What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another video. Today we're going to be solving a very hard sequel technical interview question. Now if you've been following along with the entire series we had videos on easy, medium and hard sequel technical interview questions and we solved two questions in each of those videos but we are on to the very hard questions. These very hard questions are in fact very difficult so I'm only going to be doing one although there's multiple on the platform that you can try but I'm just going to be doing one because it's going to take a long time to solve it. Now practicing these questions is meant to help you learn as well as feel comfortable and get ready for these technical interviews that you're going to get as a data analyst. The easy and medium questions are more geared toward entry-level beginners or maybe even mid-level for the medium questions. The hard questions are geared more toward mid-level or senior level data analysts and then there's the very hard I don't think that you're going to get a technical interview this difficult. I know I haven't nor have I ever given one even though I've given tons of technical interviews before. I've never gotten a question this hard. These are more of a challenge. Really a challenge of can you figure this out because it's pretty difficult so I hope that you find this really interesting. I want you to try it out but with that being said let's jump on to my screen. All right so we're here on Analyst Builder. Let's go over to the questions page. Let's filter down to very hard. Now I will note these are not under the free tier. If you go to the free the very very hard ones are not under the free tier. So if you want to try these these are the very hard ones we have consecutive visits, Twitter addiction, employee hierarchy, biggest spenders, complex address, Uber cancellation rates. Now today we're going to be trying this Complex address but if you want to try out any of these other ones head over to AnalystBuilder.com. They are super super fun but let's try out this complex address question. It says you are given a database containing customer addresses. Write a query to break out the address column into separate columns for street, city, state, and postal code. Note some addresses may have additional unit or suite information for example suite 5a or unit b which should not be included as part of the street. So let's go down here. Let's look at the addresses. We have 123 Main Street Suite 5a so that's for example that suite 5a should not be included it says. Then we have New York that's the city. I'm guessing that's New York City. Then it's New York then 12345. Then the same thing Minneapolis is the city. Then we have the state and we have the zip code. I think that's all we need to you know the postal code. So let's start making some notes here. So we have to the output needs to be street and I should just copy this street all the way down to postal code. There we go. So that's what our output needs to be. There's nothing on ordering. I think the most difficult part is going to be just breaking it out. So breaking everything out. Now how are we going to do this? There's one main way that I would be doing this and this is using sub string. Now I've done this a thousand times in my real job. This is an extremely realistic thing. Happens all the time. Data comes in just like this or sometimes separated by commas or just spaces and you have to figure that out right. So this is interesting because this is separated it's just a space. These are separated by these dashes and then we can't include this 5a. So I'm going to use sub string and we'll see if this works. But with this we can choose our delimiter and that's really important. So we can say whether it's a space whether it's a dash or something like that. But we also have to note I'll just write note right here can't include things like sweet or unit. So we have to remove that somehow. Let's go ahead and pull up the data over here and let's take a look and I wanted to do this in MySQL. Now you can do this in Python. You can do this in Microsoft SQL. I had started out writing this in PostgreSQL which the syntax is actually a little bit potentially maybe a little bit different. Actually it's different in Microsoft SQL server. I believe PostgreSQL the substring is the same. Don't quote me on that but we're going to be using MySQL because I've been using that throughout the entire series. But if you want to you can use Python MySQL PostgreSQL Microsoft SQL server whichever one you feel comfortable using. Now let's run this. So I'm going to keep everything here but I'm going to add to it so we can confirm that the it's accurate like our output is correct. So that's why I'm going to keep the everything there. Now we're going to use this substring and the first one that we have to figure out is this one right here. Now it should be fairly easy with something like one that does not include sweet 5a. And for example we would just do substring and we have to pass through some parameters. The first one that we need to pass through is just the string. Now this entire string is kept in address. So when I say we're passing through the string we're passing through a column where it has multiple rows with strings in it. That's all that's all I'm saying. The next parameter is our delimiter. A delimiter is something that how are we separating this out from itself. So I'm going to put in quotes I'm going to put a dash. And then the next parameter is where are we starting. So are we looking at the first delimiter the second delimiter the third fourth fifth because this one has multiple delimiter this one has one right here and it has one over here. So if I put a one here we get null and that's because I wrote substring we actually need substring underscore index. I'm thinking of python in python I'd be using substring in my sequel I need substring index. There we go. So now we're doing this on the first delimiter right here but if I change this to two now we're looking at this delimiter. So that's the first delimiter second delimiter. So we only want the first delimiter but here's the issue with this we have and there's a unit right here so we have one that has unit and we have one that's sweet five a here's what we need to do we have to get rid of it if it has a sweet five a or if it has unit B. So we'll need a case statement for this what we'll write is we'll write case and this will be our else. So if it has a sweet in it or it has a unit in it we will use the substring index on it but if it doesn't we're just going to treat it as normal this is like our normal one. So I'm gonna say and we'll do it right here I'll have to form out this in a little bit but we'll say when when the address is like and now we're looking for a pattern we're gonna search does this pattern exist in this. Now it's possible in some instances if you're using like a million rows of data sweet could be in like one two three sweet street I've never seen that before I don't think we need to take that into account today but that might be something to consider in a real-world example but this is a real-world example but we're just going to include sweet and I'm going to include and I'm going to use these wild cards so this means anything can come before this anything can come after this it just has to have a space sweet now you don't have to add the that you could do it just like that it makes more sense to me because we actually need to remove that in the future and I'll explain that a little bit but when that happens when there is a sweet in there what do we want to do well we need to use substring index on it but we cannot use the dash the dash has got this in trouble last time it kept the sweet 5a in there what we need to do is we need to use this sweet as our delimiter so then when it gets that delimiter it's not included right so then we come over here we put the sweet in there let's run it and I got a syntax error and that's because we need an end and we need and we can label it as well but this will be our street we have to have an end to signify that the case is done I'm pretty sure that's the issue there we go and that fixed it that's because like the delimiter with the dash when it got to the dash it took everything before it so now if we find a sweet we're using that space sweet as the delimiter now if we put this as the delimiter you may not be able to see it but there should be a space right here and that might cause dirty data I'm gonna actually I'm gonna keep it like that we'll see if my hypothesis is correct now we're gonna do the exact same thing except now we're looking for which one was it unit so if it includes sweet 5a or unit b those are the examples we need to get rid of that and we'll use unit and let's run it and there we go so this looks perfect this looks exactly like what we should be getting in our output so now uh whoops now we need to come here down to the street so now we have the street but we need to get next we need the city so the city is right after the street but here's the thing it's in the middle and if you've ever worked with data like this it's a little bit tricky because uh a delimiter only goes to one point right so what we can do is use a double uh substring index so we're collecting the substring index and then uh within that text of that substring index we do another substring index so I think that's what we need to do here so let's come down here and we can just copy this because it's already written out for us um and let's run this now what if we say 2 here let's run this um we can do it this way and then go backward we can do a minus so in substring index instead of a positive one looking forward that's starting from um the left hand side of the string and looking this way for the first one we can do negative which starts from the right hand side and looks this way so left to right when it's positive right to left when it's negative so then we can wrap this as a substring index and now this whole thing right here is our string which is this this is our string so now we're going to look backward we're going to do minus one um actually our our delimiter first is a dash because we're looking to this dash and then we need to go to negative one and let's try this out and there we go New York Minneapolis Goldsboro Maples Flower Town so this looks perfect so let's keep that exactly how we have it now for the next one that we need and I'm going to label this as city now we're going to copy this whole thing bring it right down here we'll do this as state now now obviously this isn't going to be our answer but we can run it so here's what we need to do before we took this whole string and we got here and then we went backward to this delimiter and selected New York what we now need to do is we need to go we need to select this New York Minneapolis now there's a space here and so what we should do is we should go backward to this index right there I think we need to do that first so we'll use that as our our starting place and so we'll do negative one um yeah so I'll just do it so we'll go negative one but then we need to go forward so this is going to be our string right here New York one two three or five so then we need to go forward and our delimiter should be a space let's do a space right here let's run this and there we go we have New York Minneapolis North Carolina Massachusetts I think in Florida so that's our state and we have one more and that's going to be our very last one now this one should actually be a little bit simpler because we're just starting at the very end it's not in the middle which is a little bit tricky right so we're going to come in here we're going to say as and this is postal code I really want to stick to exactly what they told us to call them I don't want to go changing it so now we're looking for a space delimiter but we're looking backward negative one so we're starting from the right hand side and going to the first space and that should give us that one two three four five let's run this and there we go now I'm going to get rid of everything and let me actually come up here I'm going to get rid of everything and let's run this so now we have the street city state and postal code this all looks correct I don't know I genuinely don't know if I check this answer if it's going to be correct or not my hypothesis what I think is going to happen is is is not going to be correct because I think somewhere in our output we have some spaces that we can't see for example this suite if we're using just the suite and not the space suite I think we have an extra space at the end of this one right here so it goes sweet space which I don't think is correct and it shouldn't you shouldn't have that an actual output in a real database you don't want leading or trailing spaces it's dirty data so let's try checking it and there we go our answer is wrong let's try just fixing this and seeing if that's it if not it could also be one of these but let's try this one now there we go so that is that was the exact issue and it's really hard to catch if you're not looking for it you may not catch it because it is a little bit tricky but that is let me see if I added this in as a hint maybe I did maybe I didn't but that is something that you need to account for in real data so I know that there were people in the discord if you haven't joined analyst builder and try out these questions we have a we have a discord with like 2000 people in it and this question when people have been trying to solve it have been really having issues with this exact thing it looks correct but it's not correct that is a real world solution a real world issue and so that is how you solve this question now you know I have a whole video explanation on how to do this as well as you can just come down here let's look at the solution so yeah this is exactly how I wrote it there are other ways to write this actually but that is how you can solve it now remember you can come in here even in the in the questions and go to the difficulty and you can take a look you can check out all these other questions and see what they look like and what the questions are these are really tough for example this uber cancellation rates is a really interesting run find the cancellation rates of requests with unbanned users both client and driver must not be banned each day between 2023 1223 and 1225 around the cancellation rates to two decimal points so this is another really interesting question and there's actually two tables here I'm not doing this one today but these are more questions I'll do more of these videos in the future just because I really love them they're super fun but if you want to try that question out I will leave a link in the description you can go ahead and check that out if you have not tried out analyst builder already I highly recommend it I created all the content myself all the questions all the courses are all done by me so if you like my youtube channel you will love analyst builders all premium really high quality content so go ahead and try that out thank you guys so much for watching I really appreciate it if you like this video be sure to like and subscribe below and I'll see you in the next video


It's gonna be a good day. It's in the air. You can feel it. You can smell it. Oh, you can feel it in your lungs. It's gonna be a good day. So good morning everybody. We're in the backyard. The infamous backyard. My favorite place right now. It's not too cold out this morning. So I'm just waiting for the day when winter starts to set in. You know, that one day when you wake up and it's minus 50 and you weren't expecting it yet. But it's still gonna be a good day. I mean, you can't change that. Good morning everybody. Another new day is here. Slowly getting colder one day at a time. Today I'm gonna go get all my personal things out of the truck. I need to get them out of there so that another driver can use it if it's needed. And so that, you know, I have all my stuff here. I left my shavers there. So most I need to go get my shavers. So I'm gonna go get all that out of there. And we've got to do a little bit of grocery shopping later today and whatnot, but I don't think we need much. I think we need like some salads and stuff, right? Salads and not McDonald's? Salad? It's not like that. See, I told you we're gonna do better. Yesterday we got McDonald's and then half an hour later, we went, oh no. That was a mistake, but it was so good. It was a delicious Mc, Mc mistake, Mc mistake. Mc steak? A Mc steak. But that sounds too much like steak. We should have steak tonight. Steak tomorrow. Good morning Chevy. Good morning. Let's get down to your level here. How's the good Chevy doing today? How's the good Chevy? I see a little tail wave back there. I see that. You can't hide it from me. You can't hide it from me. The most perfect dog. He's our youngest boy, our youngest dog and he's the best behaved. He's half golden shepherd. No, he's golden shepherd. He's half golden retriever, half German shepherd. I wanted a German shepherd. Britt wanted a golden retriever. Boom. This guy popped out of nowhere and he's a unicorn. Full on golden retriever in here and the face and he's got the size of the German shepherd.   Right?  You fluster. Little fluster. You get a little boopster. Get a little boopster. Is that a little bit hard? That was a big boop. I'm out of here. No boops. Frankie, what do you got to tell the good people? Any stories of the war? I was in the milk bone war of 69. I've been in. He's been places. Look at him. What? What's wrong with me? What do you mean look at him? Look at you.   He's a foster and he has just become one with our pack. He's really come a long way. When we first took him on as a foster, he was very, what would you say, angry, hesitant. You couldn't pick him up. He was a lot bigger, insecure guard. Maybe because he didn't know any of us. He didn't know our pack and then yeah, we slowly forced it on him and now he's just one with everyone. So angry. Get him. Come on, Chevy.   Don't take it easy on him because he's old.  Frankie. Sir Frankie, is that your proper title? I don't know. Commander Frankie? Sergeant Frankie. That's the one. Sergeant Frankie. That looks like a lot of fun. Wouldn't mind pulling that bad boy. So we're on our way to get our stuff. So I am getting ready to do something different. Still trucking, but something different. So I don't think I'm going to be in the Peterbilt anymore. So that's why we're going there. We're going to get all our stuff out of there. Plus I need to shave. I had an interview for another position this morning. Trucking. I think it went pretty well. I don't know. I guess we'll hear back. So there's that going on. Looking at doing some different kind of trucking. It's still going to be fun. From what I hear, this position would still get me out to like Ontario, like Dryden, Canora. I could go as far as Winkler down in Southern Manitoba all around Winnipeg, but mostly a position where I can go out in the morning, be back in the afternoon, and be home in the evening. And I think the interview went pretty well today. I think it went, I felt good about it. I hope they felt the same. But with all that being said, I got to go get all my stuff. I still got a lot of stuff in that Peterbilt. It was a nice truck. I'm going to miss that truck. It was a really nice truck. But we got to make decisions and choices in life, right? And what matters most is family, especially when we're trying to start a family. You kind of have to be around to make a baby, you know? It helps when you're there. Exciting stuff coming up, guys. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. Don't worry. I'm taking you along for the ride and we'll see what life brings us. I'm going to try something new. Maybe it'll work out. Maybe it won't. But I have a good feeling that it's a positive change. I'm excited to share it with you. If this interview didn't go as well as I thought it did and I don't get the position, I have other opportunities. Possibly driving a dump truck. But that only starts in spring. It's a seasonal job. It's not a for sure thing either. But it's an opportunity. It's something to look into.  Those are long hours during the summer, but you get laid off for winter. Different opportunities I've been looking into. I just got to get something that I can get my highway fever taken care of, you know? I love trucks. I got to be around trucks at least a little bit. I got to do a little bit of trucking. I got to keep trucking. Maybe I could drive one of those. That looks fun. I don't know what's in there. I don't know what that is, but I could drive it. Hey, it's got a steering wheel and wheels. I can drive it. I've also thought of doing snow clearing through the winter, driving a plow truck, a garbage truck. I've got all kinds of ideas floating around inside my big old head, but nothing is for certain yet. This guy's going to use up all my washer fluid now that he's in front of me. Either way, it's going to be great and we're all going to have a lot of fun. I talked to the big boss yesterday, the CEO, the big man. He's such a great guy. I love working for him. It's the hardest part is saying goodbye to the family there at work. I say it's like a family. They treat everybody like family. They've treated me so good and they said there's always an opening there for me. Whatever I'm trying right now, whatever I'm trying to discover about myself and life, if it doesn't work out, they'll throw me back in a truck and we'll go trucking over the road again. Well everybody, there she is in all her glory. Look at her. She's beautiful. Beautiful. So we've got to go get our stuff out of there. I really need to shave tonight and they might need to use this truck for something else or someone else might need to use it. So may as well get all my stuff out of there. I see someone plugged her in for me. I appreciate that. Won't need to start her up today though. There's my slippers. I've missed you. I've needed you. Okay, everybody. Here we go. Smells good in here at least. It's good. Like I said, when I moved into this truck, you never quite realize how much junk you have until you move. I got a lot of stuff, man. Why do I have all this stuff? I got a problem.  I just used old shopping bags and there's more, right? All of this in here yet. Nice new tires. You served me well, girl. You served me well. Oh, hey, these are mine. These are mine. It's the little things, you know. Attention to detail. There's my saver though. Nice about that. Summer stuff, anyway. Trying not to get my jacket. I wore my nice jacket, of course. Dang it, all dirty. Can't put this thing through the wash either because it's a heated jacket. I'll have to wipe it down when I get home. That's okay. I think there's still more. The whole truck is full. Half the bed in the back, all my stuff. I didn't want to get dirty and stuff in here. My pillows and laundry and stuff. Man, I have a lot of junk. Man, do you guys hoard this much, too, or is it just me? Yikes. Actually, I guess I don't need my stuff. I'm just going back to the shop. I've got to bring them the key because, like I said, someone else is probably going to be put into the truck. It's sort of sad gathering all my stuff out of that truck. I love that truck, but at the same time, I'm very excited. Very excited for what comes next. Who knows? Well, I have an idea, but I'm going to wait before I share it with you until we have something solid, but there are some things in the works and I'm pretty excited about it. Hey, I forgot my good mask. So a good thing I always carry along a couple of pickup masks. Oh, that's upside down. It's upside down. The wire goes at the top. The blue side goes out. That way you can tell if the inside is dirty. You put the white side against your face, so then you can tell when you look at it if it's dirty. That's what I think anyway. So I don't know. I'm not a doctor. That'll bring in all these seals from the company ID. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. So me moving into a, what is that big horse right there? Wow. Where'd he come from? Been there before? So me moving into this new endeavor, looking around. This was all done like me cleaning out the truck was just to make it available for another driver. And it was all on good terms. All on good terms. For the future, I have decided that I need to be home with my family. So we'll see what kind of truck and we can get up to. It may work out. It may not, but we won't know if we don't try. That's what we do know. And the thing that we do have in the works does not involve that specific truck. So that's why I got all of my stuff out of it. Someone else is going to drive that truck and whoever gets that truck is going to love it. That bed was so comfortable. It was so big. That sleeper was so deep. I believe it was an 80 inch sleeper. So from the back of the cab where you sit to the back of the actual sleeper, 80 inches. It had a twin size bed in there. That is a truck fit for a Kang or a Queen. You know, I don't know who's going to get it. Hopefully the next truck that I get put into will be just as nice.  I guarantee you it's not going to have that kind of a sleeper. Probably won't have any sleeper. So I encourage you, subscribe, stick around, hit that notification bell. I'm just as excited to see what's going to happen as you are. Who knows? Maybe we'll know more tomorrow. We'll have to tune in to find out. Maybe we'll even get to see what truck will be driving tomorrow. Or I guess I should say technically the truck that I would be driving if I get the position. It's not a done deal yet. They can still say, no, we don't want you, Trucker Josh. Shoo, shoo, get out of here. But that would be mean. And honestly, I have all the experience I think that they're looking for. Well, bud, let me get to spend a lot more time at home. I'm excited. What do you think, bud? You were getting ready to retire off the road anyways, right? Getting a little bit older. You know, and Chevy over here, he's more of a homebody anyways. He doesn't like even the smallest rides. He wouldn't be a very good trucking dog. But so I got that all cleaned out. I got a lot of stuff in my truck. I'm going to make a video about that tomorrow. All the stuff that I had in my truck. It's ridiculous. The amount of stuff we we hoard and hold on to in there. I'm going to go over it all spread it out. And then I want you to tell me if you do the same thing or if you have even more junk in your truck than I have in mind. Anyways, that's the video for today. I spent most of the day there cleaning it out and getting ready for whatever comes next. Okay, we got some things in the works that I was saying. So that truck is all ready for the next driver. The lucky driver that gets to drive that thing. I love that Peterbilt. The sleeper. That was the nicest sleeper I've ever had. It's kind of very plain. It wasn't fancy, but it was so deep that there was so much room in there. Me and diesel were totally comfortable in there the whole time. So but I want to see tomorrow. Tune in tomorrow. I want to see if you have as much junk in your truck as I do in mine. We'll compare. We'll see. Maybe I'm a little more of a hoarder than I thought I was. So we'll see you tomorrow. I'm excited to see what happens next. I hope you are too. Take care. Don't forget to subscribe down below. These daily videos are going to keep coming. You don't want to miss them.


Good morning, welcome. It is 10 a.m. in Paris Central European Times, CET, where Wednesday 20th of September and you are listening to the live stream of fresh 2023. Fresh the international event for the development of contemporary circus and outdoor arts is back. 20 years, 20 years, 20 years anniversary this year of Circo Strada Network. Circo Strada, what it is, it is a network all around Europe, all around the world with more than 150 members, more than 40 countries together in Paris for the 20th anniversary for three days today, tomorrow and after tomorrow in Paris and around Paris. While I am talking to you, you that are listening to me all around the world through the web, exclusive live web radio station, I can see people gathering and entering into this space in Leville. La Villette was chose for this meeting because it's a huge cultural center in Paris. It is located in the northeast part of Paris and it's almost a city, a big village. In the middle of La Villette, you have this industrial building renovated called La Grande Halle de La Villette. And this is where we are, underneath, under the Grande Halle de La Villette used to be a butcher place.  You also have a new philharmonic place called La Philharmonie, that is all like a sardina in the sky, but we are here together to celebrate Cirque Stradale network fresh and making waves association and all around platform are our partners to make it possible, follow the stream and full program on CirqueStradale.org and you can also get access to this live stream of the fresh 20, 23 morning sessions through the all around platform. You might, you may listen to some voices of all the people coming in this theater place and then it's where I remember I've seen a lot of great theater performance. In La Villette you also have Cirque's place, it used to be the Shapito place. So it's really the place to be, to be an international active interesting cultural meeting. This morning you will attend to the morning sessions as if you were here there will be round tables, artistic talks and keynotes and every morning, as you may know, a different topic will be choose today on live at La Villette for the opening, still many people arriving while I'm talking. You will be attend to special morning about the notion of care, to care about what to care about, to care together, which is a philosophical and ethical topic. Tomorrow we will talk about the notion of safety and Friday about sustainability. So as you can see, three main topics to see the present and also to draw perspectives for the future in this world of contemporary circus and outdoor art. The morning session, as you will soon hear, is organized on the following menu in French. So I talk about food. So to start there will be, of course, the welcoming words, then you will listen as every morning to a keynot, a 20 minutes keynot. It's a short, dynamic and powerful session to reflect. So as I told you, the keynote today will be about care and it will be done by a French philosopher called Fabienne Brugère who wrote a book about it, the Ethique of Care. And right after a keynote, she will join us on the radio for 10 more exclusive talks. Later it will be around 11 o'clock, maybe a bit later, as it is, always take time to start. A large roundtable will take place in which six artists and cultural professionals will discuss and share ideas about the relationship between programmers and artists and always on this topic of care. And it will be a long roundtable, 90 minutes roundtable to make possible everybody to talk clearly. And after this roundtable it will be around maybe, let's say, 12, 45, right after. We'll be glad also with this exclusive stream radio to invite, for a brief talk, one of the panelists who participate to the roundtable who is Cun Alary. Cun Alary is coming from Belgium, from Ghana, and he's a coordinator and he's developing a dance punt into an incubator for amateur and emerging artists. It's very interesting also to have his perspective because he talks not only with artists but also with amateur. And around this question of care it will be important to listen to Cun. Of course you will listen to all the morning session. I can see now we are certainly soon to start, more and more people are coming. As I can see the audience is quite young. It's around, let's say, I would say 40 years old and a big nice mix of man and woman. I can even see a plant working there, a girl with a plant in her top bag, which is funny. I guess she bought it. It's beautiful in this place. As I told you, we are celebrating for the next three days Circo Stradas network with supported by the French ministry with Art Sénat and with the European Commission, but it's not exclusively an European network.  You are recording it and you will have the stream with the help of all around with sending the sound and the sound spreading all over the world. And I have to tell you that also you will be able after these three days to listen to the podcast that will be edited and also to read in few months a publication that will be made, but you can also from now listen to the podcast that was made before the event by Mike Hemus who produced Around Fresh where you can see all the topics, care, safety, sustainability already separated in different podcasts and that you can get of course through Circo Stradas.org and listen to this very stimulating podcast. Can you hear the sound? All are coming. I would say more than 200 people here in Paris.  So here people coming, Lavilette, Fresh, Chinese anniversary of Circo Stradas network. As I told you, we're ready to open. They were in Lavilette, so I told you Lavilette is a huge city in the city in a way, but always linked to other city because it's very close to the suburb in a way. And the space is always moving towards the other, always transforming. It's a lively place. Tomorrow we will go to Bagneux to the Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde, the smallest circus in the world. You know, in circus it's always extraordinary, most fabulous. And as they are very humble, they call it the smallest circus in the world. So it will be the second moment of the morning talks where we'll talk about safety. You will see in Bagneux also a very interesting project about circus and outdoor art in a demo-critical way. And for the third day we will come back to Paris, but also another place called La Pelouse Roy, which is in the east part of Paris next to Bois-de-Vincennes, you may know. And in Pelouse Roy, there is the village du Cirque. So it's a place where actually a circus and outdoor festival is taking place. I can see people coming, it's nice to see all these people. The kids, they meet, they say hello, everybody knows, everybody or not, everybody yet. It will be done in three days because, you know, in fresh in the afternoon, it's morning session altogether in the morning, sorry. And in the afternoon there are different paths that are organized to get to know more circus and outdoor places here in Paris where it is organized, Cirque Stradale Network for the 20th anniversary. It's almost full, it's crowded here. It's nice. We'll send you pictures so you could see. And it will be done on the Cirque Stradale.org where you can listen as I told you again to the podcast Around Fresh produced by Maikémous and that was, that is online. But you will follow anyway the morning session with us, Fresh Radio Live Stream, well, live, I can tell you there are, it's almost 20 past 10 in Paris, local time. And after the welcoming words, we will listen to the French philosopher Fabienne Brugère who wrote Letique du Caire, which is a book that I think of the necessity to care into not only a political way after the pandemic, but a revolution way to be together again. She's not familiar to contemporary circus and to outdoor arts, but this is on purpose because Cirque Stradale wanted for this 20th anniversary to invite every morning someone that was not from the circus world or not from the outdoor arts, but to look to open perspectives. So a philosopher, a designer, a scientific will come every of each morning, open the perspectives, the horizon and our world, our professional world with design, landscape design, of course, we'll talk about sustainability, how can we do together. And with the scientific, we'll talk about safety, of course, all topics that are very pregnant in our actuality, but we don't put it in the political way, we put it in the humanistic way, in our world, the contemporary circus and outdoor art. Okay, people are coming now on stage, as I can see, gathering around, still full, waiting to the morning session to start, and we can see on stage now a screen introducing the morning schedule of the session. I said menu, you know, but I should have said schedule of the session. So as I told you, welcoming words, cannot on a tick of care, intermission, but the intermission will be with us because you'll have the chance to have 10 more exclusive radio talk with Fabienne Grouchard talking on the tick of care. And after the round table, the title of the round table is care in art world. And there are a few closing words that are closing words we will listen to and after we'll meet again with Ken Ullery working in Tantz Punt, an incubator for amateur and emerging artists in Bonn, in Belgium. Let's listen to the crowd. Younger, I told you, 40 years old, but more I would say 30 years old. From Comerot, Kisses, saying hello, the theater is full. That's great. Good morning. If you join us, we are in Paris. You are listening to the web live stream of fresh, fresh, 20th anniversary of Cirque d'Ostrada network. People around starting soon, the morning session, we are at Lavalette. Lavalette, it's a huge place in Paris. You may know, you have to discover it if you don't know it, because it's fantastic also from the architectural point of view. You can see buildings from the 19th century, where used to be the industrial food part of Paris, where used to be butchers. And you can visit the latest building that was made by Jean Nouvel, French architect Jean Nouvel, who just made a few years ago, the Philharmonie, which is huge and glittering, like metal into the sky, which would be the sea, because it looks a little bit like the Sardinia. You have also a small red spot, buildings called Folie, you have gardens for children, you have open-air cinema, you have a geode, which is all round for the scientific place. You have a circus place, and if you cross the street, you can find other circus places that used to be the Fratellini Circus, where some people will go this afternoon. It's almost time for the debate to start here in Paris. The name of the theater where we are, it's underneath, so the industrial building, and it's called La Salle Boris Vien, who used to be a French artist and singer and writer with typically French humor, we can say. So here in La Villette, we are celebrating the 20th year of Cirque Stradale Network, fresh 2023, it's Cirque Stradale, more than 150 members, more than 40 countries, and I guess I have to open the microphone to the stage. It's time to start at La Villette, welcoming world followers on stream. You are listening to the web stream, Radio of Fresh. Fresh is the event to celebrate the development of contemporary circus and outdoor network Cirque Stradale. I tried to speak, I can see the light going down, so it will be the time for the welcoming words, the light first went down, and maybe now we open the microphone. Hello and welcome to La Villette for this first morning of Fresh. This year, we will celebrate the 20th of the Cirque Stradale Network with a special edition of Fresh because for the first time, we will address at the same time the themes related to the art of the circus and the art of the street. La Villette is part of Cirque Stradale since the very beginning, with the network being born in a formal way as a group of professionals who were found on festivals to talk about shows and to imagine common projects. In time, the network has evolved a lot, we are now more than 150 members with more than 40 countries and with very rich activities that are proposed throughout the year. Despite that, the pleasure of finding yourself, of exchanging, of imagining projects together remains the same. In time, the artistic and institutional landscape has also changed a lot. In many countries, the arts in the public space and the circus are now recognized in a much more important way than it was the case before. And that is also very much thanks to the work we have done with Cirque Stradale. That said, there is still a lot of work to be done and the action of Cirque Stradale remains very important and necessary also for the coming years. At La Villette, we have already had the pleasure of welcoming the three first editions of Fresh Circus a few years ago and we are really happy to be able to welcome you here today. So I really want to thank all the partners of this project and especially all the participants of the Fresh Cirque Stradale group who worked on the seminar program, as well as the teams of Cirque Stradale, Darsena and La Villette who worked on the preparation of this day. So I would also like to thank you very much for being here. We are going to address during these three days the themes that are crucial for our society and also for the artistic and cultural work. I hope that it will be a very enriching three days for all of us and I wish you a very, very beautiful day, a first day. Thank you. Hello everyone, thank you very much Raphael for welcoming us to La Villette. Welcome us in La Villette, part of this fresh session and I also want to thank our 12 partners. We work together really well. It is a very emotional moment because this is a very special fresh because you are here because some of you came from very far. And we have 150 numbers in 45 countries in 20 years. This is rather impressive. I'm really happy because we're going to celebrate these 20 years with an event that will not be a proper commemoration, though we need to honour all the people who worked to make this network bigger, but we imagine this seminar really as a work of the looked with the future to keep on working for the whole country in the world. And this is why during those three days we are going to think about three essential questions. We are going to exchange, we are going to debate, but we also are going to laugh because this is also what our network is about. This is a strength of our network to give the possibility to people to find ideas, to resources, to actually reinforce what we know. And it is also a possibility to find example to enrich and to actually pursue our initiatives and we find solutions together. We find inspiration in others. So our approach is both pragmatic and very lively and friendly. Our network is a network where everyone gives as much as it receives. It is the principle of solidarity and diversity was one of the very value. And this is the real engine of our network and that explains why we have been able to continue to work all those 20 years. As director of Arsenault, we are the National Centre of Street Arts and Circus in France. So we are the pilot of this project. This means a whole team that actually supports the international department of our organisation. But seminars like this is also for us a possibility to learn and we have possibilities to learn while watching what is being done elsewhere and doing that we learned a lot about our own practices and what we do and how we do it. So I think this collective dynamics and this partnership dynamics that are in the heart of our network is how we built a European community. Thanks to all of you and thanks to the European Union to actually support this wonderful adventure. Thanks to the French Ministry of Culture to keep on supporting us. So I'm really happy to be with you today for the opening of the 10th edition of Fresh and to celebrate together the 20 years of the Circus Trader network. I'm Stéphane Serretou Aguilar. I'm in charge of international relations and coordinator of the network Circus Trader. One for one, I'll speak in French but I swear that I am going to be rather concise and I swear that I'm going to speak English in the next occasion. I have two lists to share with you, a list of wishes and a list of things. I really wish you an unforgettable experience, strong emotions and expected encounters. I hope you take the time to share your ideas, projects and desires and dreams. I hope you discover and rediscover approaches, practices, places and ways of doing and thinking that are different from your own. I hope you make new or old colleagues and friends and that you forge and renew links, connections and collaborations. I hope you'll be transformed, renewed and regenerated by the exchanges and conversations we'll have particularly during the morning sessions. Today, we'll be talking about cares, tomorrow, safe spaces and Fridays about sustainability. We will also, we need to continue to act together to build a better future for all those of you working in our sectors. There are 400 views coming from 40 different countries, not counting all those listening to us through the Internet. And I really believe that if we want to bring about systemic changes in face the current multidimensional crisis, even on our very small, we can do it. And above all, we must try. Finally, I hope you have a great time in all simplicity and to come back refreshed. But I really realize that this works better in English. So now, here I go with my list of things. First, we are a center team and especially my colleagues, Laura, Kinga and Anna, without whom this event could not take place. A great thanks to the fresh committee compared to 24 members of the network, two other members of Zerco Strada and two of our steering committee. And also, I want to thank the key partners, La Villette, Le Petit Syrup du Monde. I'm not going to repeat, so listen carefully. It is the first fresh one. We have so many partners and that opens to both our sectors, contemporary sectors and our street performers. I also want to thank all of the administration, communication and technical staff, as well as our translators. And our three accomplices, Making Wave on the Web Radio, Havi Round, that helps us to spray the Web Radio on the internet and fall off, or committed delicatessen that will delight us during those three days. And also our two funders, the Minister of Culture, more specifically the delegation to creation and the European Commission with Creative Europe. Last but not least, thanks to you in this room to have come to Paris and thanks to the people who are online to listen to us. I promised a short discourse and I think I have made it. So I give the floor now to Gilles Peilayo, who is the head of culture to the EACA, European Education Cultural Executive Agency. There has always been a lot of thanks, but I really want to thank the Villette people to welcome us here. Also, Gwana Ladovid and the whole team of our center to carry on with this project, Steve Van Aguilar and all his team, and Tiako Stradat that enable us to be here. And most of all, I really want to say a strong hello to all the participants, all the players of our sectors, without whom us backstage will just not do what we are doing as a job. And I'm speaking, I speak of artists, producers, managers, coordinators, technicians, staff, communication, people, funders, when modestly all funders as well, venues, creation places, venues, festivals, the whole ecosystem of performing arts. So a really happy both day to you. 20 years is a very symbolical age. And seen from the European Union, the birthday date of the first report that had been asked on the circus sector. So I would say that it is a generation that should really that this new sector was taken into question by the American. The contemporary sector is one of the sector of the performing art that is very important for the creative Europe program and for the diversity of art form. This is evidence by funding and strategic partnership with the sectors, but also by the desire to understand its evolution and needs. And I refer saying that to a very recent study about the situation of the circus in the EU member states. It was published in 2020 just before COVID. The rapid development of the sector for the last 50 years has been really significant in France. The country that is hosting us today, as elsewhere in Europe, thanks for us to informal networks, as Gwendolyn said it, and then formal that are meeting here today to more of the 20th anniversary of Cirque Estrada. Cirque Estrada is one of the network that accelerated the evolution and professionalization as well as the recognition of circus and its encounters with audiences. Internationally by nature, circus and street arts are intrinsically multidisciplinary arts. And they have undergone these last decades a rapid artistic evolution in their contents, but also a technological development and innovation with new teaching methods, new apparatus, new material, new scenic device, new safety tools as well. Thank God to that. And this is really what we want to support with the Creative Europe Program. Development, innovation, the structuration through the actions that we manage in the European Union through first our classical cooperation programs, then the support we give at the European Commission to networks, platforms that help new creators and some pilot actions. To talk numbers, between the old program, 2014, 2020 and the start of the new program, 21 to 27, we supported around 80 street arts and circus projects for about 33.5 million, and we will add to the 6 million that represents a substantial help and we'll say about 40 million euros altogether. Many of the people have been supported are in the room and I'd like to say it again, artists, coordinators, partners and team who conceived, wrote and carried this project and who managed to answer the very selective call to tenders and that bring life to them on a daily bus. Many thanks to you because Creative Europe or Europe of creation would be nothing without you. We also support the development of artistic practices and their production and I'd like to name our project Reform Europe. That is an example and Circus Strada is one of the members of the consortium partners. For us it's vital to have the voices and practices of contemporary circus and street arts represented in this project which aims to support 35 growing, sustainable, equitable, inclusive creations so as to bring a real long-term evolution not only in this sector but also in all performing arts. I saw one of the participants coming in this morning with a plant in a backpack so I see this as a spirit that we really have with us in the room today. This is not an easy practice. We are very much aware that post-COVID in a way may have brought the performing art texture to turn itself on itself and these withdrawal reflexes have crept into programming but we know that there is a real awareness to this problem. This will enable us to collaborate better and more sensitively despite successive crisis we had to face and this will also take us to wild beyond our frontiers, we're thinking our practices and mode of transmission, research collaboration, production and dissemination and presentation. Convincing the need for a Europe of creation, I think there is a real necessity of European art and European democracy and I strongly invite you and encourage you to continue working at a European and international scale while keeping on working with national, original and legal level so that the development of support for the sector continues and is nurtured through the coordination of player and this is where so Australia is important. Please allow me to highlight an aspect and it is that it will be vital to involve the various level of players in working conditions, fair remuneration and the statues of the artists and this is a point of the report I mentioned of 2020. The European Union published within the framework of the open method of coordination and this report was published in July 2023 and it shows how much remained to be done in this area, especially in a sector where there are a lot of freelance workers. It is the priority number one in the new European council priority of work and in our program we will certainly stress it is important. It is one of the major project to all cultural sector, not only the one you represent, it is a project that for reasons of superiority will have to be carried out at all level with the necessary involvement of all those working in the field. It is not the only project that will have to work about the freedom of expression, about cultural right, about inclusions, about gender equality and ecology and also the external relationship of the European Union and really pleased to have in this room people coming from outside Europe. So this is a lot of work for us and for you in the next 20 years. I hope I did not spoke more the seven minutes that are usually are allowed for academic circles. And I am going to give the floor to, I also speak in the name of Daniela Avic, who many of you know and unfortunately couldn't bring with us today. So a really happy 20th anniversary and her fruitful work in Paris and nevertheless a lot of the pleasure with it. Thank you Gilles for those very encouraging words. I am going to launch the festivities once more and invite Fabienne Puget, philosopher from the University of Paris for her keynote. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello to everyone. You made a request for today and to introduce the notion of care, which I would say is a non-identified object, a bit like the G.O.D. here at the Villette Cinema and this request is something I am very happy to try to provide an answer and I would like to thank our Sena, the Presidents and Managers for having invited me here and specifically Laura Jude, with whom I have been dialoguing to prepare this talk. I am going to try and avoid as much as I can to taking a position from above over this subject and any kind of hierarchical presumptions because in the field of culture, in this field in particular it is an open sector which doesn't hesitate to move the order of things. Putting theatre, circus and outdoor arts together is already abolishing something or distancing what du buffet is called spectacularly asphyxiating culture that he said would face what creation could bring in terms of originality and dissentual. So the question is how can we come out of this suffocation that there is always a risk in culture through the use of care? What artistic content could make it prosper facing the collapse of collective certainties even when we see the commodification of cultural products which are called globalization in the name of globalization such as the Barbie film which has just come out and which intersects industry, finance and culture on unprecedented scale. Is there an urgent need, there is an urgent need to take care of artistic practices to take care of artists, of audiences and cultural institutions at a time when many studies evoke what we could call the expulsion and the brutality, the complexity of market driven societies that normalize these existences which sort them to the point of suspending lives, condemning them to survival and in that sense care is an approach, an ethic, a policy that takes care of the most vulnerable lives, the most vulnerable people who are in vital need of support and who want to regain dignity and also be recognized acknowledged. How can we look at that from an aesthetic point of view given that in France for example we often have been very ironic with our attitude towards care and saying what should we do? Are we going to turn artists and audiences into care takers or patients and carers? That's not at all the question here even if care can have a certain provocative side but care is not, the idea of care is not to put art into the idea of art as therapy and I really insist on that but it's rather the establishment of a relationship with the world that's not intersociable from an ethical perspective and a political perspective with fair institutions. So the idea of living a good life and with fair institutions. So this practice is a really vital. I think that when we talk about care we need to be realistic. It's difficult to say we can produce care. We can produce goodwill and good practices because today I'd just like to look at the present for a moment here. There's an attempt to identify this non-identified object which is care and today there is a use, a neoliberal use of care which is well defined by many studies. This use infiltrates our lives every day and makes us permeable subjects and associates us with what many people call a crisis of care. I think we're talking about this neoliberal use of care to refer to the works of Michel Foucault, his work on neoliberalism and the naissance de la biopolitique, a book in which he speaks of the of American neoliberalism and it's what it's that liberalism in America has set itself the task of extending economic analysis to areas that are considered non-economic so they can social areas, culture and even imprisonment. So with this application of neoliberalism to care we have to interpret spheres of life in strictly economic terms which up to now were not considered as economic spheres. Michel Foucault said with that perspective human beings are associated with human capital part of which is acquired which means that you have to build the human capital over the life of an individual in particular through investments in education and in that perspective of human capital what Michel Foucault puts forward is this necessity to make this capital come to fruition as on the market to fabricate to manufacture us within a relationship of an idea of life that people are entrepreneurs and an entrepreneur themselves selling this capital. As an expression I found very interesting he explained society will build, favorize and manufacture kinds of skills, machine based skills which will produce revenue and that is how he defines new liberalism, American neoliberalism which is like manufacturing well equipped individuals and care in that context is a way of manufacturing and taking care of those economic units as individuals and in that perspective care becomes a service we talk about home services, personal services and there's even a commercialization of care making it into a thing that can be purchased. The ethics of care comes in as a response to this neoliberalist use of care from the 80s onwards in the states in particular thanks to a first text published by Carol Gilligan in a different voice published in 82 when during the Reagan presidency this text with this movement of ethics of care is the recognition of the universe of care and a relationship that is fair between our practices of care and our measures of care so if we look at Gilligan's text or John Tronto's text about care the idea is to prove and to make sure that there is an activity which is generic and necessary that includes everything we do to maintain, perpetuate and repair our world. Those three verbs are important, maintain, perpetuate and repair our environment so that we can live as well as possible the ethic of care is to support all life in a fair way. Of course we need to add that if the experience of care is universal it concerns interpersonal relationships which are unique and which belong to a world of vulnerabilities and with the necessity to be part of that we take care of people who are more in need than ourselves, more vulnerable than ourselves in a relationship between a giver of care, a caregiver and a receiver of care there is a hierarchy in that sense it's also sometimes the caregiver can be very vulnerable and the whole question of care becomes a question of scale of care more or less fragile against the backdrop of vulnerability. The vulnerability which is those of our bodies first and foremost and I also think of the play which is currently at the Gérard-Philippe Theater and in the way that in office for social work in New York in the 70s you see these people and these bodies asking for help asking for social welfare and all of the way that these people ask how they do it how they demand what they need and it's a very interesting point to bring up this question of bodies in this scope of care these bodies which are more or less vulnerable. If you go from the body to the subject we are not sovereign subjects we are dependent and interdependent subjects we are subjects which at one point in our lives will feel dispossessed it's an experience we will have and that changes our definition of autonomy you don't have to be shouldn't should not have to be autonomous it's something we need to be thought of with in the scope of accidents and dispossession of our capabilities vulnerability life so with this like accent on care it's very unique as all of these care relationships are all unique and now I'd like to carry on with a third point which is the relationship between care care and art and the arts it's a line of interpretation which is coming into being in a certain number of countries including France now for many years it's been the case in the US in the UK and many others how can we take better care and how do we do it well in the context of culture and arts in theater art there are creations more than creators it's like a beehive because everything's collective related located somewhere on the stage or in a public space more or less public space and we find what care demands collective responsibility the stamping down of hierarchies collaborations and of course there is vulnerability we are looking at a small form of society with its possible corporations dialogues its unstable balances but also as its conflicts and its excesses you can be faced with kind of utopias of organization like the village perhaps a utopia of living being is because bodies are very present so these arts represent a culture that denies the hierarchical order imposed through art history between noble arts and popular arts and we know this notion very well in philosophy and it's very hard to get rid of overcome so there's they require appropriation by the subjects that pay attention to the idea it takes includes a space for judgment reflection or criticism in this register the ethics of care which we're starting to identify are important because they highlight in terms of support the importance of alterity otherness the importance of incorporating and considering difference and otherness your presence your artistic presence here our way of performing preserving forms of difference in our liberal societies in the case of a post-forwards capitalism still in perspectives of globalization which is to say is uniformization so I'd like to finish with a reference to Sophie Karl in 2007 this artist published a book called take care of you self her artistic proposition was this she wrote I received a breakup email I didn't know what to answer it was if it wasn't written for me and it finished with the words take care of yourself so she asked a hundred and seven women chosen for their professions and their talents writers actresses researchers family mediators have lawyers to interpret the letter from professional perspective which means to help her to untangle this mysterious letter which put an end to her a love relationship so take care of yourself and so what is she doing what was Sophie Karl doing she is creating a performance of course but within the context of an association between art and ethics because through what she's asking these hundred and seven women it is a request for attention request for attention in a vulnerability in a situation of vulnerability where she is vulnerable and it's completely in this way it's clearly artistic and why because art and the answers and what Sophie Karl built with that insinuates something it insinuates art always insinuates keep that in there's the relationship to ethics is never transparent it's it's a question of games and ethics are always aestheticized fortunately we there's always a sensitive capacity of art which is open to all dialogue as Proust as Proust wrote beautiful books always written in the kind of foreign language and wonderful circus author so be careful with notion of care I have two comments to make as a conclusion firstly this is the register of arts all arts and so care must always be first and foremost to take care of their imagination according to Delos and Rotterie May 68 never came as except through the imagination we could say that care as as an attention given to imagination could finally give that power to the imagination but only if that is in with the framework of institutions that know how to invent themselves reinvent themselves in the context of auto institutions in some ways Sophie Karl in the 707 women who responded to her is a beginning of an institution on for imagination and care and the first and foremost is to take care of what is invented the second thing is of course that care is about inventions things that are created but they are also the product of the sum of relationships and relationships in which a capacity to care is unfurled this empathy sensitivity to care and above all the empathy with creation our societies must have empathy for creation there should be which means that they really should work against brutalities complexities expulsion they should take care of otherness of this otherness that carries and leads to inventions which are not individual creations but collective creations that can lead to new institutions and we need new institution you are one after all in this field for care as soon as we're looking at artistic practices what I want to say to conclude is that we must not forget that our time our need for care is impossible to satisfy it's an echo to a book by seek document that was written in the great disasters of the 20th century our need for consolation is impossible to satisfy thank you thank you Fabien for this very inspiring talk so three two one I'm going to English now I'm going to give you some time to adjust your headphone if you need to or not so while the stage can be rearranged for the next roundtable I'm going to talk a little bit about this little book that we gave you and so it is our anniversary as you know so we asked all the members of the network if they wanted to submit a story of being a member and together with our editor John Allingsworth we selected 20 story from the members of the network some stories are from recent member of the network some are from very old members of the network and some are intimate some are political you will see some are funny some are very serious but I suggest you can read them the stories are both in French and in English as this morning and you will see that we have some drawings also in the book so we asked an illustrator to do some drawings on some of the words drawings back drawings can I have my drawings so once so we selected 20 words also in the Tezoros made by Artzena so the Tezoros is a completion of words that are used for contemporary circus and outdoor arts professionals and we decided to illustrate them and to translate them also so to give you a little bit of a pace while reading I'm being sabotaged I guess so this is the part where they're changing the setting for the round table I'm assuming I'm gonna keep talking so there is this book and at the end of the book you also have some key facts and figures from Circus Strada over the 20 years okay so it took us a lot of time to do this book a lot of energy and so I suggest you really to read it and tell us what you think about it because we want to hear your feedback about this okay please tell us and it's a pretty nice and also my shirt is you know the colors we made an effort I didn't do this on purpose apparently somebody told me anyway there is something else also that was given to you it's this okay as you realize we didn't print any program but you have the program here that you can scan in French and in English of course but this is a really bit of a recap of the three days so keep it with you at all times we will send you reminders of course but there are several QR codes at the back one very important QR code is the WhatsApp group okay so I think more than half of you are already in the WhatsApp group but the idea of the WhatsApp group which you can scan the QR code and be inside is that you receive up-to-date information of everything okay everything is in the program everything is in the WhatsApp group you can still ask us question of course and for the exact location of all the venues you also have a map okay and you don't need to worry because at the end of each morning we're going to give you a recap of what's happening after okay so we will keep reminding you of all the details of the program you also have our contacts and I think that as soon as the screen is down I'm going to have a slide on something around communication let's enjoy the noise of it voila so the drawings rue street next voila so be informed and spread the love the practical info I told you the Google map I told you as well the WhatsApp community if you're not on it please be on it you can tag us on Facebook and Instagram at Chico Soda Network you can tag us on X and LinkedIn at Chico Soda these are the hashtags you can use I think you have it all you can take a picture of it if you want and now that I did my beat I think I'm going to invite all the beautiful people for the next round table on the ethics of care artwork and I'm going to welcome them on stage and they're going to introduce themselves big round of applause please


Hi, this is Jack Lipton and this is Critical Materials Corner and today we're going to have a discussion with an actual miner of the world's first critical metal. So let me just quickly tell you what I mean. Tin was discovered as much as 5,000 years ago and of course copper had been discovered at the same time or earlier. That was the Stone Age. Shortly after that, the archaeologists tell us we entered into the Bronze Age. Now, what is bronze? Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin and guess what? Resource wars were fought many, many times in the ancient world over sources of tin. And I'm sorry to say this to my British friends, but the only reason Rome had any interest or even knew about Ancient Britain was because of the tin from Cornwall, which they need to make the bronze with which they could kill the people in Cornwall to take their tin. That was then. Now, tin is again a critical metal and it's one of the most unknown metals to the average person in the world because it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. So you don't notice it. And this is, to me, it's amazing. But in any case, I'm not the expert today. We have two of them. One is my colleague Christopher Eccleston, the principal of Hallgarten and Company, who is covering this area. And he's going to speak today with the CEO of Althamn Resources, a company based in South Africa, which is one of the world's largest tin producers and has the richest tin deposits in the world. So, Christopher, I'm turning it over to you and please introduce our guest. Thank you very much, James. So I'm here today with Jack, of course, and with Marin Smith, the CEO of Althamn, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange or Toronto Venture Exchange, despite the fact that it has a massive market cap now. So it should actually be upgrading. Maybe that could be our first question. Marin, so have you thought about upgrading to our high-end listing category in Toronto? Christopher, yes, we are looking at that. For us, certainly, it is very important for as many institutional retail investors to have access to our share. So we are considering that, Christopher. Having said that, we are delighted to have seen such a significant increase in our share trade liquidity over the last 18 months. We went from around a million shares a month to between 30 and 40 million shares traded a month. So that for us is already a big positive. But to answer your question, we are considering an update. Now, you're also quoted in Jo Berg, are you not? Yes, we are quoted on the Alt-X exchange in Johannesburg with very limited liquidity. Really, our area of focus is Toronto. Is there a reason why there's limited liquidity there? Free float is an issue, Christopher. The size of the register in Johannesburg is often in significant scale. So that is really the issue. Not enough shares on the register in South Africa. Okay, cool. To talk about markets a bit more, we're now probably a year into Tim's recovery. Because Tim, in the wake of the first, you know, whiff of the pandemic, plunged to something like 13,000 a tonne. Did it not? It's now at 32,000 a tonne. Having rallied massively, he hung around the bottom there for a few months, but then really started rebounding. And then probably this year, or really from late December, it went almost vertically up. So really great development. And the highest levels of Tim's seem for ages and ages now. So the question that intrigues me is why with such a stunning rally, is no one else trying to move in on your territory and develop Tim mines? Because there have been a few sort of Tim wannabes over the last 20 years. But you are really the first major to be created in the Tim space since, really, like the 1970s. So, yeah, like 50 years or more. 60 years. That's correct, Christopher. And really, it goes to how difficult it is to finance a Greenfields project production, right? It is not easy. As we all know, your traditional major miners being Anglo-American, Rio Tinto, Billiton and the like, are not really in your critical minerals, like Tim, right? So really, these Greenfields developments come or occur from smaller balance sheets and require significant external capital and debt financing, right? And we've now seen a period of five to 10 years where Tim has been hovering around $20,000 a ton, which is not necessarily a bad price for an ore body like Elfman, right? We are blessed with the highest grade ore body in the world. So our cost of production is very low. But for most projects out there, Christopher, grades of Tim in the ground average around 1%, whereas we are sitting at 4%. And the bottom line is that you then need to scale up production and you really need a Tim price well in excess of $20,000 a ton to justify economic returns to potential financiers of your project, right? And the world hasn't seen Tim prices on a sustainable level above $20,000 for a number of years. Now, that has culminated in a supply shortfall. And to be honest with you, Christopher, the world is going to have to see prices above $30,000 a ton for a couple of years before confidence grows in the sustainability of the price, right? Investors aren't going to invest because of what happened in the last six months. They need to see this being sustained before you will finance these new Greenfields projects. And even then, when you do accumulate the necessary funding solution, if you do a world-class job, it will take you seven years to get to production on average 10 to 12 years from feasibility to financing to building and to commissioning. So there's a major lag in new Greenfields supply. So that pretty much means that you're it for the foreseeable future. And so of course, you've already got BC up running and you're getting these 4% rates. You're looking a bit farther afield in the general region and your general mineralogical system you've got there for other manifestations so that you can use your critical mass in the region there from the northeast of the DRC. What are you finding so far? What do you think is the potential? Have there ever been 10 mines of over 4%? No, not that we're aware of. Christopher, not that we're aware of. Now, you know, going back five, six years, when we drilled up our initial resource, which is now our current producing ore body, we only drilled down to 400 meters, right? And that for us was enough to justify what we would like to call our start to mine, which is where we're producing from at the moment and we're producing around 4% of the world's mine tin, which I think is quite substantial. And in fact, with the second largest mine outside of Indonesia and China. So that ore body, we know extends at depth, Christopher. You know, the last set of drill holes at 400 meters intersected 16 meters of tin at 22% grade, right? So we are very positive that our ore body extends well below where our initial drilling stopped. And we are focusing internal cash flows on a drilling campaign at depth to at least in our opinion, double what we currently have, right? So what is your life of mine, the current results? Currently on the original life of mine schedule, it runs until 2028 on what has been drilled back then, right? So we will be drilling at depth and we are quite positive that we will at least double our life in the current ore body. Then what is very significant is that right next door, 700 meters to the south is another deposit. And we've released to the market the results from just about 10,000 meters worth of diamond drilling. We are finding very good grades. We are now into phase three of our drilling. And we are hopeful that by the end of this calendar year, we will announce a maiden resource for the next door deposit, which we will believe will translate into the second ore body. And hopefully in the not too distant future, we can ramp up production and start producing from the next door ore body down the line. And then further down south within our current license area over approximately 15 kilometers of rich running north south, we have a number of prospective targets and we'll also be drilling those targets and starting towards the end of quarter three of this year. So Christopher, the long and the short is we allocating significant internal cash flows towards our various drilling campaigns. We are very hopeful that we will be able to expand our life of mine into a multi-decade operation. And furthermore, we are very hopeful that we will possibly increase possibly double our production in the medium term in supplying some of the short fall in the current market. Coming back to that deposit you mentioned that's like 700 meters away from where you are currently, would that be a second mine or would you just extend the existing mine in that direction and get into that other ore body? So in terms of the next door deposit, it is separate to our current ore body. It appears to be dipping in the same direction as our current ore body and it appears to be taking a similar shape. Tin follows structures and there's a whole structure crossing this ridge within our current licensed area. And from the next door deposit, it does appear that these tin fluids follow the structures and it is taking a shape not too similar to our current ore body. So it will be a separate underground mine Christopher, but we will be able to draw from synergies in terms of our current on-surface processing facilities. Okay, well coming back to the issue of critical metals. Tantalum of course is a critical metal and in areas of Central Africa, Tantalum quite often appears with tin. Have you been finding this at your explorations or not? Well what other metals do you have, have you been finding? Right, so we're finding predominantly tin but associated with other base metals like zinc, copper, a little bit of arsenic and the like. So a little bit of lead and silver as well. So basic base metals associated primarily with tin. In very small quantities do we find other base metal traces which we successfully extract from our final concentrate through our processing. So this is a bit like the tin mines in Tasmania where they have base metals rather than specialty metals. Correct, correct. Right and now back again to the critical metals issue. You know we've heard a lot of kerfuffle in the US, the EU, job mech, et cetera, talking about you know what are critical metals and tins are always on the list but when it comes to actually doing something about tin, you know politicians in Washington and elsewhere get themselves all excited about rare earths and things that frankly are just not as important as tin and things that are as dominated by China as tin because of course China has an enormous position in tin not only as a miner but as a processor. So why do you think the politicians are missing the woods for the trees here in not making a bet on future tin supplies and yet getting themselves all hot and bothered about rare earths and other such things that frankly we could ultimately do without but we cannot do without tin because of its role in soldiers and you know basic things that keep our world together. Rare earths you know the winter vines didn't turn or the EVs didn't roll we'd all still be here but the tin is far more strategic dare I say it than rare earths so why aren't they focusing on that? Well I suppose that's the billion dollar question Christopher and I wish I knew the answer to it and maybe maybe maybe there's a belief that that one can extract enough supply out of Indonesia and the like and it's not just beholden on China although China produces 50% of the world's refined tin and I don't know Christopher I just have to raise one point which I think is important it is not like there's not enough tin underground in the world there's enough tin and to satisfy demand going forward even in the midst of this technological revolution the issue is that the world needs a sustained higher tin price as an incentive to extract these lower grade higher costs. Maybe they're actualizing an incentive price which will stimulate demand and for the supply or stimulate supply and for the the the current deficit but certainly there's enough tin around Christopher it just needs a better price. Jack what do you think what do you think the politicians do know the issue? Well I'm not no I think that you've hit on something very important which is the blinders that the politicians were I think the answer to your question about why they're not you know interested in tin is is sort of obvious they they have no understanding of it they have no understanding of how our world is constructed and what holds it together and so they jump on whatever it's a self-sustaining fantasy the the the journalists who don't have any idea what they're talking about explain to the politicians what what is important to those people who live on the Upper East Side of New York or in the gated communities in Washington and they all decide that well I guess rare earths are important whatever that is and cobalt and whatever that is and lithium well I have a girlfriend who takes lithium so they all know about that you know it's really a joke I was the question I'd like to ask Moritz is what are the principal uses of tin today and where are your markets by size? in terms of in terms of the use of tin primarily it is used in solder and really there was a step change in 2005 when lead was declared hazardous by first world economies right and turn out to replace lead in solder and that's really where the step change in demand started but interestingly enough China still uses lead in 70% of their their solders so that's another area where demand will increase going forward as they continue with the with the process of switching to to tin so mainly used in solder and solder is critical it is the glue that holds the electronics and technology world together without solder there's no circuit boards there's a line for the front page of your PowerPoint it is absolutely absolutely critical and and and it's not really seen right so you know the use of solder is unseen it's within your electronic devices you can't really feel it you can't really smell it you know and and that's maybe why it's not not hitting the radar to the extent that it should and in terms of the electronics industry as you well know that is projected to grow by at least five percent annually going forward now if you were to translate that into into growth in tin demand for solder in electronics you know then you're looking at another 60 000 tons a year in five years time which incrementally is required from new supply which is quite significant over 10 years you're looking at 150 000 tons and so that's quite significant now in terms of the the markets for for tin in solder as you can imagine predominantly in China it being a world power in terms of manufacturing of of electronic equipment but also the pan South Korea Europe and the US are major major users of of tin in solder and and then and then you need to to to think of the equation of these major first world economies particularly Japan South Korea who are beholden on Indonesia and China for all all intents and purposes and in in in sourcing refined tin so really a bit of an an imbalance there and it goes to your point as to maybe the world not recognizing the the the strategic importance of of tin and and supply being concentrated in Indonesia and China now you mentioned the 32 000 price at the moment and how it for future development you need to really sort of like lock that in is there a mode for selling forward tin beyond the I'm not sure on the LME how how much you can sell forward in which you can lock in those prices and how is the company just close towards locking in the 32 000 in case it goes to 35 or it goes to 27 or 20 even you know because as we've seen the problem in the past has been there's some sort of yo-yo in the price that the metal that has I've encouraged or discouraged parties from entering the crack and Christopher you know this question of you know to hedge or not to hedge is is one that never has a it will never have a right answer right and for us as a company first of all from a technical perspective to answer your question yes you can forward sell tin on the LME market and for a company of our size we would probably be able to forward sell you know up to 40% of our production for for maybe 15 months or so right the issue with forward selling for us is that first of all you're selling into a backwardation curve so the price reduces and the further out you go in terms of fixing your price but more importantly for us we believe that we are not currently in a position where we need to protect the downside our margins are robust our cash flows are robust and our drilling campaigns are funded from current cash flows our debt is nearly repaid we are hopeful that we will repay our debt this calendar year on the back of these prices and so we have nothing to protect in our opinion at the moment and really we would like to keep our business as fundamental as possible and our business is about producing as much tin as possible and selling it when it's ready to be sold cool um have another question and it comes back to the the pricing again um you know for people who don't know um the tin price has had looming over for decades and decades now the total debacle of the early 1980s when the international tin council the tin association or whatever it was back at the time tried to create a corner in in its own mail um sort of like the bunker huts um failed miserably in silver but they tried to do a keep prices up rather than create a corner and it all ended in in massacres do you think that the current price surge is the final burying of the debacle of the 1980s and that we can finally leave that behind and uh and say the tin is now entirely subject to supply and demand and thus people should be actually getting into it and doing um more exploration because as you mentioned um the field has been largely left to junior juniors and elfin in itself was a junior junior for um quite a few years there um there's a hobbit between life and death and now you know the patience is paid off and um what's your market cap now at 800 million plus in canada yes yes yes around nine and eight to nine hundred million canadian what's a hundred million between friends um but uh that's absolutely brilliant because you look at the universe of Australian juniors in that space they're they're all 10 million 15 million two million market caps um and they obviously don't have the wherewithal to um move their own projects forward if their projects are worth moving for um so have we finally left behind that ghost I think so now we face the sunny uplands of uh of you know actually you invest in tin and you make money back I think it's very relevant that tin is now traded through the LME right I think that's very relevant um so the LME is now a custodian of supply and demand in tin I believe that there's a fairly liquid free market now in in tin um and and on the back of that you know why not see it you know in the same fashion as as copper you know you do have a custodian um there's a free market liquidity has improved significantly through the LME warehouse and so I really think I don't I don't see the days coming back and that you refer to and certainly for me it is now a well-regulated liquid metal which in my opinion is worth investing in I agree uh can you hear me yes yes we hear you all right we have to wrap up this fascinating discussion uh but I do want to make you just started yes that's right I want to make two points one for those of us who speak American English these gentlemen are speaking about solder they call it solder for some reason it's not now in it but solder is a word that may resonate with Americans they they've heard of it okay everyone's seen somebody solder a plumbing pipe okay the the point is this very simply the use of tin and solder is absolutely critical to our society because what you don't realize is that chips electronics things like that are switches they're merely telling relays to pass large amounts or stop passing large amounts of electricity for that to happen you need copper wire for copper wire to be connected to circuits you need solder and and so you don't see it but without it you you would we would not have any of these electronic toys that we we deem so critical to our society anyway I want to thank uh both of you and I'm hoping this will put tin on everybody's radar by the way radar wouldn't work without tin either so thank thank you thank you very much thank you very much