A short film that commissioned by ABCD (All Saints and Blakenhall Community Development) in Wolverhampton. It reflects some of the many groups that have been supported by the Community Chest Scheme. It combines a sequence of simple portraits of the area and each of the featured groups with the voice-over interviews that share why the community chest scheme worked.

Produced by Geoff Broadway and Brendan Jackson as part of Laundry.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Inspirational Futures

St Edmunds Catholic School, Wolverhampton September 2009

I worked with Performing Arts Teacher Sarah Cole at St Edmund’s to design a small project around inspiring the students to think about their future journeys. We developed a sound and image DVD that used a range of quotes and powerful imagery found on the web. The film was regularly screened throughout the school.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The project culminated in a mass-balloon launch where every student and staff member wrote their own dreams, aspirations and hopes and attached them to their balloon.

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Looking Forwards Alumwell Buisness and Enterprise College, Walsall November 2009

Click here to view the embedded video.

This project takes the familiar ‘diary room’ format as its starting point and aims to create a 9 screen video wall of moving portraits of many different pupils from across the Alumwell Business and Enterprise College. Each participating pupil is asked to sit for a simple portrait recording and then invited to discuss on camera their aspirations for the future, to reflect on school life, and consider their own sense of community.

To engage with this project was a real challenge for the 70 pupils who took part. To sit in front a large video camera under the full glare of studio lights and answer questions from a stranger is very difficult indeed, especially as there was little time for them to prepare their responses, and no time for any coaching, training or rehearsal. Our young people today are very image conscious and their sense of of identity and self-confidence is very much in flux. That so many were willing to take part in this project and allow their images to be shown to their peers demonstrates a large degree of trust and a willingness to risk what others may think of them.

The result is a collection of powerful and diverse portraits of pupils who share aspects of themselves, both through their words and simply sitting facing the camera. The Alumwell Video Portraits project is presented as a projection screen divided into a matrix of nine video images which randomly plays and fades each moving image. The project is computer controlled so the image sequence continually changes, never playing the same sequence twice.

Portrait of a Nation’s finale in Liverpool 1st-2nd December 2008

The Portrait of a Nation finale was the culmination of a two-year journey which challenged more than 3,000 young people from 17 cities across the UK to explore who they are, where they come from and their hopes for the future as young British adults. It was organised by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Liverpool Culture Company, as part of the European City of Culture celebrations.

Conversation, debate and creative exchange has underpinned the year long programme of Portrait of a Nation projects in 17 UK cities. Over 3000 young people have engaged in explorations of roots, heritage, identity and culture themes through more than 50 individual projects representing a wide range of creative processes and artistic engagement practise. These projects have resulted in performances, films, soundscapes, music, creative writing, banners, visual and street art and giant processional puppets.

Over 3 days in December over 300 young people from across the UK converged in Liverpool to meet, showcase their projects, and celebrate their many achievements. The historic St Georges Hall in the heart of Liverpool was transformed into a vibrant hub of activity as young people from the 17 cities shared their many projects to participants and members of the public. You can read more about Portrait of a Nation here.

I worked with Creative Director Orit Azaz and the Liverpool Culture Company to devise and deliver 10 simultaneously run creative workshops that would dynamically explore the themes, questions and issues raised by young people over the course of the 2 year initiative. Facilitated by a diverse range of artists and practitioners the workshops used

very different art forms that including drama, poetry, documentary, and comedy, to explore ideas and perspectives in imaginative and challenging ways. The Creative Convesation took place during the 2nd day of the finale in St Georges Hall, Liverpool.

In the Autumn of 2007 I worked with eight residents of Inverness Prison on a series of creative projects. Focusing upon abstract expression and photo montage, the group produced 25 pieces that were exhibited at Old High Church Hall, Inverness in November 2007.

Using simple methods that included paper-cutting, collage and line-drawing, I invited participants to reflect upon the most important aspects of their own lives and try to express these visually.

The diverse images developed out of an intensive period of six sessions that encourage expression of deeper aspects of life through more abstract forms of expression.The playful and vibrant artwork reflects their willingness and enthusiasm to engage in a challenging and ultimately enjoyable process.

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01 March – 30 June 2007

At the end of February 2007, a group from Kingsland Primary visited the Richard Deacon exhibition at Ikon Gallery. They spent a day with artists Geoff Broadway and Jo Russell Lacy, exploring Deacon’s drawings and sculptures at Ikon before returning to school to continue the project.

Over the following 6 weeks, the pupils worked with Geoff and Jo, experimenting with different creative techniques, quickly producing drawings, prints, sculptures, models and collages. Each week, the aim was to experiment rather than to ‘finish’ or ‘complete’ a piece of work and in this way, pupils developed a real understanding of the way in which Deacon plays with materials and ideas. The project finished with a walk during which the pupils collected objects that interested them, something that Deacon himself often does.

Following their time in school, Geoff and Jo used the pupils’ explorations as the catalyst for new works. Geoff encased prints made by the pupils in resin, referencing Deacon’s brightly coloured resin bricks, set into the pavement outside Ikon. Jo used some of the plants collected by the pupils on their walk to produce her own prints, creating an embossed, textured surface.

This project was funded by Birmingham City Council’s Art Education Award scheme and kindly supported by the Erdington Town Centre Partnership.

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MyGrations was a year-long programme supported by SAMPAD and Creative Partnerships and linked a range of participating schools to involve both students and their families in an exploration of memories, origins and backgrounds.

I worked with Mayfield Special School in Handsworth, Birmingham. We started by using photography to explore self-portraiture, and then moved on to documenting home and family life using disposable cameras. After creating a celebratory slideshow that we set to music we decided that we wanted to make some kind of exhibition using the photographs we had made. We printed 40 photographs onto A3 fabric and then constructed light-shades out of the material with the aim of making the installation that can be seen in the images below.

The larger Mygrations project culminated in an event at the Drum in July 2006, and featured exhibitions of photographs, film, live performance, light installations and spoken word, that were created other workshops led by Basil Gabbidon, Jag Kumar, Ashok Mistry, Katrice Horseley, Dilwara Begum and Pritpal Rai, with additional input from Moving Hands Theatre.

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