Opus Independents

We're working with the brilliant team at Culture Sheffield to make our City of Culture 2029 bid as strong as it can be.

Do you work in arts and culture in Sheffield? We want to hear from you! Find out the many ways you can get involved and have your say on what goes into the bid below ⤵️

Get involved with the Sheffield City of Culture bid! 💛 Opus Independents have put together a comprehensive engagement process aimed at capturing people’s thoughts, and there are multiple ways you… | Culture Sheffield Get involved with the Sheffield City of Culture bid! 💛 Opus Independents have put together a comprehensive engagement process aimed at capturing people’s thoughts, and there are multiple ways you can contribute. Make sure you bookmark this consultation page and share it far and wide: https://ln...

Here at Opus, we recently spent a fair whack of money and a not inconsiderable amount of staff time to migrate our website from one provider to another, with an end result that (hopefully) appears indistinguishable.

Why?

Our previous site was hosted by Wix, a Tel Aviv-based company which, according to the BBC, “created an employee group chat [in its Ireland office] to "support Israel's narrative" on its internal messaging-app Slack”. The fugitive leadership of Israel is currently evading charges of war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court. In the Republic of Ireland, where Wix employs 500 staff, company managers circulated messages in October 2023 encouraging employees to “show Westernity” in social media posts supporting Israel, adding “unlike the Gazans, we look and live like Europeans or Americans”. One employee was sacked after she criticised Israel online (she later successfully took Wix to court for unfair dismissal). Boycotting Wix is recommended by the BDS National Committee, the largest Palestinian coalition organisation leading the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

As a worker-owned company dedicated to dismantling oppressive systems, we decided we couldn’t continue to use Wix in good faith.

After assessing the options, we switched to Squarespace, employing a web designer to painstakingly rebuild the site just as it was on a new platform. But of course Squarespace, though now owned by a British private equity firm, is based in the United States, a country with its own corrupt and anti-democratic political regime.

This raises a thorny question for organisations that exist to do good in the world, especially systems change organisations whose raison d'être is to replace harmful systems that lead to these injustices. How far can you – and how far should you – go to stop using unethical companies?

Read in full on the Opus Blog ⬇️

Why we’re moving our website away from Wix: the challenge facing systems change organisations — Opus Here at Opus, we recently spent a fair whack of money and a not inconsiderable amount of staff time to migrate our website from one provider to another, with an end result that (hopefully) appears indistinguishable. Why?

A few photos from last night's premiere of 'How to Get Filthy Rich', the new series from Gary's Economics, who was then interviewed by the excellent Krishnan Guru Murthy.

In partnership with Sheffield DocFest.

(📸: ADVA Photography)

This Sunday! ⏰

The new series from Gary's Economics, 'How to Get Filthy Rich', is "a provocative take on wealth, inequality and who the economy actually works for, shaped by someone who knows the trading floor from the inside".

A world premiere in , in collaboration with Sheffield DocFest.

Tickets ➡️

How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson | Sheffield DocFest no synopsis available

This Sunday, we're teaming up with Sheffield DocFest to premiere Gary's Economics' new series 'How to Get Filthy Rich' at Sheffield Theatres.

It's a provocative take on wealth, inequality and who the economy actually works for, shaped by someone who knows the trading floor from the inside.

Tickets ⤵️

How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson | Sheffield DocFest no synopsis available

Gary Stevenson got rich by reading the markets better than anyone. Now he's using that same sharp eye to take the whole system apart.

We're teaming up with Sheffield DocFest to welcome Gary's Economics to Sheffield for the premiere of his brand-new series 'How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson'.

Tickets ➡️ https://www.sheffdocfest.com/film/how-get-filthy-rich-gary-stevenson

What creates resilience? What allows communities to adapt? What conditions enable places to flourish over time? 🍄

Over on the Opus Blog, we've a guest post from Terry Murphy of the Sheffield Social Enterprise Network in which he explores what forests, fungi and mycelial networks might teach us about economies, institutions and the hidden relational infrastructure that sits beneath visible social life.

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Over the past few years, as I’ve become more involved in systems work at an institutional level, I’ve become increasingly interested in how human systems relate to natural ecological systems.

Conversations about social value, public value and systems change eventually collide with deeper questions. What creates resilience? What allows communities to adapt? What conditions enable places to flourish over time?

Alongside this, I’ve developed a growing interest in mycology. Reading Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life helped sharpen a metaphor I’d already had circling around my head: what if many of the things we currently measure in society are actually just mushrooms?

Let me explain. Mushrooms are only the fruiting bodies of a much larger organism. Beneath the ground exist dense underground fungal networks known as mycelium. Vast webs of microscopic threads move nutrients, water and chemical signals across entire ecosystems. The mushroom itself is temporary – the real organism is the living network beneath it.

In forests, trees are not simply isolated organisms competing independently for survival. Research suggests older trees sometimes transfer carbon and nutrients to younger saplings through fungal networks. Different species cooperate and compete simultaneously, but the health of the wider ecosystem depends less on the strength of individual organisms and more on the quality of the relationships between them.

That idea has become increasingly difficult for me to ignore when thinking about our own social and economic infrastructures.

Read more ⬇️

What mushrooms tell us about the fragility of our economy – and what we need to do to transform it — Opus As conversations around social value and systems change become more common, it still feels difficult to describe what actually enables communities and places to flourish over time. In this essay, Terry Murphy of the Sheffield Social Enterprise Network explores what forests, fungi and mycelial networ

💡 A reminder: the Generative Journalism Alliance are hosting a three-session weekly workshop starting this Thursday that will ground you in the basics of generative journalism.

Generative journalism is the act of publishing media that directly represents people’s experiences and intentions, is without interpretation, and generates new life.

With roots in appreciative inquiry and asset-based community development, generative journalism is more than a journalistic practice, seeking to offer bridges between the person and collective, and midwife emerging futures.

Tickets for all three workshops are on a sliding scale from £60 to £140, and they take place from 4–18 June.

Buy tickets – Introduction to Generative Journalism: 3 Session Weekly Workshop Series, Starting June 4th – Zoom Introduction to Generative Journalism: 3 Session Weekly Workshop Series, Starting June 4th – Zoom, Thu Jun 4, 2026 - Generative Journalism | Weekly Workshop Series - Thursdays, June 4, 11, 18 Generative Journalism has been honed as a life-giving narrative approach to change in dozens of communitie...

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We also send you the best articles from our community media platform Now Then, as well as some of the most interesting and thought-provoking things our team have been reading, watching and listening to over the past month.

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Sign up to the We Are Opus newsletter! Opus works to create and support responses to achieve urgent systemic change. We do this by telling stories, bringing people together and demonstrating alternatives. If you'd like to receive updates about what we're working on, use this form to sign up to our We Are Opus newsletter!

Generative Journalism has been honed as a life-giving narrative approach to change in dozens of communities, organisations, and networks during decades of practice 🌱

Next week, the Generative Journalism Alliance are beginning a three-session weekly workshop series that will ground you in the basics of this radical storytelling technique.

The series will introduce Generative Journalism as an art with the capacity to give birth to something new, to midwife and even create new life. If you'd like to catalyse a new narrative, one that cultivates life and possibility, this workshop series might be for you.

Tickets for all three workshops are available on a sliding scale from £60 to £140, and the workshops take place on 4, 11 and 18 June.

Find out more ➡️

Buy tickets – Introduction to Generative Journalism: 3 Session Weekly Workshop Series, Starting June 4th – Zoom Introduction to Generative Journalism: 3 Session Weekly Workshop Series, Starting June 4th – Zoom, Thu Jun 4, 2026 - Generative Journalism | Weekly Workshop Series - Thursdays, June 4, 11, 18 Generative Journalism has been honed as a life-giving narrative approach to change in dozens of communitie...