My name is Aliki, I’m a single mother, and I’ve lived in Lancaster for 18 years. Before that I lived in Greece and in the United States; the two countries my parents are from. I’m an actor and a writer and translator, and I love cooking and comic books and swimming in the sea.
What attracts you to #FunPalaces? I really believe there is genius in everyone. The way so much of our entertainment and technology happens these days is that a tiny group of people somewhere far away make it and sell it to the rest of us – there’s a bottleneck of creativity and who gets to make things is all about funding and connections. But for most of human history, making beautiful things or finding out how things work – art and science – belonged to everybody. It was something you did, not bought. Everything from building cathedrals to making pies is creativity, experimentation, learning. I think we miss that when we don’t get to do it, all of us. We have a right to explore ideas and learn skills, not just to consume what other people have created. Fun Palaces are a way of claiming that right for all of us, of saying this isn’t about money or power, it’s about being human.
I was one of the first people involved with the Lancaster Fun Palace, back when it started, but I’ve been doing less and less every year. I think that’s sort of wonderful, really, that it’s taken off now and has its own momentum, with new people coming along every time to help make it happen. It keeps it fresh and alive and responsive to the people of our city because it’s made by everybody, not just the same small group of people. It keeps getting renewed. That said, I still run the Lancaster Fun Palace Twitter account, @LancasterFunPal, so if you’ve had any interaction with it you were talking to me!
Lancaster Fun Palace 