Made in England - Consequences

• Made in England
• Reading Detectives
• John Akomfrah
• Projects
• Get Creative
• Artists commissions
• Classic poetry moments
• Video Nation

Consequences

You remember the party game Consequences - a story written by a group of people who haven't seen what the person before them wrote. It's random and often very funny and this is a giant version!

Did you ever play the game Consequences? Perhaps at school you drew a head then folded the paper and passed it to the next person to draw a body... the next person drew the legs... someone else the feet.

Then you unfolded it and all had a good laugh?

There's also a written version of the game. You start with a boy's name, fold the paper and pass it on. Someone else adds a girls name. The next person writes a location and so it continues with what he said and she said. It ends with a consequence... an outcome. Nobody sees the whole story until the end and it's usually nonsense but often very funny.

Visit the Made in the South site

Made in the South is a writing project in the spirit of the game but on a much bigger scale. It's part of Made in England which is a project that looks at how the English landscape, both rural and urban, enables creativity and exchange of ideas.

During March and April, poets and writers based in Salisbury, Oxford, Brighton and Weymouth collected and created a view of the south that only the locals know. The hidden gems, worth sharing with a wider public. Stories which have never been told.

The writers involved have national and international reputations for short-form storytelling and poetry. From conversations and suggestions, they're creating micro-stories.

Read about the project on the South Today site

Parts of those stories have been jumbled up, just like the consequences game - only this time it's not nonsense, because these are fragments of real stories from all over the south. The random element of the jumbled narratives produces interesting contrasts, inviting the reader to explore the original stories and find out about the people and places which inspired them.

Some of the work was projected onto the roof of one of England's most iconic buildings, Salisbury Cathedral, on the night of St George's Day. It was the first time the Cathedral has hosted an event of this kind - of this scale and this novelty.

Skip to top