A message from UNESCO

...We live in a time when it is hard to see clearly. We are surrounded by more fiction than at any other time in history or prehistory. (Although paradoxically we are watched continually; it is said that on a normal outing when I travel from my home to central London I will be filmed at least 300 times on CCTV.) Any ‘fact’ can be challenged, any anecdote can have claim on our attention as ‘truth’. One fiction in particular surrounds us continually. The one that seeks to divide us. From the truth. And from one another. That we are separate. People from people. Women from men. Human beings from nature.

But just as we live in a time of division, and fragmentation, we also live in a time of immense movement. More than at any other time in history, people are on the move; frequently fleeing; walking, swimming if need be, migrating; all over the world. And this is only just beginning. The response, as we know, has been to close borders. Build walls. Shut out. Isolate. We live in a world order that is tyrannical, where indifference is the currency and hope a contraband cargo. And part of this tyranny is the way control is asserted and enforced: not only over space, but also time. The time we live in eschews the present. It concentrates on the recent past and near future. I do not have that. I will buy this. Now I have bought it, I need to have the next… thing. The result of this endless insatiable gratification? The deep past is obliterated. The future of no consequence...

https://www.opendemocracy.net/simon-mcburney/message-for-unesco-on-world-theatre-day