Young people taking the lead
Matt Fenton is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Contact. In this case study on the theme of leadership and development, Matt talks about their model which relies on young people aged 13–30, and the wide-ranging impact two specific projects have had on participants, communities and audience development.
This case study was sourced by Culture24 as a resource for our conference, The art of leadership.
Contact in Manchester is the leading contemporary theatre and arts venue to place young people at the decision-making heart of everything. Young people aged 13–30 work alongside staff, sit on the board, and make key decisions on everything, from the artistic programme to staff appointments. This results in socially-engaged new shows, a range of youth leadership programmes, and a demographic that is 70% under 35, and 40% Black and minority ethnic. Above all we aim to develop young people as leaders and agents of change in the arts and society.
Rather than delivering traditional outreach or audience development, Contact trains and empowers young people to deliver their own projects in their own communities. Flagship programmes Future Fires and The Agency support young people, primarily from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, to develop their own ideas for social change – through delivering arts projects (Future Fires) or social enterprises (The Agency) – which directly impact their communities.
Approach
Established seven years ago by a group of young people at Contact, Future Fires is founded on the idea that the best cultural instigators in a community are the young people who live there. It equips them with the financial and project management skills to deliver cultural projects – be that a radio station, a female-only poetry slam, a podcast for young people of colour, theatre workshops for young mums and toddlers, or workshops for young people on the autism spectrum.
The Agency takes this a step further, using a theatre-based methodology to develop social enterprises and start-ups in some of the most challenging areas of Manchester and London. Established in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro by artist Marcus Faustini, it was imported by Contact with partners Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) and People’s Palace Projects five years ago.
The Agency’s participants ‘devise’ unique social enterprises for real-world application – everything from a baking project for families accessing food banks, to a book-share programme for young people in care, to a methodology for teaching English as a foreign language through five-a-side football.
The challenges with these projects are not the traditional ones of funding or audiences. The true challenges are those faced by the young people themselves: debt, homelessness, violence, mental health, and a host of social and health issues made acute by a context of austerity, the stripping away of young people’s services, and an NHS and social care system under massive strain.
Five years ago, we chose the north Manchester wards of Moston and Harpurhey as the focus for The Agency Manchester, as they were two of the most deprived wards in the country – they were also where we had previously delivered smaller projects.
Future Fires responds directly to gaps in cultural provision in Greater Manchester, as identified by young people living there, and the issues of accessing mainly city-centre based cultural institutions.
Audience development as a by-product
We actively recruit young people by visiting schools, colleges, businesses and, above all, on the streets, talking to young people face-to-face – in fast-food restaurants, barbershops and youth clubs. It has been important to recruit consistently in focused areas to build community buy-in, and develop relationships and partnerships in the territory.
Through The Agency and Future Fires we’ve learnt that by not using top-down outreach models (“we’ve got this great project/show/workshop for you – come and join in”), we are having a deeper impact on communities unlikely to access the city centre, let alone its arts institutions.
We are increasingly addressing issues such as food poverty, health inequalities, and access to technology. We have learnt that, despite audience development never being an explicit aim, the young people involved start to use our building to meet friends and hold meetings, and populate our casual staff and audiences.
Challenges
The difficulty of working outside of our building is access to space and resources. We rely on community partners for meeting and event spaces.
We support projects over several years, helping them to become sustainable. This growing scale and complexity of projects has its own capacity challenges, and requires staff from different departments such as finance and marketing to feed in.
Impact
The Agency and Future Fires have a profound impact on the young participants. Their confidence and communication skills increase significantly, and they constantly inspire us with their ideas, their ability to attract funding, and the high-powered connections they make across the city.
The Agency’s participants have spoken at the Houses of Parliament, and Future Fires regularly present at conferences and events nationally. Twenty-four out of 30 of The Agency’s funded projects are still running today. These projects have engaged over 6,500 community participants and reached over 12,000 audience members.
Future plans
The next step for both The Agency and Future Fires is national expansion. Last year The Agency secured £873,000 from the Big Lottery Fund to support national roll-out over the next three years. Starting in September 2018, National Theatre Wales and FabLab Belfast will double the footprint of The Agency, while continuing in Manchester and London. Spring 2018 will also see the first Future Fires programme outside of Greater Manchester, in partnership with York Mediale.
Advice for colleagues
One key piece of learning from both programmes is to trust that your core art-form practice can result in many different kinds of output, well beyond the arts – if you let it! For us, the true value of theatre is in sharing the process, enabling us to reach a much broader range of people, and addressing a wide range of health and social challenges.
Resources
The programmes have relied on visionary support from many organisations: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Big Lottery Fund; Manchester City Council; Esmee Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn Foundation. It’s also important to note that the scale and impact of the programmes is only possible due to being an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.
Arts Marketing Association: Contact - Young people at the heart of decision-making
Contact and BAC The Agency interim report
Creative People and Places - Matt Fenton blog
The art of leadership
