Distant Voices

The Lived Experience Podcast with Fergus McNeill

20 Feb 2023

The Lived Experiences Series hosted via The Turnaround Project features leaders, activists, professionals and experts driving change in the justice system.

In January 2023, Vox co-founder and Unbound community member, Fergus McNeill was a guest.

The episode features some wonderful stories and insights about Vox Liminis: from its origins to where we are now and the thriving Unbound community at the core of Vox.

Reminiscing on early conversations with Alison Urie, Fergus says they pondered “What is it we could do that could engage the widest possible public in a conversation about crime and justice and injustice . What would spark their interest and communicate the human stories involved? We both almost simultaneously settled on the idea of music”

Fergus touches on how the Vox session format came about: bringing together different expertise and experiences, with everybody bringing whatever skills they have, going in with the expectation that everybody and anybody can write a good song and deserves a platform to be heard. He also reflects on how Vox sparked his own songwriting journey: “Ten years on, I can hardly remember how I processed life before I wrote songs.”  

A standout moment is the response to  ‘License’ from A Casual Kindness – a poetry collection created by the Unbound Community with Pádraig Ó Tuama

“That’s one of the most profound and authentic and real-life, in terms of what people have to try and navigate in returning to society and community that I’ve had the privilege of listening to in my 46 years on this earth.” 

 Listen now!


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