Creative Progression
[Newcastle] 2009 onwards
A Newcastle City Council's Working Neighbourhood's funded project for homeless (or at risk of homelessness) adults across the City with chronic mental health problems. Working in partnership with Crisis Skylight, Tyneside Cyrenians, Newcastle Anti-Social Behaviour Co-ordination Unit and Newcastle Mental Health, we have developed a two-year programme of high quality and flexible creative activities that allow people to explore what progression means to them and to help them to take some steps along their journey.
The core aims are to:
- enable homeless adults explore what progression means for them in a creative way, providing a safe environment that will allow them to challenge and disrupt limiting personal and collective identities;
- engage homeless adults who might otherwise be wary of getting involved in learning or training due to previous poor experiences or lack of confidence;
- help participants develop new skills and interests;
- assist participants to progress onto further creative activity by enabling them to produce individual portfolios of work.
The first phase of this programme consisted of two strands of activity: Emily Barber delivered a series of workshops in documentary filmmaking, and Bob Beagrie and Andy Willoughby led a series of workshops in creative writing.
The filmmaking activity produced a series of short films that were screened at Tyneside Cinema, with participants so inspired that they are now in the process of setting up their own film club.
The creative writing workshops produced a series of powerful pieces, brought together in an anthology entitled The Hidden City that was launched at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. Several of the pieces of writing have also been selected for publication in The Big Issue.
During 2010, the creative writing group created a drama piece, The Great North Rnu (pronounced renew), that weaves together the stories of several characters in the hours leading up to the Great North Run. The play was performed to a live audience by participants and support workers in the Learning Space at Theatre Royal in September 2010.
We have made a resource pack, including writing activities and the script of The Great North Rnu, available in the Archive Section of this website.
Meanwhile, the documentary filmmaking group undertook a series of filmed interviews with local people in the region to create an interesting and funny film called The Mobile Phone.
The film premiered at Crisis Skylight Newcastle at the end of March 2011.
Between October 2010 and March 2011, participants worked with Dan Civico and Sarah Blood to create 3D designs and creations in glass, exhibited at Crisis Skylight Newcastle during April 2011.
The next strand of activity runs from the Autumn of 2011.
