on imagination, possibility and creating a life that feels like your own.

i’ve always been an out of the box thinker.

i think a lot of what we believe is possible is shaped by what we’ve already seen. we grow up with ideas about how life works, what a career should look like, what success means, what we should be doing with our time and what a good life is supposed to look like. most of the time, we accept those things because they’re familiar, not necessarily because we’ve decided they’re right for us.

i’ve always been curious about what happens when you step outside of that.

what if there’s another way to work? another way to build a career? another way to spend your time? another way to bring people together? what if the thing you’ve always wanted to do doesn’t have to remain an idea simply because you haven’t seen anyone around you do it before?

i’ve had plenty of ideas over the years that other people didn’t immediately understand. some probably sounded too ambitious, some a little impractical and some just a bit strange. but i’ve never really seen that as a reason not to explore them. i’d rather find out what something could become than decide it isn’t possible before i’ve even given it a chance.

and i think that’s what thinking outside the box really means to me. it isn’t about always wanting to do something bigger or more unusual. it’s about being willing to question what already exists and imagine what could exist instead.

sometimes you discover that the way things are is actually the way you want them to be. sometimes you find a completely different way of doing things. and sometimes you just realise that there were more options available to you than you had originally thought.

i think there’s something quite powerful in that.

because once you start thinking about what could be possible, you start thinking about something that you can design & making different choices about what you want your life to contain. and that my friend, is where things get interesting.

i’ve been called a lot of things over the years. different, weird, unrealistic. i’ve been told i’m living in a fairytale, that i don’t live in the real world & that i need to grow up.
and honestly, sometimes it can be difficult being around people who don’t see what you see. not because they’re wrong and you’re right, but because you can start questioning yourself, especially when the people around you keep telling you that something isn’t realistic.
then you meet someone who gets it. someone who has their own strange idea, their own ambition, their own way of looking at things - and suddenly you don’t feel quite so strange anymore.
that’s part of what i wanted riónce to be. somewhere to find those people. people who are curious about what could be possible, who have ideas of their own and who aren’t afraid to explore them. because sometimes you don’t need someone to tell you whether an idea is realistic. you just need someone willing to say, “okay. tell me more.”
this is a big part of what riónce is about for me. i’m interested in self-actualisation, but not in a particularly academic way. i mean that feeling of becoming more of yourself and finding out what you’re capable of when you actually give yourself permission to explore it.
sometimes that starts with an idea, with meeting the right person, having somewhere to go (regularly), and other times, with someone saying, “yeah, why not?”
that’s the kind of environment we continue to nurture at riónce.
you can come here with something you want to make happen, even if you don’t completely know how yet.
we can work it out.
we can find the people, make the thing, create the opportunity, try something and see what happens - it doesn’t always have to be serious and meticulously planned.
i’ve always thought life should be enjoyed while you’re living it.
good food, music, clothes, travelling, being around people you like, making memories, having ridiculous conversations, going somewhere just because you fancy it. i don’t see those things as extras. they’re part of the point.
when i read the 4-hour workweek, the idea of mini-retirements really stuck with me. why wait until some distant point in the future to enjoy the freedom you’re working for?
we only live once. i think we should value the life we have enough to actually enjoy it.
the path i was on didn’t feel like mine, and i needed somewhere to put all my creativity, ideas and the way i naturally think.
somewhere i could make things, try things, meet people who understood me and, eventually, find my people. some of the people i’ve met through riónce have become some of my closest friends, which is probably the best thing that’s come from it.
so yh riónce is really my attempt to bring all of these things together — ideas, creativity, people, experiences and opportunities.
i want it to be somewhere you can come with an idea and leave feeling like it might actually be possible, and maybe even with it done <3

oleta semple
founder, riónce arts club

a note from the founder

“we likkle but we tallawah”