GEM North East presents:

Diversity is crucial to the arts and culture to enable us to release our nation’s true potential of artistic and cultural talent.

During this session you will hear from cultural practitioners who are involved in projects which have created unique opportunities for artistic and cultural collaborations from a range on underrepresented audiences.

Confirmed speakers include Sharan Dhanda from Beatfreeks, Ruth Sheldon from the Pea Green Boat Project and Debbie Connell and Kylie Lloyd representing GALA & BATH Engage programme.

This session has been designed for arts and cultural professionals interested in innovative ways to diversify existing audiences.

GEM members – free

Learning Arc members – free

Non members – £10

Speaker Information

Sharan Dhanda, Producer of Don’t Settle, will share practices of working with young people of colour for different outcomes, changing working practice/methods with purpose, facilitation of Don’t Settle workshops, and the results that all of this can have. She will talk specifically about events based work and you will have the opportunity to participate in some of those co-design activities.

Don’t Settle is a three-year Beatfreeks project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund which empowers young people of colour aged 16-25 in the region to change the voice of heritage through arts, governance and research. We deliver this project in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust, Chance Heritage Trust, Roundhouse Birmingham and Birmingham City University.
Our project centres codesign with young people in order to give them ownership and autonomy of the project – but how do you ensure you are truly achieving that? There can often be a fine line between codesign and consulting, so which measures can be taken (both practical and metaphorical) to make exchanges with young people valuable?

Debbie Connell: Community Culture Development Coordinator (South & West Durham) and BATH Gallery Curator and Kylie Lloyd: Community and Visual Arts Manager.

Debbie will be presenting about the response to their exhibition Beyond No Man’s Land / In My Own World and the accompanying engagement programme. Kylie will then follow that up with an explanation of the GALA & BATH Engage programmes which is about the development of community engagement around programmed exhibitions, theatre and cultural activity at our venues (Gala Gallery is part of Gala Theatre & Cinema in Durham and BATH is Bishop Auckland Town Hall).