OUR STORY
During the pandemic, as the arts sector came grinding to a dramatic halt, community and locality became central to everyone’s existence. Most of became acutely aware of our surroundings, our neighbours, each one of us noticing that were part of a locale, of a community, of a street.
This was the setting in which the DISRUPT festival, was framed. Because while many of us felt more neighbourly closeness, the pandemic also intensified existing socio-economic inequalities, deprivation and isolation.
The arts sits within broken or breaking systems, acting as a microcosm for broader inequalities and inaction experienced by society. This plays out in various ways, sometimes through the hierarchical ways in which arts organisations engage with communities. How can we collectively ensure this work responds to community needs now, in an equitable, empowering and inclusive way?
DISRUPT is an antidote to some of these issues. It attempts to explore different ways of working with communities, centring lived experience, representation, and community voice.
When we worked on the DISRUPT festival, we endeavoured to structure the process as non-hierarchical, inviting challenge, critique, and a diversity of experiences. Our partners had equal decision-making powers and input; all applications for the festival programme were invited via an open call process; the commissions were selected by a panel of brilliant people independent of our partners, with the panel then selecting the successful commissions using their own sets of priorities; and finally our programme was constructed with, and by our commissioning partners.
We wanted to bring people together to explore the collaborations born from crisis, creativity and care, and to learn collectively about how we might change.
We’ve stopped talking, and instead we’re listening.
Coordinated by Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Barbican, in partnership with Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, Culture Mile, Lived Experience Network, Maya Productions, and Slung Low.
