Category: News

Needing a boost? So many people are quite understandably feeling frustration, anger and pessimism in the middle of lockdown. This may be a welcome antidote….

Before lockdown I was privileged to take some photos for In Her Shoes. They are a dynamic and extremely talented team of women with a passion for raising up women through the medium of music.

We work with women and girls to share and celebrate our commonalities and differences through participation in music and wellbeing activities.

In Her SHOES

‘What Community Means to Me’ event brought together women who have seen the darkest of days – be it through homelessness, living in conflict zones or their experiences as refugees. They performed songs written by members of the group during a series of workshops with women linked to ASIRT, Refugee Action West Midlands, The Malachi Trust, George Dixon School, St George’s School in Ladywood, Amal Women’s Group and The Choir with No Name.

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When we lift one another up and focus on glimmers of hope we create communities of care and support. More than once during lockdown I’ve thought about, and drawn on, the strength of these remarkable women.

Katy Bennett from In Her Shoes has put together this film using photos I took at the event and one of the many uplifting songs performed on the day.

A few weeks ago we premiered ‘Jess’ Journey’, a film I created with women at Elysium Healthcare‘s Arbury Court and Geese Theatre Company.

I laughed so much over the course of the project, shared in the participants’ journeys and I’ve come away with even more determination to make Participatory Arts the force it can be.

I’m emerging from a really beautiful space that was co-created by patients, hospital staff and some highly skilled, talented and experienced facilitators from Geese. A space of trust, care, respect, joy, experimentation, learning and so much more. It’s potent and important.

The project came shortly after a wonderful ‘Gathering’ with ArtWorks Alliance at the Liverpool Philharmonic. I recently joined themas an Associate, and it’s been wonderful to finally find my ‘people’.

We are a group of organisations and individuals with a passion for participatory arts and an understanding that working together to strengthen support for those working in the field will bring benefits for everyone involved.

ArtWorks Alliance mission statement

The Gathering was a welcome space to think about the ingredients needed to make my own practice as participatory and inclusive as it can be. It’s an ongoing journey of learning, experimentation and reflection. It involves making the case for working in a particular way, some risk taking and seeking out opportunities to work collaboratively.

I was also able to combine my trip to the North West with a visit to the People’s History Museum in Manchester. As well as taking in the stories of ‘ideas worth fighting for’ over the past three centuries, I was able to reflect on how the exhibitions had been curated. This will feed into the next phase of the ‘Represent’ project which I am managing. The team will be developing a pop-up, interactive exhibition of our research and artwork created by two community groups with Artists Carolyn Morton and Jo Löki – we’re brimming with ideas!

Next month I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts at an ArtsConnect WM Pecha Kucha event. More reflections and some musings on some recent reading will follow soon as I develop my presentation…

I’ve been having so much fun with the Represent project for The People’s Heritage Co-operative, I’ve not had opportunity to share what I’ve been up to! Represent is a National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Active Wellbeing Society supported project, exploring the impact of gaining the vote on the lives of Birmingham’s people.

Represent is a project with a real focus on reflective practice and co-learning. As well as delving into some really fascinating areas of history, we are curious as to how we can work together with participants to develop a high quality community heritage project which has relevance to us as actors in the world today. As such we have been keeping a Journal to share our thinking and track the development of our project. Here are a selection of entries which explore some of the different aspects of our work and our learning….

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We have been exploring the early years of women gaining the vote with Saheli Hub‘s Handsworth group. Screening the wonderful Fight for the Right film, produced by Sima Gonsai really helped set the scene and fuelled some great discussions about voting today:

Using the vote

Archival research has been a really important part of our project – we’re passionate about opening up the space to new audiences. We’ve had great fun taking groups to Birmingham Archives – nothing really beats seeing these materials up close:

Inside the Golden Box

We’re firm believers that connecting with heritage is good for us. So we’ve been working with The Active Wellbeing Society putting it to the test using #5StepstoWellbeing as a framework for our sessions: 

Take 5

Do take a look at the Represent website to discover more about the history of the period, the archives we have uncovered and our plans for the next part of the project. You can also keep up to date with the work of the People’s Heritage Co-operative through subscribing to our occasional Mailing List.

As Secretary of the People’s Heritage Co-operative I’m really keen to look at how we can develop the ‘community heritage’ sector to move beyond what are often short term, siloed projects into something which is more collaborative, sustainable and ambitious. We recently held a ‘Heritage Meet’ with members and other heritage professionals to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities as we see them. Here is the text of a blogpost I recently wrote for the People’s Heritage Co-operative – I would really welcome any thoughts you have after reading!

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We’re a slightly obsessive bunch, those of us with an interest in heritage. Excited by old photos, eager to decipher old maps, poring over minutes from long forgotten meetings, probing people for their memories – audio recorder in hand… what motivates us to keep digging?

Last month, members of PHC gathered together with friends and colleagues for a ‘Heritage Meet’. It was an opportunity to explore the challenges and opportunities of working in community heritage. To find common ground and to find ways to collaborate and support one another.

We had a wide ranging and fruitful discussion thanks to everyone’s generous contributions. We discussed ‘lost projects’ – bodies of work from past projects disappearing; bringing work to parts of Birmingham which are overlooked in heritage work; how to explore challenging or contentious histories as well as some of the finer details of applying for funding and managing community heritage projects.

What pulled everything together was our driving ambition to explore the relevance of heritage to understanding and acting in our world today.

Matt Hinks and Richard Holmes from Big Brum Theatre spoke about their National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project, ‘The Threshold of Home: 1918’. It delves deep into the realities of working class life in Birmingham from 1914-19 and asks children to reflect on the impact of living through periods of social and political change – both for those on the frontline of change, and its resonance through the generations. It’s a child led project, using historical fiction as a stimulus for enquiry about what it means to be a citizen and a human. People’s Heritage Co-operative will be supporting the project through contributing research and co-delivering workshops.

Joe Peacock from CASBA has been working with adults and children with a learning disability to explore the history of Special Education in Birmingham – and goodness don’t we need to hear those voices when SEND provision is being cut to the bone as a result of school funding cuts? Education is Special brings together current and former pupils at the schools to record their experiences of what it’s like to go to a special school, interviewing teachers and parents and highlighting changes in legislation.

Up until the end of the 1960s, if a child was assessed to have an IQ of under 50, their family could receive a devastating letter from the Local Education Authority. This would state that they were officially classified as ‘ineducable’, and had no entitlement to a state education.

Irene de Boos is working on the James Watt 2019 Bicentennial programme, ‘Watt in the World’. As well as highlighting his many achievements in the fields of Science and Engineering, the project also explores the legacy of his work and his thinking. You can head along to the project’s exhibition at the Library of Birmingham from now until 2nd November this year.

Irene is also co-ordinating activities during Birmingham Heritage Week which runs from 12th-22nd September. With the tagline ‘Your Stories. Your Heritage. Your City.’ it is less about being a spectator to History as giving people opportunities to connect with their own Heritage. Keep your eyes peeled for some events that we will be hosting ourselves!

Our colleague Moya Lloyd shared some of her experience on a variety of Arts and Heritage projects. She has been supporting our ‘Represent‘ project through observing sessions and helping us to evaluate our work.

We also heard from Josh Allen, a freelance Heritage practitioner, researcher and journalist, Rachel MacGregor, Chair of the Friends of Birmingham Archives and Heritage and Paul Long from the Birmingham Centre for Cultural and Media Research, all of whom are involved in devising, developing and promoting community heritage projects.

What pulls all of this together is what Richard referred to as our desire to ‘create civic space’. Through exploring history we can create the space for important conversations which are informed by the past. It is a learning and reflective process and increasingly important given the extent to which public space and public discourse has become dominated by private and corporate interests. Sometimes it involves physically occupying and reclaiming a space for civic purposes, even if it is for a small period. Often it is about interrupting and challenging other discourse.

The fact that we hosted the event in The Warehouse was particularly apt. Last year PHC members were involved in helping to tell the story of the building through the ‘Birmingham Friends of the Earth, Then and Now: 40 Years at the Warehouse’ project. Developed by Friends of the Earth and other like-minded groups over the past 40 years as a space where people can come to debate, learn and act on important issues relating to environmental and social justice, it is in itself an important space for promoting civic space and discourse as we navigate the many challenges of our age.

We are eager to take these discussions forward – to look at creating opportunities for us to engage people meaningfully with the past and present, to find ways to collaborate and learn from one another and to negotiate the many challenges of making high quality projects happen.

So here is an invitation...

As we develop ideas for our next ‘Heritage Meet’, we want to know what would be useful in taking our networking forward. You may want more opportunities to learn about other projects locally; it could be practical support with applying for funding, managing or evaluating a project; a skillshare session or a chance to hear from someone whose work you are interested in. Or perhaps you have skills, approaches and ideas that you would like to share with others? How do we develop and nurture a community of practitioners and what support should be out there?

Please send through your ideas and reflections to rachel@peoplesheritagecoop.uk. We will be taking forward your ideas to create an itinerary for the next ‘Heritage Meet’ this coming Autumn.

To keep up to date with our plans and current projects, don’t forget to sign up to our occasional mailing list: http://peoplesheritagecoop.uk/join-our-mailing-list/.

“In all our public appearances, the message to victims is to break the silence and speak out, publicly and loudly about what they survived. Not just for us, but for themselves and for future generations to know, if, god forbid, such evil happens again, how to stand up to it, how to fight for their dignity.”

Bakira Hasečić – Bosnian Women’s Activist and Rape Survivor

In 1995, at the height of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serb Nationalist forces conducted a campaign of rape, sexual abuse and torture against Bosnian Muslim women as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing.  It is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped, many of them in ‘rape camps’ where they were forcibly detained to prevent them terminating unwanted pregnancies as a result of the attacks.

The genocidal campaign also resulted in the deaths of more than 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica and the surrounding forests.  Some men and boys managed to find their way home years later from internment camps and centres in neighbouring countries, others will never be found, so we will never know the true number of victims.

How does a society even begin to process such brutality?  How can the survivors begin to rebuild their lives as single parents in a war savaged society?  How can we find the language to speak of these atrocities to ensure that they are never repeated?  When I started film making, it was to try and redress the balance in media – to amplify voices of people who are rarely heard.  In places of conflict, the need to hear other narratives is even more important, to foster understanding between people and create conditions for peace and reconciliation.

It has therefore been a privilege and a challenge to play a part in sharing the testimonies of survivors of genocidal rape for Remembering Srebrenica.  The Charity is encouraging the public to ‘Break the Silence’ on violence against women and girls, and has used these powerful stories to highlight just how important it is to speak out against such extreme violence and hatred.

A Bosnian film crew interviewed a number of women, who recounted their horrendous experiences.  Unbelievably, many people deny that the genocide took place and many women live alongside the perpetrators of these crimes, who continue to walk freely.  Speaking out is a brave and radical act, which risks repercussions.

It has been my job to edit these interviews together into two films, alongside archive footage from the conflict.  The films are available to view on Remembering Srebrenica’s website and Social Media accounts – to date they have had almost 80,000 views between them.  The longer, seven minute film, was screened in May at the Scottish Parliament at a special event hosted by MSPs Ruth Davidson and Johann Lamont.  Scottish Labour Party leader, Kezia Dugdale has since been out to Bosnia to learn more.

Tomorrow I am attending a very special event at London’s Guildhall for Srebrenica Memorial Day.  In attendance will be some Bosnian women who have been active and vocal in ensuring that such atrocities are never repeated.  They have dedicated their lives to seeking justice in their communities and in the courts.  Politicians from across the political spectrum will also be there and will watch the film.

We all have a role to play in challenging the bigotry, intolerance and hatred which create the conditions for these horrors to occur.  That such events happened so recently and so close to home should act as a warning to us all that dehumanising groups of people and creating a climate of fear and paranoia can have real and devastating consequences.

Both films contain graphic accounts of sexual violence.

On Thursday I will be representing the People’s Heritage Co-operative at Arts Connect’s Artist and Teachers Tea Party.  It’s an chance for teachers to explore opportunities for commissioning creative projects in schools which can enhance the school curriculum.  I’ve blogged about some of the projects I’ll be showcasing over on the People’s Heritage Co-operative blog, including giving a sneak peek of the Women’s History Birmingham project pictured above (more on that soon!).

If you are in any doubt as to how important the arts are to education then it’s well worth 20 minutes of your time to watch Ken Robinson’s TED talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity?  In his talk he outlines the importance of encouraging young people to access creative learning opportunities.

If you are a teacher and are interested then book online.  The event runs from 3:00pm-5:30pm at mac Birmingham.  Come and say hi – there will be cake aplenty!