Culture, Arts and Refugees

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Emily Hunka, Greenwich & Lewisham Young People’s Theatre

Location Visited

Edinburgh & Newcastle

What did you do?

I visited West Lothian Youth Theatre in Edinburgh, based in Livingstone. WLYT have been working with writer Claire Skinner on a play about child soldiers and civil war. I observed two rehearsals of the group, and shadowed Eleanor Morrison, Drama Workshop Leader. I also interviewed Claire Duffy and Artistic Director Michael Mackenzie.

I visited Rosa Stourac McCreery in Newcastle who is a prolific freelance theatre practitioner and who has been instrumental in setting up Jambo Africa, an arts and network group for African refugees and exiles. She has also co-founded Urban Circus Theatre, which works with disaffected young people and adults in the North East Region. I also met artistic partner Rico Jakk, co-founder of UCT. Through Rosa, I also obtained information about other networks working with refugees and the arts in the region.

I visited Paul James from The Live Theatre, Newcastle. The Education & Participation Department at Live Theatre have set up a 3-year project “From Home to Newcastle” funded by Young People’s Participatory Theatre Project and Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The project works to bring young people from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds into the youth theatre, and culminates in performances at an annual festival in Newcastle and in Liverpool for European City of Culture celebrations.

Contacts

What did you learn from your study visit?

The study visits were particularly informative in exploring organisations working through the arts with refugees, in an area of the UK not represented in the Study group (Newcastle). The experience in Edinburgh also particularly informed about the nature of ethics.

What key issues or questions did it raise for you?

• The question of integration, multi-culturalism, diversity: should there be a UK-wide strategy or a regional development? Can one region inform the other?

• Has process and planning been underestimated in the debate about ethics and purpose?

• What is the best way to use multicultural influences?

• Do we consider audience enough in our debate about ethics and purpose?

• How can regions and practices link on a long-term basis?

In what ways has this experience changed or enriched you professionally?

The trip was very helpful in broadening perspectives on the kind of work which is happening in special areas of the country. All groups visited broadened this perspective. I felt through the areas I visited, the young people I witnessed and the sector professionals I talked to, I built up a clearer picture of how other work with arts and refugees (or work around the themes) fitted into the national picture and was both similar and different to the work I do myself. Witnessing and experiencing other professional practice was very useful in defining need and purpose for the work I do, and clarifying the need and purpose for the work in general. By visiting three different organisations with different mission statements, witnessing their work and hearing about the successes and struggles made it much clearer for me where the impetus for the work and the ethical framework around the work needs to develop from.