Conversation piece: Simon Machin on a lockdown interview project

16 Jun 2022 | by Simon Machin

‘Interviewees need the courage to be vulnerable.’

‘I wondered whether the disordering of time, which was the inevitable product of lockdown, has intensified the intimacy and introspection of the interviews.’ | Photo: ExtraECC

The well-worn adage attributed to the Christian anarchist, Elbert Hubbard, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’, tartly suggests that even adversity can be turned to something productive. Recently, an experiment in recording the life histories of Christians in the public square, and making them freely available online, has proved that, even during a pandemic, human conversation can thrive in new ways. We called it ExtraECC.

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