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Thoughts and ideas on education, culture, psychology and social science to create lasting and evolving change from our academics, students, alumni and other brave thinkers. Podcasts brought to you by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL).
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You're listening to IOE Insights, the UCL Institute of Education podcast at University College London.
Speaker 2:So hello and welcome to Unearthing the Creative Pulse in our East London Olympic boroughs. This podcast is brought to you with support from University College London and is co produced between doctor Anne Preston and Lisa Fletcher with studio production by Robin Billingham. This program is program one in a series exploring creative media entrepreneurship ecosystems in East London's Four Olympic boroughs. Before we start exploring exactly what that means, I would like to ask each participant to introduce themselves and say a little about their organisation and role. Doctor Anne Preston.
Speaker 3:Hi, Lisa. Thank you. Yeah. So my I'm Anne. I am an associate professor.
Speaker 3:The title is Fancy, Interdisciplinary Practice and Media Communities at UCL. And yeah, I'm interested in how universities engage with communities and particularly now obviously being East London, how our new campus, the kind of work it does locally. I'll keep it like that for now.
Speaker 2:Thank you. RJ?
Speaker 4:Hi Lisa, I'm the founder and CEO of a not for profit arts organisation called Arts Covers CoC. We set up in 2018 with a mission to support young creatives who are underrepresented and marginalised to access the creative industries through creative leadership and professional development.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Well, we obviously don't want to explore a lot more than that, but let's move on to Priscilla.
Speaker 5:So I'm the founder and CEO of the New Black Film Collective and we're an organisation that represents black creatives, especially in the screening industries, and we're really into supporting black talent and serving black audiences. Lewis.
Speaker 6:Hi, my name is Lewis Tamazu and my role at Walden Forest Council, I work at the culture team there as a cultural programming manager. I support local partners from across the borough to deliver cultural events and programmes. I also run a creative grants programme called Make It Happen, which supplies which provides seed funding for local creatives.
Speaker 2:Last but not least, Matt.
Speaker 7:Hi, Lisa. My name is Matt Lane. I'm the chief executive officer and artistic director of Eastside Educational Trust. We are a youth arts charity based in Hackney. We are just celebrating our thirtieth anniversary, having been established in 1994, so we are excited about that.
Speaker 7:We work with young people aged between five and 25 years right the way across the country providing them with opportunities to engage with the arts, culture and creative programmes of work in order to build their technical skills, their confidence and to empower them and to hear their voices.
Speaker 2:Amazing. We'll dig a bit deeper into that as the conversation goes on. Just to introduce myself, I'm Lisa Fletcher, one of the cofounders and codirectors of E17 Films and Emerging Talent. We're a community interest company and not for profit. Okay.
Speaker 2:So thanks everyone for coming on a dark Friday afternoon in January. We're going to kick off with some reflection about the creative landscape. We're sitting in the beautiful podcast studio of UCL, which is in the heart of the Elizabeth Park campus. So it seems fitting that we cast our minds back since 2012 and how we think the four boroughs have improved, developed on a cultural basis and within creative industries employment. I've been looking at a GLA Economics Working paper 100 called London's Creative Industries and it's saying that from 2010 to 2019 real growth in London's creative industries increased from 46.1% and this growth rate was the highest among regions
Speaker 1:all
Speaker 2:or countries. So that means over 110,000 new jobs created in the Olympic Host boroughs since 2012. And I wonder if we have any reflections on this. I'm gonna go to Matt first because there's an interesting story about your work and the impact that the building of the Olympic Park had on your career. So I wonder if we could start with you first, Matt.
Speaker 7:Yes. Yeah. It it the changes that have happened east in East London did have an impact on my career. Back in 02/2005, I think it was, when the award was made for for London for the Olympics, for the twenty twelve Olympics. From that moment on, a lot of people who were already running businesses in the Olympic Park area, the designated Olympic Park area, knew that great change was coming.
Speaker 7:And one of those organizations that had some services running in that area was the Royal Opera House, now the Royal Ballet and Opera. And they had warehouses that they were building their scenery and painting the back cloths for their shows in the Olympic Village designate site. So that organization knew that it would have to find somewhere new to go and relocate that service to to make way for the Olympic Park to be built. So I was able to join the then Royal Opera House as their head of Royal Opera House Thorough in Thames Gateway to help that creative organization build new facilities in a place called Perfleet in Thorough in Essex. And I worked there for ten years right the way through that project, seeing a new production workshop being built and a new costume center being built.
Speaker 7:And that in its own right catalyzed the engagement of thousands of young people through education programs, but also created new jobs in that area and redefined that particular neighborhood and borough as being a place where creative things could happen. So I really see what kind of physical landscape changes can do, particularly if it's driven by a series of cultural organizations. It's So great to be here in these sort of the East Bank with all of these incredible cultural partners, but also to think about all those other partners who've been working here for a long time, large, small, medium size, and the impact that the arrivals have of these large institutions as well.
Speaker 2:Do you see any parallels between the development of cultural organisations here on the Olympic Site and from your own personal experience of developing a site in Thorough?
Speaker 7:Absolutely, lots of parallels because you're dealing with a huge amount of funding to get buildings out of the ground and to make them fit for purpose and to introduce yourself to an existing community in an appropriate way to be sensitive to all the needs of that community. So there's there's getting the buildings right, getting this public access right, but also getting your engagement right. But I think what we're seeing right here in this part of East London is fairly unprecedented given the gathering of so many large cultural institutions clustering together in such a kind of, you know, condensed footprint if you like. So it it really is potentially very very exciting what could happen here, what is beginning to happen here, but also you it's it's a sort of there is some tension you need to get the journey right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's very interesting that you should finish on that sentence because I think one of our participants was one of the first beneficiaries of the Royal Opera House moving to Thurrock. Ajay, I wonder if you could tell me, did the Royal Opera House get it right when they moved to that? Tell us about how you engaged with the new cultural institution when they moved to the new area.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. I think I'm so I was born in Newton so I kind of went to school here, so kind of looking at kind of pre Olympic times, there wasn't a lot of creative opportunities around which meant that, you know, it was very, very hard to find anything outside of the school classroom and obviously what our teachers were teaching at that time. I had moved to sixth form in Dagnham and that's when I was kind of introduced to this placement at the Royal Opera House in Perthley. And at that time, obviously, I still kind of figuring out what I wanted to do as a career when I grow up and this opportunity to do set design because I just loved to draw came up. So yeah, that was an amazing experience to be part of his kind of summer placement in Perth Fleet to kind of recreate something that was of seen by the masses and I just remember kind of being in the show at the end of it and kind of watching all my designs kind of come to life.
Speaker 4:I think those opportunities were really, really important for people who wanted to pursue a creative profession and may not have had that pre Olympic times. I kind of look back to when I was in secondary school as well, the only kind of creative project, I would say, that I got involved in outside of school was creating these kind of billboards I would say for Westbourne when it's still being constructed. And that was for, I think that was a project by New Direction and obviously New Direction has been kind of around for a very long time and I ended up working for a new direction and that's where I found out that I was a young person on their programme like ten years prior. So for me it was all about kind of it was really exciting to see a lot of that kind of work go around and come around, you know, it really shows how big but small eSunding can get and kind of creating opportunities and seeing the impact of individuals who have kind of born and raised to be engaged then come back and deliver. You know, it didn't work that I do now, kind of feels like I'm giving back to my community and creating other opportunities which I didn't really have access to.
Speaker 4:But it's opportunities like at the Royal Opera House which kind of, you know, created and carved that pathway into kind of that community engagement and showed me what that looks like when you bring arts and culture to people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so interesting. So you've been a direct recipient of getting involved in big organisations, and then that's carved your way for going on to work for a new direction. Yeah. The reason for you moving from Newham to Thorwick anything to do with the development of the Olympic Park?
Speaker 4:Not necessarily. So our family kind of moved to Redbridge when I was probably about year nine, year nine. So it's just kind of where I was based in terms of sixth form and etcetera, what was kind of closer to me living there. But kind of being further out just allowed me to kind of access Perthley a bit better in terms of that commute and back and forth but yeah, think that kind of initial move was kind of I guess slightly triggered from the developments happening within the Olympic Park. My family saw a lot of change, it was Justin Forest Gate, a lot of that was happening on our doorstep.
Speaker 4:So that was kind of that change really triggered our move to be like, okay, change is happening but we didn't know what that looked like. But we know we needed to kind of move out of the area before things got either better or worse, so we wasn't quite sure what that looked like for us but yeah, that kind of was the the main catalyst for our move.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's so interesting. And I guess I'm gonna move on to Anne Preston now because, Anne, this fancy new campus and this new site, For the past year, it has all been about experimentation in terms of creating new syllabus for the community, but also outreach to the community. Does anything of what Ajay has been talking about chime with you in your role in securing the success of UCL here East London home.
Speaker 3:I mean, here in Utah, I guess one thing is there's a personal thing there because I think when you're working in, you know, we've arrived here this sort of multi million pound development and I'm working here. I'm paid to to do my job here. But you think, like, you know, what you you think a bit deeper about what what am I doing here, and, you know, and I was thinking back to the fact that I also is someone that's kind of from a background that is not traditionally seen at UCL. So I guess maybe that's driving my particular interest in wanting UCL to remain kind of true to its original ambitions for being in in the park. I mean, obviously, it had multiple ambitions.
Speaker 3:It's part of Eastbank and the cultural development, but there was this idea that and I don't necessarily speak for the whole of the university, you know, I'm not a PR kind of spokesman, but I think the idea is that with the move to East London and we could do more of of this kind of activity which we couldn't necessarily do in banging the center of London. Obviously, is engagement there with communities of like Camden and and around that area. But, yeah, it was an opportunity to see what we could do more as a university to address kind of to do that engagement locally. So, yeah, so I've got this kind of personal drive, think, because I wouldn't want to work in an organization that didn't chime with my own values. So I think that's one side of it which is about, you know, the education for all and for, you know, not yeah.
Speaker 3:Not being just for the the the privileged few necessarily in terms of socioeconomic basis. But also I think the other interesting thing is that I coordinate UCL East's East London scholarship scheme as well. I just happened to do that as well as this other job kind of where so when I think that something like that is UCL showing that it's got that place based approach which other universities do have but we weren't really developing it as well as we could in my opinion. So yes, so the scholarship scheme is for postgraduate courses taught at UCL East. It's sort of I could advertise it now because why not?
Speaker 3:You know, so it's a full fees and quite a decent stipend. So for yeah. And so so far we've had 23 which, you know, it's not masses but I think with that comes also work on ensuring that students have a good experience when they're here and they don't feel othered because they don't necessarily have that. So it's a financial need as well. It's not based on any.
Speaker 3:So yeah. So I think that's a sort of important thing to remember as well. And we have a number of media courses, and the first time we ran the scheme, most of the applicants were for our media courses, which is quite interesting. So they're all based around East London.
Speaker 2:So do you think then that people who live in the neighbouring boroughs see the media courses, see the rise of the type of creative industries that are gathering themselves around East London and think that a skills based degree or something that teaches technical skills is more likely to get them into a job?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not too sure about that one, but I do know that the what the courses on offer in the first year that we ran, there were there seemed to just be majority of them were applied for were the media based courses. So there's obviously the appetite locally for that.
Speaker 2:So Yeah. That's interesting. And just to put you on the spot a little bit, and I realize that you haven't prepared for this question. Can edit it out. Hands.
Speaker 2:Yes. Does UCL have statistics on what percentage of its employees are employed from the neighboring areas?
Speaker 3:Yes. So one of the things around us having this campus was that, like, there was a you know, we had to employ local people. So I think in a lot of the professional services roles that has happened where I've not perhaps seen that coming from the teaching and academic side is there weren't any quotas for that. But I think really, you know, why is that? I would question that, not question UCL, but I'm wondering we should be thinking about that as well.
Speaker 3:It's not you know, there's probably some great media practitioners working locally as I look around the room or people that could become lecturers and academics on on our courses. So maybe that's the next move. That's what we need to think about if the future of UCL in a kind of place based approach is that we look at who, you know, those kinds of jobs as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's so interesting. Now Priscilla, I know that you've worked with UCL, not being directly employed by them, but certainly coming in and engaging with university students. But you're one of the two Newham born and bred residents around this table. I wonder if you could reflect a little bit personally on what the growth of the Olympic employers, the cultural institutions, and just the building of the Olympic Park?
Speaker 2:What impact has it had for you on a personal and on a professional basis?
Speaker 5:Well, for me, it's been wow. You know, not to sound, know, self deprecated, but I'm common as muck, to be fair.
Speaker 3:So am I a bit, to be honest. Well, anyway good thing.
Speaker 5:You know, I think I'm really reframing things that in my youth, I would have thought as a negative. You have to fight against, you know. Not just being working class, being underclass, you know, broken home, all that malarkey. So I grew up in Manor Park, actually lived in Clay's Lane for a hot minute before I got bulldozed for the Olympics, which is a positive thing. And I'm now in Plaster.
Speaker 5:I, you know, left town for uni and I ran straight back because a bit of a fearful person. I just and that's something I have to work on, but yeah, it's just so cosmopolitan in London. It has its issues, but I can't really imagine how it is to live outside of London. It's a bit of a safe bubble in places and it's just the variety and the diversity, I love it. But yes, I'm turning 50 this year.
Speaker 5:Quite a milestone. And so I've passed my middle age crisis, I'm pleased to say, and I'm being very age positive. So I've seen a lot. And before, you know, when you said you were well, I wouldn't really say I was from Newham, I'll say I'm New Hackney because nobody really knew Newham for anything, you know. And you just sort of imagine it being a bit like EastEnders, that sort of thing.
Speaker 5:But now, my God, it's like Canary Wharf just landed in the in the middle of a place, know, you could have thought a bit of a dump. I mean, there's still parts of Newham that's quite impoverished, don't get me wrong, especially like East Ham, Manor Park or whatnot. But then you come to this oasis and all these possibilities and these beautiful builds. I've been, you know, walked past brand new Spanking Sadler's Wells East Sadler's East and BBC and V and A, and I'm thinking, wow, if I was young again. But again, no, as a mature person, I can grab opportunities.
Speaker 5:And I think I'm a bit of a late bloomer. And I think life is starting at 50 for me, big time. And because you're older, you're less intimidating and you give less the f word about certain things. And when I was to shiver in my boots and be intimidated by certain people and institutions, Now I say, look, come and get me. You know, it all talks about your diversity, all talks about your inclusion, and that's why within my organisation I've set up an actual event, a convention where I ask people from the media screening industries to say, Okay, you've EDI policy, let's talk about it.
Speaker 5:Let's be answerable and accountable to it. And then, you know, from there, we then put the platform out there for the creatives to showcase their work. But, yes, coming back to Olympic Borough is is a great time. There is, you know, two sides, very much contrasting. You still have the very, very poor.
Speaker 5:You have migrant communities, refugees, asylum seekers, people who are very vulnerable, and they used to see people who are in the top flight accommodation, fancy flats, sexy jobs, all of that. And sometimes, never the twain shall meet. But I have experienced it, especially during COVID, my sister and I set up a a little farmer's market on the Greenway. And so for a year or so, just before that, there was no customs. It was terrible.
Speaker 5:But during COVID, we had lines going down around the corner. We're playing live music, and it was a wonderful time. And you had people from different classes and backgrounds mixing together. So I thought the the two worlds came together post Olympic. But yeah, I just think great opportunities.
Speaker 5:I'm really happy for many communities to engage, and whatever your background, you should be able to enjoy what's here.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, that was Mhmm. A 100% positive. I really wasn't expecting that. And I think it's really interesting reflecting on the way that food was ultimately the way that people came together.
Speaker 2:Food and music, that's the things that unite everyone. It doesn't matter what class you are, where you're from, or what your economic status is in London. And I also love your description of, you know, not being wanting to be away from cities that's messy and ugly and beautiful and musical and, you know, all at the same time and all at once.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I still live in a council flat. You know what I mean? You could call me downwardly mobile. But I love it.
Speaker 5:I'm comfortable. You know, I've got a chicken shop next to me, you know what mean? But I'm vegan. And but next minute, I could be at some sort of fancy posh place. And these spaces, I have to just force myself to be out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 5:But, yeah, I I still remember, you know, the Cray twins were around, you know, my area and, you know, it was Defence League and I I I still am not a 100% comfortable being in a pub. I've got the Black Lion pub next to me and it used to be such a place for hooliganism and Mhmm. Everybody knows Cass. He was with the rare black hooligan and so many stories. Wow.
Speaker 5:But, you know, I love Green Street. I love, you know, so many different parts. It's more East Europeans now, that's bringing another flavor. So, yeah, it's just a very interesting time.
Speaker 2:Do you know, I think we need to give you a podcast series just for you and your stories on this. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 2:But I'm going to move over to Lewis, of course is from the culture team of Waltham Forest Council. So of course, you know, Lewis, you and I both live and work in a neighbouring borough, There are lots of parallels, aren't there? I'm just wondering, you know, what has happened in Newham and particularly around Queen Elizabeth Park and the Olympic site? Has it had an impact on the work in negative terms, in good terms? Have you taken inspiration?
Speaker 2:Have you borrowed some ideas? Have you looked at things for your own programmes and think, I'm gonna do that but a little differently. How have you
Speaker 4:your programmes?
Speaker 6:I guess the maybe difference for me as one of the panellists here is that I've only been living in the borough five years. I lived in Leightonstone for two and a half and then another two and a half in Walthamstow, different areas. So obviously post Olympics and so I can't really talk about that long legacy but working in the culture team, one of the things and from my general experience of working with underrepresented marginalized communities is looking at how people how to say this? People engage and work and kind of migrate across different boroughs. So yes, in as a key example, you've got South Leytonstone, is kind of on the doorstep of Newham essentially and people, a lot of people sometimes on those those doorsteps where they are, they they're integrating and they're moving around in different ways and they might not even think they're in Walven Forest because of where the border is.
Speaker 6:So sometimes just thinking about how thinking differently about how people work across different boroughs and everything. And so one of the interesting things with the Olympic legacy and the East Bank partners that are here, UCL being one of them, is how we work together as different boroughs and how we support one another and not just thinking about even though I work in the council are the residents that live there. Especially when it comes to young people which is a big focus for some of my work, It's also looking at how young people live, work, and study or work and study in the borough that might be from Newham, for example. And so I think the Olympic legacy kind of boroughs and Eastbank partners, there's a big opportunity there to link up quite closely. EastEd programme, is kind of key to that that I'm working with Francesca Gottsi on is looking at how do we look at kind of creative and cultural education partnerships and linking that up from across different institutions and partners across the different boroughs.
Speaker 6:So it's kind of looking a bit at that migration of residents in different areas. One of the things I do feel that I I through the conversations I have with local partners and residents about is they often feel a bit left out in terms of Walden Forest, and I don't know how reflective that is of other boroughs. Now I know with Newham for example, you've got maybe the East Bank partners and everything on their doorstep. And so maybe sometimes it feels like there's a knee jerk reaction to just respond to what's immediately on your doorstep and so other residents often get left out. And I know from working with a different range of different East Bank partners like LCF for example and VNA is that they're wanting to do more of that work because they recognize the people that they're engaging, they're in the minority are from Wolver Forest.
Speaker 6:So one of the big things for me is thinking about how can we get opportunities coming our way and it's that balance of doing that but also how do we work with other boroughs as well to benefit our residents understanding that it's not just like we exist in this one bubble and they only experience culture within the borough, they also experience it outside and we need to support that in some way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you see this as a real opportunity for working cross borough and across organising. I think partnerships are the way forward.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And I think I know you we all know this working as a creative in the borough. There's we we have a very high percentage of small to medium creative enterprises. But what we do lack is larger cultural institutions. We have the William Morris Gallery, which is an NPO and what who partner we've supported, Dialled In, which is a South Asian music collective.
Speaker 6:We supported them a lot in that to do work in the borough, but they're not necessarily strictly here, they are an NPO as well. So we only have two and it's one of the lowest out of all London boroughs. And so we have to lean on a lot of other cultural institutions and kind of do that outreach. And so one of the things that's quite difficult, the local partners always say, is that capacity building and that pathway so that you might have a small organisation that's doing really great work with a community but they find it really difficult to build their capacity to take the next step because there's not as many cultural institutions supporting them. So that's one of the big things that we're currently looking at and actually I'm looking for next year to think about building a capacity building programme that will support local creatives and local organisations, not just a project grant which you know is brilliant and it does a lot of great work but one of the things we constantly get back from local partners is project grants are great but they end and then there's no more funding so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah but it's so interesting and we heard a little ringing of the bell there But what you just said really rings a bell with me. I think one model that I would hold up is the Foundation for Future London that do a whole year long capacity building programme, so by by the time you come to apply for their small, medium or larger grants, they've taken you through how to put together a budget, looking carefully at an application and the guidelines.
Speaker 6:And it's maybe worth mentioning that Foundation for Future London is focused on applicants that are from the Olympic legacy boroughs. So they do a lot of great work and actually I've been working with them to try and think about how we can jointly do a capacity building programme. So again it's thinking about how do we link up with the local organisations, institutions that are working across the legacy boroughs but also how can I take my little piece of that where there's a benefit to Walden Forest residents but how can we share knowledge and learning across the different boroughs as well?
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good point and Anne I think you wanted to come in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah just really briefly I think one of the things that I know about our you know we are an educational institution in East London and there's been discussions about well what could we do to engage organizations helping them build capacity. I know that there's been quite an interest in kinda like project management and financial planning and these types of things for projects. But as a higher education institute, we aren't set up to give adult vocational education. So I think that's one of the challenges perhaps that we're I'm not as I say, it's my view of of what UCL is is going on that that could be an area that
Speaker 2:we you're not set up yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Not set up yet because if you're gonna take a place based approach, then I think we need to think about that. You know, we're not a university that traditionally offers that or even should we be that university. Mhmm. You know, there are other unis probably locally that that may do that better than us because they're set up like that.
Speaker 3:But do we all or don't we? Or is you know, could we create resources? Because we do have, you know, experts in those areas, but are they also, you know, can they do the translation of the theory Mhmm. To things that are very practical? So, yeah, I just wanted to add that in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Thank you for that. I wanted to go back to the point you made about South Laytonstone, is an area that's quite close to my heart because I work with the residents of the Avenue Road Estate and I've been documenting the regeneration of the social housing site there. But what rang a bell, to go back to my former point, was this project movement that goes from small grant to small grant. So I think the capacity building that you mentioned is such an integral and important point for creatives because, yes, we have got three people around the table who work for very large organisations and have a high turnover, but we've also got three people around the table who represent smaller organisations, employ freelancers or employ people part time or just employ themselves in order to succeed and probably do a freelance job on top of that.
Speaker 2:I wonder, Priscilla, if you want to reflect on that.
Speaker 5:It's been a wild time again. My words. The thing is I would love to say, oh, because I'm a woman, this and that, or because I'm black, this and that, but I said my biggest barrier to work in and set up my own social enterprise are what caused me to come out of a, for working on it for an institution or particular organisation is living with sickle cell. So having a hidden disability, having a disability or long term condition that's not recognised fully or under researched by the NHS, how lucky am I? So it's been very difficult because I couldn't hold down a job.
Speaker 5:At one time I was working in my early years after graduating, I've tried to work in Whitehall and that lasted six weeks because I kept on having a funny turn as I call it or a crisis and stuff crisis and stuff like that. So I, till this day, will always wonder if I was fully healthy, what would my career trajectory would have been like? But, again, getting older, you understand, and if you're person of faith like I am, maybe there's a reason for it. And maybe I'm here to again represent people who live with sickle cell or any sort of long term condition. Okay, it's a limit in certain ways but it opens up actually opportunities if you think about it.
Speaker 5:So, I've volunteered for a very long time and then I got a job or no, didn't get a job, I developed my skills through volunteering into setting up my own enterprise and for a very very long time because I just did everything took me a 100 times longer to do than a healthy person. So but it's been very stressful and it of course exacerbated my condition, having to work around the clock and, you know, get work here and there. But I was very lucky that I learnt about fundraising early on, actually through my church.
Speaker 3:And I
Speaker 5:thought, they give you money to do a project. Are you okay? Seriously? But when I got my first funding through, I thought, wow. It's just again, opportunities, so you could design the work and work round it.
Speaker 5:But funny enough, and I'm sure most self employed people find out that you don't have breaks, you don't have days off, you don't have holidays. So yeah, again, pros and cons. But so where I am now is that the New Black Film Collective has been going over ten years and so finally got part time staff, hopefully they'll be full time soon, but they're working to help the vision of the organisation and so, yeah, I am now an employer and I think that's such a great position to be in. Because you see people and their disadvantages and stuff that you went through and you don't want them to have those hardships with a fast track. They're going have they're always going to have hardships but let it be different.
Speaker 5:And let, you know, let me use my experience, my connections, my failures to again improve their opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That is so interesting. I mean, here is at a different stage of that, you know, career trajectory that you just said. And I'm going to turn to Ajay now as well.
Speaker 2:You have had a bit of experience on the funding side, on the side where you're supporting people into programmes, possibly young creative entrepreneurs, as Priscilla had talked about her entry. But you also set up art clubbers. So I want you to reflect because we know in Foundation for Future London, which we have mentioned as a model for their capacity building programme. One thing that I've heard directed at such funding programmes, it could be a small organisation like E17 Films against, you know, a larger organisation, New Black Collective, somebody who's a sole trader or entrepreneur, but we could be competing with London Borough of Waltham Forest or Eastside or maybe even UCL for the same pots of money. What are your thoughts on these sorts of questions that go around the support of organisations and capacity building?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so as a kind of East London focused organisation, so as a not for profit, our focus is supporting young creatives into the industry and kind of, you know, echoing what Prasadhan said about fast tracking them. I've done the whole kind of going to art school, doing unpaid internship and then trying to figure out what I want to do for a career and through art club is where we're very dedicated on kind of cutting that element out and we're living wage accredited and kind of ensuring all of our opportunities are paid for even if it is a training programme. But I think, you know, when we talked about kind of Foundation for Future London, for the last couple of years they've been running the Westfield Creative Grant and as a small organisation back during kind of COVID times, we were a small grant recipient, so I think that was back between 5 and 10 ks. We've established a really great relationship and I think having a local funder who kind of appreciates and understands the work and the impact that you're trying to make really creates a really interesting working dynamic and Ashton Mullens, who heads up the of the grant side of things, you know, we talk about these kind of things very, very well, he's contributed a lot to our research reports about, you know, as a funder, what he would like to see from local partners and we've been quite fortunate to have an ongoing relationship where we've gone from five ks to 50 ks.
Speaker 4:So, you know, just last year we was able to deliver a series of public master classes, a cohort working with Studio Wen MacGregor, basically supporting nearly 500 young creative businesses in the growth boroughs. And that wouldn't have happened if funders like the Foundation Future London didn't give us the opportunity to do so. So I think when we talk about that kind of competing against larger organisations and institutions, it's funders like FFL who have allowed us to grow and build capacity over time. They've seen the benefits of what we do and want to keep funding us. I guess it's quite a tricky landscape at the moment and I think we were I think we were always aware that one day they probably will start funding us because I think that funding should go to another art club who is setting up and we've been quite fortunate to have received a lot of support, is now to pass that baton to someone else who is like us starting up and they could receive that and go from 5 ks to 50 ks.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I think that's really set us up from working, starting up just before COVID, you know, we were stuck in 2018 thinking that that's the end of the business because we're a great time to set up one. But through that process, they really kind of allowed us to build connections and partnerships with The Barbican, there was the was it Culture? No, the Fusion Prize. The Fusion Prize was a big kind of four borough project as well, we were running the consultations for those award winners, etc. We were only two years old.
Speaker 4:And so having the opportunity to kind of build those connections and build on those projects allowed us to kind of rebuild our portfolio. So I think, it's having those local funders who understand that work that we're trying to do but also actively bridging and creating partnerships with other like minded individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a lot to take in. But you know, I'm only hearing positive things. I thought there was going to be a little bit of moaning about the building of Westfield and the sort of like creation of this cathedral of culture in the Stratford Olympic Park, but not at all. Everybody's got really positive things to say. I am going to move on a little bit, but, of course, it's connected to what you've just said, Ajay, but I wanted to talk to Matt because I asked each of you before you came here to reflect on a success story, And I also asked each of you to reflect on a project you're really proud of where you have connected or created a new way of engaging with an underrepresented audience or demographic or group.
Speaker 2:So Matt, I'm going to go to you first. I mean, there a standout project for you, hopefully connected, you know, with the Olympic site? It can be high culture, it can be a community group, but somewhere where you've engaged with a new audience that you think really reflects the possibility of what's happened to culture since the development of the Olympic Park and its organisations here?
Speaker 7:Sure. Well, I think there are many projects and I think all of us who get out and deliver projects with community could list lots of them, but I am gonna pick one which is in the East Side special project and it's called creativity live. And this was a project that we started during the pandemic at a time where schools were locked down. They were admitting their students, but they were not admitting cultural organizations or artists or freelancers to go in and work with young people for for obvious reasons. And we were determined to do something for those young people and try and find a way to overcome that physical obstacle.
Speaker 7:What we do as an organization is we deliver creative workshops as part of program frameworks, whether they be one off interventions or three year interventions with with young people in in in schools and community spaces. So we didn't wanna stop doing workshops. So we we had to figure out how we could continue to do that whilst the schools were not admitting our creative. So we we started live streaming workshop. So we would get a pair of artists in our building, we would film them and live stream it to YouTube and invite schools to to join in real time and experience that workshop.
Speaker 7:And to our astonishment, schools right the way across The UK started signing up for this program. So we would literally be reaching schools that we would never normally have reached prior to the pandemic because we would have sent mainly our artists to Greater London boroughs and so forth. So that opened our eyes to what we could do. And then we started developing some some technology so that the schools could interact with us in real time. So we would start receiving images and written work from the students in the classroom from anywhere as far as Aberdeen to Saint Austell, you know, and and literally, we're having this live interaction with a community of young people.
Speaker 7:And since 2021 when we started, we reached 4,000 young people across schools, across the country. In our last year, we reached 33,000 young people through this program. So it has grown and grown and grown. And what it's shown me and what we've learned is that disadvantage doesn't always manifest in the ways that you might think it it does. There may be people in very very isolated rural communities who might be very affluent for example, but for their children to become involved in arts and culture, could be three bus rides, it could be a train, etcetera etcetera.
Speaker 7:So there's the sort of geographic barrier that you you could think about there, but also barriers around language. So we we we do our work in those schools which have the highest proportion of students with English as additional languages. So thinking about ways to engage those young people, but having something that we can deliver that is free at the point of contact. So all the schools need is our YouTube link and they can sign on and they can get involved has been a way for us to create a new community which is experiencing live creativity in the digital space in real time together. So I I think that's something that is a significant change.
Speaker 7:I don't think anybody was really thinking about doing that kind of mode of work, you know, back when the Olympics were coming. And now, when we think about things like AI, you know, you're suddenly thinking about all sorts of ways of creating content. So we are in a rapidly moving time, I would say, in terms of technology and in terms of how young people interact with technology. So that provides lots of opportunities but also lots of kind of challenges as well to keep agile as a as a creative or running a creative organization. How can you keep up with the technology and and deliver something that's that's meaningful and relevant.
Speaker 7:So that that's part of our challenge. But yeah, I'm I'm you know, I I love the work that we do with that program and it's it's certainly enhanced our reach massively over recent years.
Speaker 2:And I love the way that you engage with children as young as five because I mean, I go into schools and speak to young people aged 16 plus and I say to them, Who knows what they want to do at age 16? But if you're five years old and you know that actually you could be an artist or an animator or a filmmaker or a designer from that age, that offers an area of possibility that maybe your parents have never considered, you never knew about, and maybe even your teacher didn't know about.
Speaker 7:Yeah, this I mean, this is so so important. I think to me personally, it's so important that in my head, there's an idea that every school should be a creative and cultural institution. And I think educators often struggle with the the restrictions of the curriculum, what's expected in terms of reporting and so forth. And I feel sad sometimes that schools aren't just a hotbed of creativity where you bring have this wonderful collection of young people, all of them with different perspectives, different lived experience, different backgrounds could be creating so many wonderful project ideas and expressing themselves in so many different ways. But sometimes we we feel that our perhaps our education system is forced to sort of restrict the outpouring of creativity, stop the voices being heard to make sure that we're behaving, we're at our desks, we're we're ready for the exams and all this and it's something that I think is it does need to shift.
Speaker 7:We need to have a gear shift because really education is not a knowledge game anymore and knowledge is accessible to anybody if if they can have a access to a phone or the internet or computers. So it's about sort of teamwork, it's about communication skills, it's about using your voice in a positive way, it's about unlocking your own creative potential. So I really think that education needs to move with these times as rapidly as it can so that we can give young people the the opportunity to, you know, engage with all a whole variety of art forms but to to use that as a way of training them as as rounded human beings so they can go out into the world and make a difference. So that's what really kind of drives us and excites us at Eastside is this ability to sort of use creativity and and expressivity as the kind of fuel in the tank rather than how many things you can remember in an exam circumstance.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I I do admire the way that you're embracing technology. Most people say AI and say something completely negative afterwards, It is refreshing to look on software and AI tools as something to aid us rather to, you know, something that's going to stop us in our tracks. Let me turn to Priscilla. Tell us about tell us how you started up the new black film collective.
Speaker 2:What gave you the idea and what audience did you want to connect with?
Speaker 5:Well, I was brought up by television. Black and white TV, loved it. But boy, innocent, was I? Because I loved the westerns. All these cowboys chasing brown people, shooting at them.
Speaker 5:You had Tarzan throwing Africans off cliffs. You had all sorts going on, but I loved the Maltese Falcon, I loved Film Noir, I loved The Third Man. So I fell in love with cinema. And I thought if I could be within the screen industries, that would be great. And growing up and getting older, I knew I loved to write.
Speaker 5:And if I made the film, if I became an author, that's a bonus. But when you write, you know, there's no limit to your imagination. So, yeah, fast forward, go to school, go to uni, all that jazz. But then my condition hit me hard and I ended up signing on and just having years drifting, lots of years drifting, living in Clays Lane and just thinking what's going to happen to me. But, like I said, volunteering opened the door and working for the great Malik Shabazz.
Speaker 5:Nobody knows Malik Shabazz, he's like us Spike Lee in this country and he's passed recently, like Saint Horace Ovez recently passed. They were the first black film makers to make black film. Still a lot of black film and black stories are told by non black people, funny enough. We've got them saying that, we've got Hard Truths coming out today and directed by Mike Lee, but I think that works. There's couple of certain accept exceptions because people are happy to be black in that film.
Speaker 5:And the way he does a slice of life is very very, you know, fascinating and refreshing. But, yeah, so I was just out there thinking what could I do and I set up a company with my sister and we only go so far because we're super niche. It was a production company and I, you know, we could do certain things, but there was a scheme through Film London, I think GLA at the time, called the New Black. And so it was a year long cultural leadership scheme, one of those. And I sometimes I call these things schemes training to nowhere.
Speaker 5:There's no job afterwards and stuff like that, you just left, you know. But it's it was for it was in reaction to Melit Shibaz and Keith Shireh, big up Keith Sheree, he's running Film Africa right now. But it's funny enough, probably Film Africa put him out of business, but he's now leading it. And they went up to Film London and said, look, there's nothing for black exhibition sector or the cinema sector, let's do something. And then that leadership programme began last a year, and afterwards, there was 15 of us exhibiting black films, screening black films around the country, and then at the end of it, we all looked at each other and said, oh, let's do something.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So after 15 people, three people were standing, and one was me, and because I was unemployed, but I had some fundraising skills, I thought, why not? Let's do this. So and that provided different flavours of black. So I was really into faith films, but with the members we brought together, went back down to three to about now, maybe a 100 members nationwide.
Speaker 5:And so you have people who are into Africa film, maybe Caribbean, maybe female focused, maybe LGBT focused, so that's been fascinating. And so, again, fast forward, we work a lot with Film London. They are partners for across multiple projects. We work with BFI. We work with complementary art forms.
Speaker 5:And so, yeah, we still get, you know, small small funding, but I think we started to be seen as a future player. And I say we would like to be the black BFI. Why not? Dream big. We may be little Absolutely.
Speaker 5:Right now, but I just think that our aim, and thankfully we have a beautiful board of visionaries, our aim is to be an institution. And so as an institution, a wise man said, only institution can talk to another institution. So to play with people like USCL, who have been very supportive, different departments, I mean, they're allowing us to use their cinema, their their, you know, amazing high spec cinema for free because of their community engagements. And so that sort of opportunity we can leverage and do more things, and we aim to work globally as well, reconnect with our homeland. So it's all about being autonomous and not be finding dependents.
Speaker 5:Look for partnerships, look for allies, but don't be dependent. Don't rely on the Bs, the BAFTAs, the BBCs,
Speaker 2:you
Speaker 5:know, the BFI's. Look to what you can do through black philanthropy in my case, in my world. So I'm and I'm really up for that. We have our members, a lot of them have been working and working in screening industries as a side hustle, you know, leaning on their credit cards. But I've said, look, there actually is funding out there and certain people, certain communities have been quite suspicious of funding and the reporting and the monitoring and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:But again, I showed them the the tips and the tricks and the hacks and learned from my situation. So I believe there's collective in our name and on purpose, collectively. Not everybody's gonna be on board to that. Other people believe in competition, fair enough. We're in a capitalistic society.
Speaker 5:But I'm all about collective and collaboration, especially for my community. Because too much of the divide and rule and colonization we're still feeling the effects of to this day. You've got Trump out there doing his business, Elon Musk doing his naughtiness. So it's very important that we gather and understand our own power because everybody else is making money out of the backs of blacks, commodifying us, especially black women. So we seem to be bottom of the barrel, but I think if we could control somewhat of our representation in screen, we can empower ourselves to be the sort of authors of our story.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. Well put. Yeah. Thank you. The thing that struck me about what Priscilla said was about being on a scheme that led to nothing.
Speaker 2:It's like investment for investment's sake with no future vision. And I want to come back to Lewis because I know that you're putting together different programmes and I know that you think very deeply, not only about the quality of the programme that someone goes through but what is going to be the final effect of it, what's going to be the final impact and what audiences or new communities will it reach. And one project that I know that you've been talking about and it's at the core of your Make It Happen project is the philosophy around creative help. And of course it just chimed with me because of course Priscilla mentioned having, you know, an invisible disability in sickle cell, and you know, it came together quite nicely for me that it's a natural point for you to talk about that project and
Speaker 6:what So you're Make It Happen has been running for over eight years now from the council, and it's always just been a general creative cultural grants programme providing seed funding. And it's got to a point where it's very very well established. Anyone in the borough can apply. We people from outside can apply but we prioritize people in the boroughs. Usually maybe 20 of people that we fund.
Speaker 6:And it's always been around for the past three years 100 k or a 120. So we can fund up to 15 projects there. People can apply for one to 15 k. But the reason that we focus this year's funding on creative health has come out of I've been working in the council for over a year now. And when I came in we developed a new culture strategy for the borough and that came out of quite in-depth research and consultation with local residents, local partners across the council speaking to different teams And we called it a culture action plan because we didn't want it to just be this strategy, which is helpful because it allows local authorities to apply for the likes of place partnership funding from the Arts Council, which we recently did.
Speaker 6:But it's also we wanted it to be live in the sense of like what what are the actual objectives coming out of this and how can it not just be something for the council to deliver, but how do we do that with local partners given the fact that the funding landscape is reducing, also funding for it within councils, then ourselves all budgets are being cut especially within culture. So with those six key action areas in this cultural action plan as we called it, and one of those was creative health which I'm kind of leading on which is it's been about for for years now. I mean, there's a a report that was published by London Arts and Health with the support of Arts Council England called Understanding Creative Health in London, and it shows that it's been known for two hundred years where creative health existed. But it's become this buzzword at the moment because Deep Khan, the mayor, is looking at building London as the second creative health city, Manchester being the first proclaimed one. And it's really interesting because for local authorities it's an opportunity to look at how do we work with teams like public health for example and communities and climate in a more joint up way and with this big focus that I think all local authorities across The UK are looking at now on prevention and how to reduce costs around that in terms of social care and everything but just looking at how how does culture and creativity specifically in the department and interests that I work with, what is the impact it can have on health and well-being?
Speaker 6:And there's some really interesting models out there and I think actually coming from a creative background, not a creative health background, it's really interesting to see loads of creatives that applied last year for Make It Happen which was just a normal creative grants programme, all of them would probably have some sort of creative health element. And actually the majority of creative organisations, the way they deliver probably do. And I'll say some are a lot more clear and stronger on it, but it's an opportunity what we thought for this year in terms of the funding is not just like can we fund creative health projects to impact our residents but also how can it be a kind of an opportunity to increase local partners understanding and learning around what what creative health is so that they can better articulate it and again it's about that pathway how can they then go from a one to 15 k project grant for us to support them to go for bigger grants which we know the Arts Council and the GLA are wanting to fund creative health projects a lot more of. So we funded it this year, we actually the deadlines for applications were about two weeks ago and I just created the shortlist with a long listing panel of seven council officers from across different teams and the shortlist is going to be assessed by a community selection panel.
Speaker 6:So we had 128 applications, all brilliant, really interesting ideas. And the community selection panel were residents from across the borough. Some are previous recipients to make it happen but all have some sort of interest in health, well-being and care. One's actually a retired GP and just wants to get involved. So it'll be really interesting to see who we fund but I think what's what's really exciting about it as well is is really looking at how can we support, how can we implement culture and creative activities in health care well-being spaces and not just in terms of quite exciting spaces.
Speaker 6:So we've got Whips Cross Hospital which is a big hospital in the borough and we've had a few projects that are looking to take place there but also care homes for example green spaces. But one of the things that came out of the Culture Action Plan that we found really interesting is we were trying to map in a way where is the places that people, if you want to put it in quite crass capitalist terms, consume and produce culture and creativity. And when we went out to a variety of communities and young people as well, what what was highlighted that all these spaces and activities that people at the council just and especially if you're not from that culture, you're just not aware of because we don't frame cultural creativity in that way and then we don't map it that way. So a big roller skating scheme that's actually in like South Laytonstone for example in Layton that young people predominantly young black people are just organically happened but isn't captured on the funding landscape so often gets locked out. Also Eastern European cultures, their cafe culture in Leighton, for example, loads of music that's happening there that doesn't get captured.
Speaker 6:Places of worship, mosques, for example, other churches where all this culture and creative activity is happening. So what I did purposely this year in terms of the funding criteria, so we have creative health as one, but also we have about five different funding criteria, legacy being one of them as well. But activating spaces was one. And the big reason for that is we're trying to encourage people to look at how can they programme in underused and underserved spaces or spaces that are invisible to certain people for example. And that has been really good in pushing and encouraging people to program in spaces where there is less traditional cultural infrastructure.
Speaker 6:Again, I'm coming back to South Laytonstone there compared to North Laytonstone which is perhaps more middle class, more affluent, and there is a big divide and there's a lot of politics between it. But a lot of programming happens in North Leytonstone because you've got the pubs, you've the music venues, and it's happening by white middle class residents a lot of the time. And so if we continue to fund it, we didn't have that funding criteria there. The majority projects that happened in Leytonstone would happen in North Leytonstone. But now we've had a lot of applications that are happening in that South Leytonstone or being proposed to happen there because we brought in that funding criteria.
Speaker 6:And I guess one thing to kind of mention on that that the especially working in a local authority that I don't think local authorities do enough of is targeted and specific work. So Make It Happen is prioritising funding for underrepresented and marginalised groups and we outline exactly who we mean by that. Global majority, LGBTQ and neurodiverse and disabled. And it could be even more targeted as well because we know people from global majority backgrounds and people of colour from low socioeconomic have the biggest difficulty accessing funding. Research shows that.
Speaker 6:So I'm always pushing to be more targeted but I will say in a I'm not just saying this for Walden Forest, I've worked at Barking and Dagganham Council before and maybe larger institutions there's this fear of being more targeted, which makes it difficult and sometimes quite frustrating because you know that the funding that you're giving or the partner that you're supporting, the way your budget is being allocated is going to great projects and everything, but are they actually reaching the underserved communities that they want to? And often that's a real tick box exercise for people and it's very insightful when you run a grants programme to see how, you know, how people word things in a way. And I think when you if you have the funding criteria and you make sure that you're assessing them right, then you're able to weed out the projects from people that maybe aren't as deserving of the funding than others or the people that you want to target. That was quite long winded.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating and Ann, I'm going to put you on the spot there because I'm just wondering if there are parallels in the way that you talk about culture. You're preparing young people to go out into the world and work in creative industries and media. What chimes of that? Because I think that's quite revolutionary and I don't want to give Lewis a big head, but Waltham Forest Councils were actually one of the few councils who were still giving out funding, but that very sort of radical way that they're very carefully describing exactly the sorts of communities and places, this place changing thing that we've talked about, you know, the impact of the Olympic Park and, you know, its legacy on this area. Is there anything that you that really struck you that you wanted to comment on?
Speaker 3:I think, again, just going back to the fact that I work in a university is what we're doing to to support people to to come to university to come UCL and it be a kind of place that they aspire to want to go to. Obviously there's other great universities other universities are available and that's fine but they should also you know UCL is also kind of a place where they could apply and and be successful. I wonder that is an aspiration for UCL obviously to be widening participation as the term goes. Again, we kind of have done that with the scholarship, I think, but then we've also noticed together with other partners on the park, I noticed along with London, Loughborough, London Loughborough University London Yeah. Who also run a a similar solid scholarship scheme and we basically modeled it on there is that there is also an issue around how, like, following up.
Speaker 3:So it's the training. What did you call it, Priscilla?
Speaker 2:Training to know where.
Speaker 3:Training to know where. So are we offering master's degrees to know where? So that is a bit of a thing now that we're starting to think in more detail about. So you can you can even so I guess linking to you, Louis, is like you can give the money but you also need to what what after that? You know?
Speaker 3:What happens after that? So we can give scholarships, but we also need to think about what we're enabling to do.
Speaker 5:And I've been proud, as sport as we are, to actually give people jobs after serving apprenticeships with us Yeah. Internships. So that's wild. Again, I'm like, I keep saying that phrase. But, yeah, again, being an employer is a privileged position, and it's a place of safety for the majority of our workforce because they tend to be young black and brown women.
Speaker 5:And they feel if they had gone straight into an institution that they would be dealing with a hostile environment, they would not be able to say certain things and we've seen post George Floyd a lot of EDI initiatives and positions go in, black people are put forward to almost be the cure for racism, and then when they try to, you know, radicalise or, you know, shake things up, they end up losing their jobs Mhmm. After two or three years in post. So there's a lot of that happening, so I do feel for you, you try to, you know, shape young minds and put them out there. Yeah. Do you sort of give them a reality check?
Speaker 5:Or do you maybe too afraid? I wouldn't mind I wouldn't blame you to be afraid to sort of, you know, say you have to be watch out for certain things.
Speaker 3:You mean for students of sort of more minority backgrounds or just all students?
Speaker 5:Well, all students because I can imagine white middle class students are in this sort of political correct minefield. And so they are work walking on eggshells and stuff like that. For every student, they all have their story and their trajectory and stuff like that because we have to rub against along each other especially in this cosmopolitan environment. So do you feel like you give that advice as well or do you rather just not interfere in that way?
Speaker 3:No. I think we are aware. So on BA Media, for example, we have a lot of people who also at the same time working in industry. And so they are raising issues that we should be doing this with students. We should be making them aware.
Speaker 3:Like this afternoon, we had a panel and we did invite we had guest lecturers from Film London and they were talking about some of the experiences as well. So I think so. Yeah. We basically we have a mixture. I think it's better when we ask people to come in and talk about those things because we're not all experiencing the same thing.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we do need someone. Priscilla, anytime you're free.
Speaker 6:Can I can I just jump in there as well? Like, I very much and I know it sounds by the sounds of it everyone on this panel probably at the core of their practice takes a kind of co curatorial, co produced approach to things. And one of the things when I've had experience working with young people in the creative sector and I find that it's it's difficult at the moment because this if you're coming from a marginalized or underrepresented background or you you know that you face barriers going into the creative sector that I feel that often we're not being honest about about those those issues and we're not but we're also not listening to young people of younger generations for them to say what are actually what are the barriers rather than just presuming it. And I say that in the context of we just applied for a place partnership bid to the Arts Council, which is for a three year project called Creative Pathways, Woburn Forest. Probably gonna change the title, but that's in bid.
Speaker 6:And it's looking at basically supporting it's a it's a project that looks at co production essentially through cultural programming with young people at the heart of it, but looking at building pathways into the creative sector locally but also across London. And one of the things we wanted to do there because it needs a consortium structure is thinking about young people taking the lead on that and how we create safe spaces for the young people, the cohort of young people that we work with to work with these local partners, the East Bank being included in that. For them to be able to speak about what are through the experiences of engaging with different programs that will be part of that project, like Lit En Masse Carnival, which is a program I also support and oversee. How can they kind of learn from those experiences but also talk about the barriers that they faced? And these are young people specifically that experience barriers because of race, class or disability.
Speaker 6:And I just think it's really important to embed that co production model to be learning from the young people about what are those barriers that they face and the opportunities as well because you mentioned AI there. That's just don't the younger generation are gonna be far more literate on that than than we will. So, yeah, just to kind of
Speaker 2:jump in. I'm just smiling there because I was watching Ajay, listening to you speak and nodding fiercely because, of course, the core of your work at Art Clubbers is all about empowering young people. And they may be from different backgrounds, but I think we all know because we all work in culture and creative industries what the benefits are to health and well-being. But I wonder if you'd come across a stat that was out recently in the Museum's Journal, and this is to underline everything you do anyway. Going to a museum, talking about art, engaging in cultural activity, it can relieve stress, it takes people out of the NHS, and it's worth £8,000,000,000 to The UK economy, which is amazing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Just, you know, the relaxing activity of watching a film in a community or, you know, doing something like portraiture with art clubbers. I just wanted you because you were nodding so profusely when Lewis was talking, I wanted you to reflect on your experience of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think, you know, we talk about kind of that kind of visibility representation and I think, well as being a South Asian, I also identify as a gay man. So growing up in East London, especially like Forest Gate, know, is predominantly South Asian as a community and obviously those kind of conversations didn't really exist, especially coming from a very South Asian family which having a creative career itself was a challenging conversation to have. I think the benefit of being a first gen South Asian that my parents, their first language is English. So when it came to applying for university courses, it was just me applying for art schools and they didn't know that. So I just kind of went along and just did things that I wanted to without them knowing, just telling them I'm going for a teaching course.
Speaker 4:But it's kind of like that, you know, it's finding the language to have with different communities. So for my dad, he his own double glazing business and so when I set up Art Clubbers, he saw it as, you know, that's the business side and we can kind of connect on that rather than the kind of creative stuff. The creative stuff is like, you do what you to do but the business side we can have conversations on. But that kind of representation for me was very very important when I set up Art Club as it was telling my story which really allowed me to connect with people who were like me. Like I mentioned earlier, there wasn't I didn't see a lot of South Asian queer founders in the creative industry.
Speaker 4:And so I kind of felt like I needed to kind of be that person, that I didn't see, which allowed me to connect with young people who kind of saw me doing this thing and they like, there's a, I've been telling my good stories, one of our young people is also South Asian and queer and he came through one of our programmes and the first time he approached me, was like, I didn't think we could do this. And I was like, well, that's how did you think that we can't be founders? Like that was kind of, for me, of like a mind blowing kind of conversation to have. And just coming through one of our programmes, he's been able to develop his skills to set his own business and now he runs a production kind of business that creates music videos for other queer artists. So he's able to kind of use his story to carve out his own niche.
Speaker 4:And so for me that kind of conversation is always important and so when we kind of look at our programmes and the way we design them, when it comes to recruitment for example, we look at different indices of needs. So for example, if there's someone who's female, black and queer versus someone who is female, white and queer, we look at the additional barrier here which is the race. So that additional barrier and we take a more intersectional approach and I think we were talking about funders earlier and I think this is where I tend to kind of push back on funders when they ask us to do this tick boxing exercise like how many LGBT young people have we supported, how many PAME young people have we supported, how many females. Being a person from an intersectional background, that doesn't really sit well with me. And so I always push back and say I'd rather tell you case studies and stories of these individuals rather than tell you I have to make that decision, do I put that person into the LGBT box or the PAME box?
Speaker 4:For us, we're really kind of challenging that kind of conversation and promoting intersectionality through all of our work. So when we do have we do have these conversations in our programmes actually about storytelling and there are some young people who don't feel comfortable telling their story and we need to respect that. So it's never kind of pushing the idea that if you tell your story, if you tell that you're South Asian or also queer that you're going to get opportunities, that's not how that conversation goes. It's understanding there are additional barriers there but also finding a community that will help you navigate that. And I was quite fortunate to find that community as well but, you know, that was, you know, while social media was still kind of booming, etc.
Speaker 4:And it's like, you know, when I look back to kind of how things have changed, kind of post Olympics, you know, growing up in Forest Gate, I never thought there would be a Forest Gate Pride and now there is a Forest Gate Pride. And for me, that brings me so much joy but also it's quite true at the same time because it's like I look back at my childhood and think, I could never walk around these trees being me. And then, you know, quite recently, they had these flags, prints on the floors and they were vandalized during Pride Month. But then the communities came together and reclaimed them. And for me that's just so powerful to see how much has changed and the kind of shift of the people have changed as well.
Speaker 4:There are still pockets of people in our community who aren't so open minded and that can be quite challenging to navigate. But the majority are very much willing to kind of make these changes and I think where we talk about kind of the creative stuff that's happening, it's really kind of opening up doors and bringing people together into kind of a very beautiful melting pot. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It is such an old tired phrase but that you can't be it unless you see it. Young people need to see people who they can evolve into so that they can see that there's different opportunities in life. And I know that recently that you were a TEDx speaker, weren't you? Yep.
Speaker 2:And you got the opportunity to tell your story on that, so congratulations on that well. Now, I had so many other questions to ask in case we run out of time, but I think we've probably come to the end. Our next podcast is going to be about nurturing talent and developing skills. So very quickly, thirty seconds only per person, can you tell me one opportunity and maybe one barrier or choose one or the other a piece of information that you would pass on to our next panel? I'm going to pick on you first, Lewis.
Speaker 2:For nurturing skills. Skills For and developing talent, which probably hopefully is your creative pathways, wolves and forest
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:I think one of the main things is you need time, you need to give it time and also even if with a project run, one of the things I always communicate to the people that are applying and maybe need to do more of is we we want we want to give you space and time and we want to work with you to give you space and time to fail because if you're doing everything right then that's just not that's not the case especially if you're working with underrepresented and marginalized groups. Even if you're from that background though there's still there's still challenges there because of the barriers that are. So there needs to be space and time for you to to fail within that and not see that as a bad thing. And I think that to nurture skills and talent you just you need that long term support. We were talking about Foundation Future London there and the benefit is working over a longer period of time with a specific person or group of people to look at that journey.
Speaker 6:And so it's not about the numbers, it's not about the quantity of people that you engage, it's about the progression of those few that you can engage and then thinking about how does that scale up, how can you get more people involved but not at the expense of the delivery of the project or the programme or whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Anne, I'm not going to go round the table in order. You look horrified. I'm going to ask you a slightly different question because as you mentioned to Priscilla, you do bring in individuals, but I'm thinking of the future developing talent. What's the role of local businesses for UCL in doing that?
Speaker 2:The businesses around here to to bring them into your program to support and mentor
Speaker 3:young thinking about what is the role of it. Again, I'm going back to the beginning. What is the role of the university in nurturing and supporting skills. I think perhaps potentially we could play more of that kind of broker role. I don't think we should be acting like we know it all in that in an area neither should we be so patronizing that why, you know, we sort of, you know, sort of try and be something that we're not.
Speaker 3:So yeah. So I think that the idea is yeah. Like Priscilla, you talked about the cinema. That is a tangible thing that we can offer. And if that is what the thing that makes the difference, then we should just continue doing that.
Speaker 3:It's not up to us to come up with a version of something that is perhaps not needed or with it. There's if there's an you know, we need to think properly what can we actually offer rather than forcing our own ideas on there, if that makes sense.
Speaker 5:I can't believe I've forgotten that through your UCL
Speaker 3:community Engagement Fund. Initiatives. Give us
Speaker 5:a Chris or something like that. That's one one. Oh,
Speaker 3:Chris. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Chris. One through
Speaker 3:At Ablybourn.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And Molly Yeah. Through the student union. Well, all the through the placements and volunteers we've had, we've taken on and given jobs to UCL graduates.
Speaker 3:Brilliant. I mean, that's excellent. So there are there are things like that that I think we're doing really well. So maybe, you know, that's that isn't just a cinema. That is more.
Speaker 3:But, you know yeah. But learn from who's around you, I think, and not just assume that just because you're one of the big boys that you know it all.
Speaker 2:That's it. I'm going to ask the same question to Ajay, but I wanted to focus a little bit about how can we effectively measure the impact of community engagement because we don't want to tick boxes, do we? There must be more creative ways of measuring the impact of the work we do and the personal impact that it has on individuals who participate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Art so Club isn't a big organisation, so we don't have qualifications or accreditations for the work that we do. So we found a way to kind of accredit non accredited learning through digital badges. So we're a member of Badge Nation which allows us to formally recognise the skill sets that a young person or a member of the public has achieved through the work that we've done. So those badges are kind of broken down into kind of four categories, so you've got engagement, participation, demonstration and leadership. So just taking a young person here for example, so a young person might come to a workshop, a one off workshop, get their engagement badge, they might join our program, get their participation badge, they might be part of a showcase event or pitching event, they get their demonstration badge.
Speaker 4:And if they come back or if they got their first bid or if they got their first client, they get their leadership badge. So we're really supporting them in that journey with them. So it's not about that kind of hard qualification that they might get like a level one or level two, it's looking at the skill sets that they've achieved through their participation and engaging with us. And through that, those badges are actually that can be used on their CVs or portfolios and they are formally recognised by employers. Like we found through our programming that a lot of our young people aren't going to university so how will they formally gain those skills instead of just being a work experience or a training programme on their CVs?
Speaker 4:Actually, here's the kind of hard badges that they receive, it's kind of like when you get badges for different activities, etc. So for us that allows us to measure the impact so we can demonstrate that actually we've taken this young person from one workshop to now setting up a fully fledged business and through that training program or through this experience. But the really cool thing about those digital badges is that we work in partnership with different organisations and so we've kind of brought them on board as well. So they might, you know, a young person might come to a workshop or us and go to a mentoring program with another or another training program with another so they can still build that pathway. And I think the kind of key thing here is not gatekeeping the work that we're doing, it's actually building that kind of wider creative ecosystem and sharing that resource so that we can connect our kind of stakeholders or our own beneficiaries to different opportunities that they can gather and not just say, just do everything with our clubbers, that's not how this works.
Speaker 4:And I think that of is kind of also can be said for the Eastbank partners is that don't gatekeep, allow us into your buildings, allow us into your spaces. I'm not going to name one but we tried to get space with one of them. They were saying they wanted to bring the community in and kind of have the community use their space but their programming was booked with internal stuff for the whole year. So as a small organisation who gets funding on a year by year basis, we can't tell you next year we're going to have this programme. So I think, you know, we can be agile as organisations but I guess the partners on the East Bank need to be agile with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really good feedback. One thing that really stuck out was this alternative way of measuring impact and another idea came to me that I heard participants who had been in a programme didn't have to fill out a form but they did a timeline of where they started and they could do it as a collage, drawing, writing, a graph, how they wanted to describe you know, where they started, what they learnt midway programme and what they did at the end of it. I really like that idea of a timeline.
Speaker 2:And it kind of brings me back very neatly, Matt, to your timeline where we started at the very beginning of the conversation where we talked about the impact of the building of the Olympic site and where it had a direct impact on your organisation and actually the direction and physical location of where the Royal Opera House went in the end. Any thoughts and feedbacks? Your whole organisation is dedicated to nurturing skills and developing talents in very young people. But if you had a word of advice for the next podcast, let's end our podcast today with your thoughts on that.
Speaker 7:Yes. Thank you. Well, and also thank you to all the other participants. It's been absolutely wonderful hearing your stories and your wisdom. I would say don't forget the young people.
Speaker 7:Really, things get easier if you are seeing the role models, interacting with them, learning about the creative industries, enjoying everything that they have to offer in your early years and you you can create barriers by preventing people from engaging that become very difficult to surmount in later years because of confidence or lack of confidence and lack of opportunity but if we can give everybody the chance from their early years to have a go, to be part of, to experience, to witness, to take part in creative activities in institutions large and small because it's an ecology, the creative industries, isn't it? We need big partners with big buildings and lots of space to share out as well as, you know, one person SMEs or two people SMEs working from their phone, that's where their business is, their audience is on the internet, you know. So there's a beautiful ecology that can learn from each other but let's not forget to to bring that into the the experience of all of our young people and that way we can become a creative nation. You know, that's a that would be a wonderful thing, wasn't it, if we felt like we were truly creative as a nation.
Speaker 7:And when we talk about sort of inclusion and exclusion, the arts and culture are a wonderful way of bringing out empathy in in everybody. You can see the world from another person's perspective and therefore you can really honor and respect their traditions and their experiences and their lived experiences and their culture. So we need more culture, more creativity in our early years so that we can embrace everybody around us in a much more full way to have that truly creative nation.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Oh, we've got a hand up to the left
Speaker 3:of me. Priscilla.
Speaker 5:I'll just do do my quick thirty seconds.
Speaker 2:Go on then.
Speaker 5:I just want to say, I'm not saying to people to be fearless, do it with fear. I've been scared and I'm still scared most of the time. I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm still largely intimidated, but do it anyway. Even last night, I had the premiere not the premiere, the opening night of our free festival, Picture East Film Festival at Everyman, Stratford International, and it's so bougie, you know? It's just fabulous.
Speaker 5:But the fact that I'm in that space, winging it, really means anybody can do it. So do it scared and just go for it.
Speaker 2:Amazing. I think that's our last words. I think all that remains for me to say is thanks again to the support from UCL for making this project possible. Special thanks to Robin Billiam for studio direction, and thanks to our guests who are Priscilla Igwe from the New Black Film Collective, Matt Lane from Eastside, Louis Tumazu from the culture team at Waltham Forest Council, Ajay Papial from Art Club at CIC and last but not least Doctor Anne Preston from the School of Culture and Creative Industries here at UCL East. See you next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Search IOE insights for more podcasts from the IOE.