Co-Creating Change Festival 2021

22–26 Nov • In-person and online • Pay what you can

Explore radical new ways of working together that the world urgently needs.

Five days of workshops, case studies, seminars and live performance. Some talk, lots of action.

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Information

The in-person events will take place at Battersea Arts Centre in London on Tues 23 and Weds 24 Nov. (120 places only).

Online-only sessions will take place on Airmeet on Mon 21, Thu 25 and Fri 26 Nov.

ALL the sessions (online or in-person) will be live-streamed.

You can book an in-person ticket or an online pass. Whichever kind of ticket you book, you’ll get access to ALL the online sessions. You can watch these live or whenever suits you.

All tickets are Pay What You Can (recommended price £25)

SEE / SHARE / CELEBRATE / LEARN

We’re bringing together examples from around the world of new ways to collaborate, commission and create – ways that work towards more just and equitable futures.

Join us for 5 days of workshops, case studies, seminars and live performance. Get big picture inspiration and a deep dive into the details. Some talk, lots of action.

Jump to: about the event • full schedule • how to join

 

Photo by Lisa Whiting

We have bursary tickets to include support for the week-long festival and support for people wishing to attend for individual days.

The bursary amounts available are:

  • 20 tickets per day @ £200 per person to support individuals attending the live festival days.
  • 20 places per day @£75 per person to support individuals attending the digital days and events.

To apply for a bursary, please contact tombevan@bac.org.uk for more information. It is really important to us that the festival is accessible to all and that finances are no barrier. Please do contact us to discuss your access needs and ensure that we can support you well.

We have some financial support for childcare costs; please contact us to find out how to apply.

The Co-Creating Change Festival is a 5 day event, inviting anyone involved in the arts to come together, share expertise and explore vital questions: about how we might challenge and change the broken systems in which we find ourselves.

What does co-creative arts practice look like in the context of a world underpinned by exploitative economic systems, often rooted in white supremacy and oppressive, imperialistic capitalism?

Join an international gathering of artists, companies, funders, commissioners and practitioners to seek, together, new ways of working, different models, that we urgently need to shift broken power dynamics.

We want this to be a conversation that acknowledges the global context in which we find ourselves: from the pandemic, to the war on terror, hostile border control to climate change, we are trying to live/ thrive/ work/ survive under some trying circumstances.

And yet we resist through our everyday lives, through joyful interactions and sparks that centre our humanity. We believe co-creative arts projects that give space to these moments and allow space for rest and resistance are vital.

So how do we do this work, how can we learn from each-other and how do we share resources and power more equitably?

This conference is organised by the Co-Creating Change Network at Battersea Arts Centre. The Co-Creating Change Network is generously supported by Arts Council England, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Browse the calendar to find the sessions you’re most interested in. One pass gets you access to every event, online and on-demand.

 

Click on any session title to expand and see the full details.

PRINT OUT SCHEDULE

 

MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER • CO-CREATION AND INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE • ONLINE

10am-10.30am – Welcome
Fozia Ismail (Dhaqan Collective) and Dr Sara Salem (Assistant Professor of Sociology, LSE)
10.30am-11.30am – Thimali Kodikara x Louis VI: Climate Emergency and Colonialism
A conversation between Thimali Kodikara, co-host of the podcast Mothers Of Invention which highlights feminist solutions to the climate crisis, and rapper and activist Louis VI.
11.45am-12.45pm – Create Syria: A Space to Explore Arts and Social Change
Ettijahat-Independent Culture and The Change Collective. An opportunity to share our experience in the quest to alleviate pressures on artists and cultural practitioners through the work on Create Syria, by continuously exploring new and peculiar approaches to dealing with arts in communities.
1.30pm-2.30pm – Co-Creative Practice in South Africa and Wider Diaspora
Zana Masombuka and Joy Gregory on the role of plants in our survival, nature as a starting point for co-creative projects and decolonial practices in the arts.
2.40pm-4pm – Co-Creative Practice in Argentina and South America
An interactive workshop led by Inés Sanguinetti and Romina Sosa, using the body to explore co-creative design, the arts in education and health and how to co-create with tensions of people with different power in the space.
4.15pm-4.45pm – closing comments
Fozia Ismail Spicer.

 

TUESDAY 23 NOVEMBER • LIVE AT BAC • IN-PERSON

12pm-12.30pm – Arrive
Arrive, have a hot drink, find a seat, go to the loo, meet old and new colleagues and settle into the beautiful grand hall.
12.30pm-1.15pm – Lunch
The live events at Battersea Arts Centre will include teas and coffees and a vegan, gluten free lunch for all attendees.
1.30pm-1.40pm – Co-Creation: If Not Now, When? If Not Us, Who?
A global perspective of co-creation in a world of exploitative economic systems, often rooted in white supremacy and capitalism. Co-curated with Fozia Ismail Spicer, David Price and Lora Kosteva.
1.40pm-2pm – We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For
David Price OBE talks about his best-selling book ‘The Power of Us’. What can we learn about co-creation from the pandemic when trust in our institutions is at an all-time low? Can we trust in our ‘mass ingenuity’?
2pm-2.15pm – When Needs Must
Co-creation in a crisis. Led by Arts in Homelessness International.
2.15pm-3.15pm – Response
Questions to the speakers, followed by group workshops
3.30pm-5.30pm – Co-Creating Theatre and Place-Making. Can you Tour Co-Created Theatre?
Join Darren Pritchard creator of Rent Party and members of the Moving Roots network to discuss co-created theatre and how it can tour.
6pm-6.30pm – Tour
Tour of Battersea Arts Centre
6.30pm-7.30pm – Hot Dinner Dates
Find someone to chat with, share an idea, discuss the day and eat a delicious hot meal. Dating is not mandatory and some tables will be hosted by artists and co-creators.
8pm – ‘Rent Party’ – Live Show 
Moving Roots Touring Network presents the five star production of Rent Party: coming to our Grand Hall for one more radically entertaining night only. Rent Party  has been co-created by an extraordinary group of artists from Peterborough with writers and creators from Manchester’s House of Ghetto; Darren Pritchard and Stewart Bowdon.

 

WEDNESDAY 24 NOVEMBER • LIVE AT BAC • IN-PERSON

10am-10.30am – Arrive
Arrive, have a hot drink, find a seat, go to the loo, meet old and new colleagues and settle into the beautiful grand hall.
10.30am-1pm – Can We Change the Rules?
A case study of Union Chapel’s Creative Community Leader training programme, featuring performance and interactive discussion. Community Leaders, Katy Rubin and Union Chapel CEO Michael Chandler will share impact so far and hopes for the future.
1-1.45pm – Lunch
The live events at Battersea Arts Centre will include teas and coffees and a vegan, gluten free lunch for all attendees.
1.45pm-3pm – How Do We Grow and Replicate Our Work?
In December 2020, five very different projects were selected to be supported by the Co-Creating Change Network to explore the possibility of growing and/or replicating their methodology and approach to co-creation. This event will share the learning of these commissions and will be led by the Young Foundation.
3.15pm-4.30pm – Co-Creation and Young People
An interactive session led by The Agency and the BAC Beatbox Academy exploring how co-creation underpins their working with young people. Plus keynote speech from Rt Hon Marsha De Cordova MP considering the role that co-creation could play in politics.
4pm-4.30pm – Final Questions
Wrap-up on the day’s discussions.

 

THURSDAY 25 NOVEMBER • REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES • ONLINE

10am-12pm – Who Pays?
Hear from sector support organisation Create Gloucestershire and the NHS about their work with third sector organisations, artists and community members. A chance to look at how partnerships can function and the practicalities of setting up a co-created commission.
10am-11am – Co-Creation and Ethics
Run by Kerry Morrison.
12pm-1pm – Co-Creation and Hijinx
Hosted by one of Europe’s leading inclusive theatre companies.
12pm-2pm – Co-Creating Cultural Programmes
Arts, community or cultural organisations and funders across the country are looking to increase engagement in their programmes from local communities and diverse audiences. Strike A Light and Manchester International Festival take you through case studies of using co-created models to create a cultural programme together with your community.
2.30pm-3.30pm – Co-Creation with Children
What might it look like to give greater creative power to children? This event is about making with children, particularly with girls. What does co-creation with children look like in practice?
4-5pm – Judah Armani

InHouse Records is a different kind of record label: it operates in and out of UK prisons with a remit of reducing the re-offending rate by operating as a fully functioning record label. Since launching in 2017 InHouse has a re-offending rate of less than 1%.An example of Co-Creation, come to hear InHouse Records founder and graduates from the programme talk about how co-creation evolved, some of the principles for co-creation in challenging circumstances and first hand experience of what that journey has been like, both in prison and since being released.

 

FRIDAY 26 NOVEMBER • SHOWCASE AND CELEBRATION • ONLINE

10.30am-11.30am – Creativity Works
An interactive workshop based around co-creation and adults living with poor mental health. Creativity Works will share how they have worked in a co-created way and the impact that has had for these individual adults.
12pm-1pm – SheSpoke
Join Halima Malek, creator of She Spoke, to explore how she co-created a safe space for women from different cultural backgrounds and faiths, why she’s continuing to work both online and in person, and how this poetry and textiles project developed into something much bigger.
12.30pm-1.30pm – International Commissions
A case study from Doorstep Arts on their partnership with John Namai, a Nairobi-based artist working predominantly with children and young people as a participatory story teller.
2pm-5pm – A Deep Dive on Evaluation

Workshops and sessions from the micro to macro level, looking at practical learnings about how to evaluate complex projects.Hosted by Susanne Burns, Independent Consultant and Evaluator of Co-Creating Change Network and Andy Curtis, Research and Evaluation Manager, Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

The in-person events will take place at Battersea Arts Centre in London on Tues 23 and Weds 24 November. (120 places only).

The online-only seminars will take place on Airmeet on Mon 21, Thu 25 and Fri 26 November.

ALL the sessions (online or in-person) will be live-streamed.

You can book an in-person ticket or an online pass. Whichever kind of ticket you book, you’ll get access to ALL the online sessions. You can watch these live or whenever suits you.

 

AIRMEET: HOW TO ACCESS

AIRMEET VISUAL GUIDE 

 

BATTERSEA ARTS CENTRE: VISUAL GUIDE

INFORMATION ON SAFE SPACE 

Visit our ACCESS PAGE  

All tickets are Pay What You Can.

» BOOK NOW

We want our shows to be as accessible to as many people as possible.

We offer tickets to most shows on a Pay What You Can basis throughout the year.

Tickets for performances in 2025 start at £9.50, and we have recommended pricing to help you choose a price that works for you.

We know that ticket price is a huge barrier for some. If you can afford to pay the recommended price or more, choosing to do so supports those that can’t. It makes it possible for us to continue to offer Pay What You Can and welcome those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.

Pay What You Can Logo: Black Text on White Backdrop
FIND OUT MORE

This event takes place online. 

You will receive an email from us before your event detailing important information about accessing the events.

All events will be Relaxed. We invite you to make yourself comfortable and move around if you need to. You can adjust the brightness and volume of your device at any time.

If you need to take a break, we recommend moving away from your device to do so.

All digital events will be captioned.

Further Information

Visit our ACCESS PAGE  

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