Keeping us Safe? (Jan- Dec 2024)

This continuing collaboration with Belgrade Theatre seeks to further engage young people directly in dialogue and debate on issues relating to policing. This will enrich and develop the research, ensuring a rich body of insight that is inclusive of young people’s ideas and lived experiences: through this project, young people will be key co-producers of knowledge. Keeping us Safe? builds on and expands our earlier work, specifically (i) themes and insights from our research into police work with arts and culture as a mode of community engagement; (ii) the development of After Preston - a play commissioned by Warwick and performed at the Belgrade in December 2023 (see below); and (iii) the series of pre- and post-show workshops with young people, as well as after show discussion with the invited audience of police, creatives, criminal justice practitioners and academic researchers. Young people from three schools in Birmingham and Coventry engaged strongly with the After Preston performance and this new project draws on a wider range of creative work, using the Belgrade Theatre’s upcoming body of Produced and Co-Produced work as a jumping off point to engage young people directly on issues relating to policing.

Phase one: Using drama and other creative processes designed to engage young people in dialogue and debate we are working with two schools in the Coventry area to question and interrogate ‘policing’ in its broadest terms, interrogating concepts of authority, power, policing and safe spaces.

Phase two: the focus of the work moves from self to environment/context, drawing on work in the Belgrade's current programme, used as a jumping off point for exploration and inviting young people to produce an artistic response to the discussions. This will provide a mechanism to express ideas as well as think about how these ideas are communicated to the target audience creatively through the production of art.

A critical part of this phase is to ensure that any work that is produced by young people reaches the target audience of police and or other gatekeepers who police young people, alongside the public. The work will be displayed at Belgrade during the Spring season of work 2025.

Our creative partners @ the Belgrade

Corey Campbell, Creative Director
Adel Al-Salloum, Director of Producing and Co-creation
Claire Procter, Creative Producer for Education
Jay Zorenti-Nakhid, Associate Director

After Preston (Jan- Dec 2023)

In this collaboration with the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, we worked alongside a creative team - Amahra Spence (writer), Jen Davis (director & dramaturg), and Joe Rose (producer). It features a brand new play After Preston commissioned by the University of Warwick and the Belgrade Theatre, performed to an invited audience on Friday 1st December 2023. After Preston takes some of the themes in our research data and explores them through a dramatic performance which questions the kinds of relationships that different communities have with the police and ultimately, who or what keeps us safe. This builds on our findings around the power of arts and culture to provide a voice to the seldom heard, confronting us with sometimes uncomfortable truths; and as a collaborative endeavour with the potential to bring together groups who might otherwise be in opposition. In the context of low levels of trust in the police among young people, women and girls, and people of colour, working together through arts and culture has the potential to challenge stereotypes and build trust and confidence. This dramatic work explores the impact this can have on individual lives as both police and policed see the 'human' behind the stereotype, as well as the challenges in building new relationships and shifting entrenched cultures.

With an audience of young people, police, policymakers, community organisations, creatives and academics, the performance was followed by extensive further discussion and provocations for an agenda for change. This project partnership will continue to develop, with further work with young audiences in 2024.

After Preston - ProgrammeLink opens in a new window

In addition to the performance on 1st December 2023, there were further ways to explore these issues: through a photographic exhibition from Kay Rufai's Barriers to Bridges project, produced as artist in residence with West Midlands Police; bespoke workshops for young people in the weeks leading up to the performance; and workshops on the day of the performance, centring on themes of safety, police and criminal justice.

Our creative partners

Amahra Spence, writer, whose previous works include Abuelo (Birmingham REP); Concubine (Birmingham REP); Utopia (Theatre Absolute) and Architectures of Abolition (2022). Amahra is also founding director of MAIA, an organisation engaging culture as a strategy to build community infrastructure oriented towards liberation, and organiser of Land Black, a spatial practice and speculative design studio.

Jen Davis, director & dramaturg, who has directed new writing in a variety of contexts for the Hampstead Theatre, RSC, Birmingham REP, Belgrade Theatre, Warwick Arts Centre, Assembly Venues, Midlands Art Centre, Women & Theatre, VAULT Festival, King’s Head Theatre, BOLDtext and Streetwise Opera.

Joe Rose, producer, who is a Creative Producer from the Midlands. He is the Interim Producer at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, as well working with organisations like the Royal Shakespeare Company and Jerwood Arts as a freelance producer and changemaker. He is a Weston Jerwood Fellow, and is supported by the Stage One.

---

Images from the production (photographer Nicola Young).