Big Creative Conversation

Join Haringey Creates (@haringeycreates) for their Big Creative Conversation for all young people living and studying in Haringey.

Haringey is a diverse and vibrant borough with sustained, successful partnerships. Haringey Creates is our Cultural Education Partnership, our vision, cultural and creative entitlement for all children and young people. The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified our collective ambition and vital need to situate our work so that it is relevant to children and young peoples’ lived cultural lives.

We are now staging a Big Creative Conversation with children and young people between 8 and 16 years old, and up to 24-year olds with additional learning needs. This is blended model; conversations will be led by teachers and creative educators, and we will reach more young people through virtual means using engaging and creative digital prompts. We will establish what creativity and culture means to them, what have they cherished, and what have they missed. We will discuss individual and collective visions for the future and what we can do build strong creative communities in our borough.

We will speak to at least 10 groups of young people in 10 settings across the borough, we will include primary, secondary settings, alternative provision, SEND provision, youth boards and youth forum in our creative organisations. Creative partners include Collage Arts, Jacksons Lane, Haringey Shed and Alexandra Palace.

A fundamental element is that the conversation is accessible to all young people. To ensure this we working with the Assistive Creative Technology Officer and a group of young people from Wac Arts' Inclusive Programmes to help us design this conversation.

We will compile a presentation which distils the idea emerging from the young people which will be on a loop in the Long Lounge at Collage Arts. This is a publicly accessible space adjacent to the café, which has a focus on sharing young people’s work. It will run alongside an exhibition of photographs produced by young people excluded from mainstream education. This distillation of ideas will also be online on all our partners websites. This will allow young people and their families (even the digitally excluded) to see the ideas that emerge.

Our Big Creative Conversation will feed an existing creative consultation and programming project led by young people aged 16- 24-year-olds across Haringey in partnership between Alexandra Palace and other cultural providers. Teams of young people will work with artist-facilitators to transform sites into a platform for local performers and artists. Young people will gain skills in commissioning and production, as they sample and showcase emerging creative talent in their neighbourhoods.

The activity is taking place in venues around Haringey and online. This is closed event for young people living and studying in Haringey. If you'd like to be a part of the Big Creative Conversation please contact [email protected]