Bernadette Russell

Bernadette Russell

Bernadette is a working class author, storyteller, artist and activist. Her latest book ‘How To be Hopeful’ was published Sept 2020, due to be published in the U.S May 2021. Storytelling, compassion and community are the heart of all of her projects, since she began her award winning project ‘366 Days Of Kindness" in 2011, for which she was selected as one of the Southbank Centre's 67 Changemakers. She has been community theatre director at the Royal Albert Hall since 2018, and has worked for many organisations including National Theatre, Southbank Centre, Museum of London, Birmingham Rep, National Trust, BFI, Turner Contemporary, Tate Britain, Natural History Museum and LIFT Festival, creating theatre, walking tours, installations, podcasts, and cabaret. She co-created the long running live lit cabaret ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably?’ which had a ten year residency at Arts Admin and The Basement (Brighton), and several bespoke live lit and spoken word salons, showcasing the work of over 1000 new and emerging writers. She produces a series of podcasts for Whiterabbitpresents via pod bean, Spotify etc. She has been a monthly columnist since 2016 for Balance London, and has been an invited speaker for organisations such as Action for Happiness, Ed Milliband's Reason To Be Cheerful, Radio 5 Live, the Guardian's Life Lessons, Kindfest, Birmingham School of Philosophy and Talk Radio. During lockdown, projects included ‘Journey To a Town Called Hope’ - an ‘art through the post’ project for vulnerable adults for the Southbank Centre, ‘Blue Skies Jet Packs and Hope’ (co-creating playful & philosophical billboards with artist Sadie Cook), and ‘Off By Heart’ a storytelling podcast with and for people living with dementia for the Museum of London.

Her current work focuses on the connections between people and place, particularly natural environments, to encourage and facilitate the potential of green spaces to provide fun, joy, places to gather, healing and learning. She is a volunteer tree planting supervisor for Trees for Cities.

Twitter: @betterussell
Instagram: @bernadetterussell @lore_ofthe_wild

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