Audiovisual Cultures – A Little Bit of Good special automated transcript

hello and welcome to this special co-production between audio visual cultures and monkfish productions i’m your host paula blair and i’m delighted to be joined by claire murphy morgan from monkfish hello claire hello hi paul it’s lovely to be here great to have you and kelly coats from the youth and community charity projects for change hello kelly hello paula great to have you as well kelly the mission at monkfish is to nurture artists through creative interventions in new and unusual spaces they work through the arts to collaborate with a wide range of communities and to support individuals to unlock their creative potential you can see more at

http://www.monkfishproductions.org projects for change addresses the needs voices and rights of young people working in partnership with others to create youth work projects that help young people develop and flourish into adulthood you can find more at

http://www.projects4change.org and both of those web addresses will be in the show notes wherever you’re accessing this recording we will hear more from kelly and about the collaboration between projects for change and monkfish shortly for now i’ll hand over to claire who’s going to tell us about monkfish’s current project a little bit of good in the world i am yes thank you very much so a little bit of good in the world is a project that asks us all how can creativity help us to do a little bit of good with what we have where we are and and it’s very much an arts and culture focused project because mungfish productions is an arts organization and it came out of um holocaust memorial day 2020 because one of the things that monkfish was kind of grappling with and we’re still grappling with is that at the moment in the world we’re currently living in a lot of people feel incredibly powerless and they feel that there’s not a lot that they can do but we were really inspired and by and the kind of the stories of of holocaust survivors and of the whole theme of holocaust memorial day 2020 which is standing together and it is very much about a a project that supports people to look at how we can stand together to support each other to make the world a better place for everybody and just by doing your small little good bit of good whether that’s you know saying good morning to your neighbor whether it’s doing something for a friend whether it’s just being kind to a stranger those little tiny bits of good add up into a big good and we felt that as monkfish we wanted to do something really creative around that so we worked with newcastle city councils holocaust memorial day program and the arts team at newcastle city council to facilitate a workshop about a little bit of good in the world and it was a theater drama based workshop which supported a lot of participants to explore what doing a little bit of good meant for them and it was it was an absolutely fascinating workshop pre-culvert 19 i have to say so the world is a very very different place to what it was on the 27th of january which is of course holocaust memorial day and so we were able to kind of get some ideas from that group and we were delighted to be able to work alongside projects for change because there was a project related to holocaust memorial day or connected to it called 75 memorial flames which marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of ausfitch berka now and it was asking community groups from across the uk to make their own memorial flame which could be included or uh featured in a national uh commemoration exhibition at the holocaust memorial national ceremony and so we were delighted to go down to london with some of the wonderful young people with projects for change and with the arts team at newcastle city council and and the project’s kind of grown and developed um since then and we’re working really closely with projects for change on the next sort of exciting little bit of good in the world journey and so that’s something that we’re really excited about so going forward we’re trying to sort of get a sense of what a little bit of good in the world means as a bigger project and it’s a new project it’s growing all the time but it’s emerging um in a really exciting phase at the moment and monkfish has come up with sort of four the four c’s if you like of a little bit of good in the world and i’d like to to share with you now what those four c’s are which kind of has come out of our work with projects for change and also the workshop that we ran on as as part of holocaust memorial day on the 27th of january um so i’ve got by magic a little power point here which i’d just like to to share with you all the main kind of focus of a little bit of good in the world the kind of the main sort of uh talisman if you like is this quote from the marvelous desmond tutu who um for those of you who may not know who desmond tutu is he’s a leading light in the campaign against apartheid in south africa and uh was archbishop in south africa for a long time and he um is very inspirational very committed to social justice and we felt uh that this quote just summed up beautifully what we wanted to do uh do your little bit of good where you are it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelmed the world and that kind of set us on the journey for a little bit of good in the world so the four c’s of a little bit of good in the world creativity obviously monkfish is an arts organization it’s what we do and we are really committed to how creativity and the arts can be a focus for doing good with where we are and and with what we’ve got and how kind of creativity can develop um a really exciting set of opportunities for people to work together but also how being creative and how taking part in arts and culture can’t help people to express how they’re feeling and to um share that really how to to kind of express and share that with with the world and we work in a variety of different arts contacts so this picture is from late shows in newcastle which is a free open to all uh cultural activity that happens every year and this was our music residency and it just allowed people to come through the door be creative make sound together and through make and sound create an interesting space so creativity can be at the heart of what we do and be at the heart of

communities the next c is connection so the other sort of aspect and focus of a little bit of good in the world is looking at how those creative bits of good connect with each other for lasting positive impact and how can artistic or create a creative activity help us to make those connections happen and we’re really delighted to be for example working with arts and projects around the city including projects for change which obviously we’ll talk a little bit about later on the third c is critical thinking and we think that this is really important part of a little bit of good in the world about how creativity and connecting with each other can help us to challenge bigotry polarization discrimination isolation misinformation there’s a lot of conspiracy theories flying around the internet at the moment for example how can being create us help us to ask some really interesting critical questions and support people to perhaps in interpret information or misinformation that’s put in front of them that keeps them apart from others and our final c is citizenship so if you’re thinking about creativity connecting with others developing your own critical thinking it allows us to be active citizens and thinking about our place in the world and how we can work together to affect that positive change for each other and how arts and creativity and culture can really sort of help us to do that so those are the kind of aspects that we think could support people to be active citizens and creativity and arts can absolutely be at the heart of that so going forward those are the kind of the things that we thought could really underpin a little bit of good in the world so it’s going to develop as a as a longer term project that monkfish will be sorting and facilitating and and co-leading with other arts and community organizations and with artists as well

thanks so much claire a little bit about a little bit of good in the world excellent thank you so much claire kelly can i bring you and i to tell us um a bit more about projects for change and uh to um maybe talk about the current project that you’re working on with monkfish as well okay thanks paula um well projects for change has been going um just two years now we’ve been running projects for a year and a half even though it feels like much longer um and projects of change came about really um due to a decline in youth provision nationally due to austerity um and we have this idea that you know every young person should be able to access youth provision on their doorstep you know they shouldn’t have to um step on a bus they shouldn’t have to go elsewhere it should be there and freely available um and since we got up and running with our first ever project which is called the changemaker volunteer project um a year and a half ago um it’s been absolutely non-stop and we’ve had lots of opportunities to really work quite closely with lots of different people um and working with the monkfish um arts has been wonderful our young people get a lot from working um around the arts um because they get to be engaged in questions you know questions that people don’t often ask them um and you get their unique perspective and that’s what working with claire kind of gives these young people a voice um and so the young many of the young people have met claire before during the 75 flames project and but now she’s come back and she’s that familiar face so the young people already know her they’ve spent some time with us some of them quite a lot of time when they visited london um but here she is and she’s asking the young people these these questions about their lives you know how’s lockdown been for you and how has it impacted you how has it changed your community um i mean two of our young people um from our polish have polish descent and so there’s a there’s a there’s you know there’s lots of different perspectives there you know one of our young people’s very who’s involved is very arty and she sees the world through that kind of lens um and they’re coming up with this amazing stuff and they’re all having very different experiences of lockdown and they’re coming up with this alternative view which isn’t a mainstream view it isn’t the view that’s pumped out through the media or any other place really it’s unique to them and i think that’s what’s really special about it that you know young people don’t often get asked those really important questions about um what is what does doing good mean to you um you know how has the current climate of what’s going on how has that affected your life how can you make a difference within this context and it’s been you know it’s been really uplifting to have this project after lockdown and help young people to um process processing come to terms with everything that’s gone on it’s been a real it’s been a real pleasure thank you so much kelly that’s brilliant that’s really encouraging to hear would either of you like to elaborate on anything because we’ve had some really lovely examples there of the music and the 75 flames do you have any other examples or things that you see that you that the two initiatives will come together to do in the future shall i talk a little bit callie about the res arts residency that’s literally about to come up any day now shall i talk about that um so we are literally in the very final few days of their of um of doing a call out for an artist in residence a visual artist to come and work with the young people and up at projects for change in the outer west of newcastle um which is a group two groups of young people have been meeting in a in a kind of a detached youth work setting in new bigon hall and also in calgary and um as kelly was saying i’ve visited with my monkfish hat on gone and visited the young people to talk about what’s really important to them and what kind of key issues and topics are really important to them as young people so for example nature reclaiming spaces and self-care friendship and connecting there’s a number of different um areas of life that are just so important to them so we i’ve done a call out and for visual artists an open call out for visual artists to come and and put forward some proposals for how they might work with uh the projects for change team of young people to make new visual art space work in response to the the brief that the young people have put forward which covered a lot of those themes and so the deadline for that is actually next week and we’re looking forward to seeing what artists out there have by the way of ideas which we can put in front of young people and and see what they would be potentially interested in working on as as a program of activity so and again it’s on the theme of doing good of of what it means to do good and and and also about supporting those young people as cali was touching on as active citizens as young people as people who really care about their local community so that’s kind of the next phase of of this project and and we’re hoping that it will be a long term um opportunity for us to do more exciting work with projects for change and in partnership and it’s been a huge privilege from my point of view to work with cali and the young people because i just think they’re amazing and i’m really looking forward to seeing what this artistic residency is going to bring

great thanks claire and kelly uh because you’re working directly with the young people and the communities involved are you finding at the moment that the activities might be helping even beyond the surface they might actually be helping with well-being and and you further ramifications such as that yeah i think claire claire touched on the idea of connection which is really important and we’ve kept in touch with a lot of our young people online but there’s a set there’s a section of our young people who don’t communicate well online and some of them don’t have internet access or the technology to connect with other people like that and so meeting them out and detached youth wig has been the ideal opportunity to just check in with them and make sure that they’re all right um but i think it can’t be underestimated the effect that lockdown’s had on young people um especially where young people have had their education interrupted at really sort of pivotal times and so you’re talking people who are about to take their gcses people who are mid-floor about to do their a levels people about to go to university um and actually there’s been a lot of um there’s been a lot of mental health sort of issues a lot of staying in their room you know a lot looking at the same four walls being confused about what day it is kind of losing all of their routines um and also being confused about um the messages that have been put out there as well about you know what they’re supposed to be doing um and i think that it’s gonna take up it’s gonna take a lot of effort from people in you know all sections of society to try and young people through that um and that’s our next step really and um doing work with the arts is another way of helping young people so art is um understood by a lot of people as being very healing and we’ve we’ve recently done a a mural with them a very small group of young people and i think for them that really benefited them and getting involved with moonfish art it’s going to be something else that they can focus on they can pull their attention into they can they can off they can bring themselves and their ideas to it um they can have some positive outcomes for themselves that’ll raise their self-esteem because it’s very easy when you haven’t got a structure within your day to kind of slip slip back into a lot of um self self dislike um you know feeling low that’s very that’s ordinary you know that in these circumstances that’s kind of a normal reaction to you know being isolated and spending a lot of time alone maybe a lot of too much time online and all of those things so i think anything that we can do to work with the young people to try and coax them out of that um isolation to try and include them and get them connected with the community is absolutely 100 the way to go i would say

i think it’s about supporting young people to to to have their voices heard as well and about trying to find accessible and creative ways to do that as well um it’s just something that is just so important as citizens of now and and adults of the future

it’s really important i think to bring that access to the arts to them as well because especially as you were mentioning kelly with their school being interrupted you how many of them have art supplies in their homes and all sorts of things you know and to be able to to bring something to them and to build up trust and to let them experiment with things and try out what well you don’t necessarily have to be good at some things that’s another sense of the word good as well it’s you don’t have to be the best at it or brilliant at it but you can enjoy it enjoy it for the love of it and um being part of a community being part of a group of people doing lots of things and you’re contributing so um there’s a lot to be said about that too

yeah either of you have anything else you would like to add to that i think just watch this space for a little bit of good in the world and and if you want to find out more about the project you can visit the monkfish website and we also have a a little bit of good in the world facebook page as well and is there any uh social media uh sort of uh accounts kelly where we can find out about projects for change as well yeah of course you can follow us on instagram it’s projects for change underscore uk or you can go to our facebook page which is projects space for space change um and also on twitter it’s hashtag um at ppc underscore uk excellent excellent thank you um brilliant so if that’s everything then we’ll wrap up thank you so much for having us yes thank you thank you paula and audio visual cultures thank you very much uh thank you both very much for joining us uh so this has been a joint production from audio visual cultures and monkfish productions funded by arts council england with me paula blair claire murphy morgan and kelly coates do check out monkfishproductions.org and projects4change.org to follow these fantastic initiatives and to see how you can get involved and what they’re up to be part of the conversation with av cultures pod on instagram and av cultures on facebook and twitter the music is common ground by airton used under creative commons 3.0 license thank you so much for joining us for this special collaborative co-production

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