As well as using creative methodologies as part of our research, we work with a wide range of partners and take part in festivals, conventions and a whole host of engagement activities. Here are a few examples.

Projects

Jackie Hodgson and Rachel Lewis' project Policing, Culture & Community, is a place-based interdisciplinary body of work that uses arts and performance-based methodologies to interrogate contemporary challenges around police-community engagement with seldom-heard communities. Partners are collaborators and also co-creators in many instances. Beginning in 2021, their research explores the potentials and challenges afforded by arts and culture in the context of a widespread crisis in police legitimacy and in light of the damaged relationships between police and some communities. During 2023 they worked closely with Coventry's Belgrade Theatre to commission a play, After Preston, performed in December 2023, drawing on themes from their research.

Rajnaara Chowdhury Akhtar's project When is a marriage not a Wedding has produced a number of outputs, including an animated video about the legal issues to consider when having a Nikah. Non-Legally Binding Weddings - Having a Nikah? Legal Things You Need to Think About.

Mary Griffin coordinates and develops the Centre for Human Rights in Practice’s innovative Writing Wrongs programme as well as runs the Centre’s online Lacuna Magazine, writing and editing for the magazine.

Ana Chamberlen, Roo Bernatek and Faye Claridge's project Captive Arts examines the role that the arts play in the lives and identities of serving and former prisoners in England. This incudes a range of events and forms of engagement, including an Aesthetics & Justice seminar series, co-organised with the Criminal Justice Centre and Centre for Critical Legal Studies. See their events page for upcoming seminars in 2025.

Engagement

Jackie Hodgson and Rachel Lewis took part in the 2023 Resonate Festival, taking their research to a local community of 40 police, councillors and arts practitioners for a webinar (followed by a Q&A session) Policing, culture & community: West Midlands Police as City of Culture partners Webinar

In February 2023 Jackie Hodgson and Rachel Lewis presented in one of the panel discussions as part of The UK Cities of Culture Project: Connecting place, culture, research and impact - stories from Coventry.

In December 2023, the play co-commissioned with The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, After Preston (written by Amahra Spence) was performed to an audience of young people, police, arts practitioners, probation officers and academics. Based on the findings from Hodgson & Lewis' research around young people’s experiences of policing in Coventry, it was receded by workshops with young people in schools and at the Belgrade. The audience discussion and feedback on the themes raised in the play informs their work going forward.

Charlotte Woodhead took part in the 2024 Resonate Festival at the Royal Pump Rooms in Leamington Spa where she created an interactive activity for children in which they hunted for archaeological items and had to work out if they were legally classed as treasure. As part of this event the museum displayed its Iron Age shield boss. This provided a fascinating focus of discussion for the relevant laws on treasure and the old common law of treasure trove.

Alex Sharpe has contributed to various arts panel discussions, including at the David Bowie World Fan Convention, Liverpool 2022: 'Why is David Bowie Important?' panel discussion with Dr Bethany Usher, John Cambridge (original member and drummer in David Bowie's band, Hype 1970), and Woody Woodmansey, drummer in Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars and The Grand Exposition, Artists and Technologists Collective, Talbot Mill, Manchester, 2017: panel discussion regarding AI & utopias/dystopias.