Performing Local Places

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Performing Local Places
Reframing a local passing place as a party site, Performing Local Places, Camden, 2016

Performing Local Places

A Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement grant was awarded to Professor Sally Mackey by the AHRC for 1st April 2016 – 31st March 2017.

With its focus on expanding impact and engagement from a previous research grant, Performing Local Places used arts practices to improve the living environments of two sets of people in two geographical areas of need in UK: Camden (London) and Oldham (Greater Manchester). Findings from these projects were disseminated and publicised to all local authorities in the UK, promoting a new mode of service delivery for enhancing health and wellbeing in complex living environments.

Project participants were within the oversight and services of local authorities: councils helped to broker the activity within their provider frameworks. The arts practices comprised a cultural product called ‘Performing Place’ which has been developed and tested in previous practical research projects with vulnerable groups affiliated with, and engaged via, arts organisations. Building on that project, in this new development we consulted on priority areas within local councils who identified a future need for such work. Two practical projects were planned, one in Camden and one in Oldham, working between Arts leaders and other departments, Mental Health in Camden and Stronger Communities in Oldham. Both the planning and delivery period included working with local council representatives, key workers and leading artist/facilitator practitioners with the new end users.

Please see www.performingplaces.org/local.html for the outcomes from this project presented in a final document, two external evaluations and a film from the following symposia.

Symposia with Oldham and Camden Councils

Concluding the grant, two symposia were held, one in London and one in Oldham on the 1st and 7th March 2017 respectively.

An invitation-only guest list comprised mainly council managers from Greater London and Greater Manchester boroughs.  Advocating the work, the final report was launched:  http://www.performingplaces.org/docs/ppbrochure.pdf

Camden Event

Camden event invitation

Oldham Event

Oldham event invitation

Award nomination

In January 2017, Professor Sally Mackey’s research project with Oldham Borough Council was shortlisted for a Hearts for the Arts Award for Best Local Authority Arts Project.

Project Funders

Read more about the project

Performing Places: Working with Local Councils to reach new communities and facilitate wellbeing in living environments

RC Grant reference: AH/N007816/1
Grant holder: Professor Sally Mackey

In Camden we worked in one Council-owned area of the Supported Living Programme, St Mungo’s Hostel, Adamson Road, in buildings that house those with need of ‘stepping stone’ support to live more independently and whose cultural engagement was at the lower end of the spectrum within the Borough (which is an indicator of health and wellbeing). We ran 17 weekly sessions in the summer and autumn of 2016 based in the residency and on the surrounding streets, engaging adults with their current and potential ‘place’.

In Oldham, we worked in the ward of Clarksfield with long-term residents and comparatively newly arrived Roma residents, assuaging disharmonies arising from different cultural understandings within the same local community. This work followed a different model of Performing Place practice - a week’s intensive engagement rather than weekly workshops (as in Camden) - and took place over a week in September 2016. The project comprised workshops in schools and community venues, street performance work and a final festival around one central narrative.

In the planning and delivery of the projects, we worked with specialist lead facilitators following and adapting models used in the previous project, ‘Challenging concepts of “liquid” place through performing practices in community contexts’, 2011-2014 (Challenging Place). Such activities included a range of improvisation and performance-related activities, shaped from everyday operations and behaviours. None of the participants were performers; the activities were non-threatening, accessible and shaped to raise levels of cultural engagement where there may have been existing barriers. This is an important part of all the Performing Place work, that it can be accessed by participants without particular skill or experience in performance. (See an example.)

The impact and engagement of these two follow-on projects were formally documented in line with local authority reporting and disseminated via web pages, two symposia and a 40-page document (with executive summary). This document was sent to the 400+ local authorities in the UK to promote assimilation for use in other priority areas. As identified above, two symposia took place in London and Oldham with representatives from all nearby local authority councils invited, as well as nationally. From the symposia and document, the Performing Place model was then taken up by the London Borough of Bexley. Performing Places Bexley followed, 2017-2020.