting up a poster which invites others to join in.

At the end, people were invited to share their photos and audio recordings with the world via the Palace Archive, where you can still see and listen to them today.

While I was The Bare Project’s Producer, we then developed the Palace into physical iterations, one in a shop front in Doncaster, and one in Caithness in the Scottish Highlands. It has since continued to develop into the touring installation we’d originally planned, and is currently touring the country.

Find out more here:
www.thebareproject.co.uk