LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION:

Caroline Williams

Associate Artist, Bristol Old Vic

www.carolinemarywilliams.com

To whom it may concern,

Christina is one of the most highly motivated and impressive individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with. We began our working relationship when I employed her on a project in 2015 with the V&A Museum as the director of a documentary video installation I was producing, working with highly sensitive material and deeply personal storytelling. That project was selected by the V&A to go to Prague Quadrennial, where it won a prestigious award. This success was largely due to Christina’s dedication and skill. Since then, I have tried to work with Christina whenever I can and she has become a trusted colleague and collaborator. Our most ambitious collaboration, Now Is The Time To Say Nothing, has toured to over thirty venues including Bristol Old Vic, V&A, Galway International Festival, Edinburgh International festival, Bristol Arnolfini and The Young Vic. Our most recent collaboration is the short film A Love Letter to Penelope Cruizer, produced by Bristol Old Vic, which involved Christina holding me within the autobiographical process of telling my personal story of chronic illness and chronic pain. I was able to experience first hand Christina’s confident capabilities grounded in a care-centred approach as a trauma-informed facilitator and storyteller, with so many useful tools that she integrates from her training as a counsellor and psychotherapist that allowed me to safely work as an artist on meaningful material that had the potential to do me serious harm if mishandled.

I have entered a lot of highly sensitive work situations with Christina – from interviewing an undercover policeman about his PTSD, to going to Germany to the house of an asylum seeker to record the testimony of a refugee journey across the Mediterranean - and having Christina by my side has always made me feel secure, capable and more excited about the task at hand. She also has that rare quality, no matter how small or large the project may be, of always putting in 150% to ensure it is the best it can be. This can also mean she is usefully intimidating at times – Christina is never afraid to ask important questions if a project has lost its way or is becoming misaligned from its values. As such she has shown me that she is a talented and unique artist. Her intellectual rigor and work ethic are unique and impressive.

Having watched the progress Christina has made since her DYCP grant, becoming a notable and respected voice on trauma informed storytelling practices and methodologies in the arts, this R&D grant would enable Christina to enter the next stage of exploring the potential for sector-wide access to vital trauma-informed guidance and tools that I have had the personal benefit of encountering. The conscious bringing together of people with disciplines of both psychotherapy and creative practice, to R&D the potential tools and outreach to creative practitioners across the UK to create a vital harm-reductive culture of arts and storytelling that is “helpful, rather than harmful”.  As many recent cases have seen, too often people’s wellbeing isn’t protected and abuses of power go unnoticed. I am really excited for Christina to be a sector leader in this area, bringing her talents and passion to a part of the arts which is too often neglected.  I will be first in line to sign up to whatever the outcome of this R&D project is, as an artist wanting to practice in as trauma-informed way as I can when telling both other people’s stories - and my own.

Caroline Williams

Associate Artist, Bristol Old Vic