UPDATE – Oct 2013
Press Release
Manchester, UK – Full Circle Arts this week launches their new digital arts project “Pride of Place” with a mission to map pride in Greater Manchester through cutting edge digital media.
Background
The media is full of negative stories surrounding place; sink estates, ‘grim up North’, the unemployed being feckless and idle ‘behind closed curtains’, the poor being ‘Chavs’ and therefore un-deserving poor, disabled people being cheats, liars and a burden, and all of them believed to be living other lives in ‘other’ places.
Full Circle Arts want to give unheard people and places who are marginalized, stereotyped and misrepresented the chance to make their own positive marks on the map. Placing themselves in ‘Pride Of Place’
We are giving opportunity for people to tell their own stories and show them (and give them the skills) how in the ‘digital age’ it can be easy to have a voice for your own community. Showing the stories in an aesthetic and ‘artistic’ way will be essential to gain an audience amongst the noise in the digital space.
Method
Starting in Harpurhey, Full Circle Arts have been running workshops and partnering with community groups, arts organisations and (either ‘the public’ or ‘artists’) and over the next 2 years Pride of Place will be visiting all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester. We will be running workshops and events with community groups, arts organisations and other partners, creating a wealth of digital content and stories to be displayed on the site http://pop.fullcirclearts.co.uk/ from a wide section of society.
Members of the public can also submit their ‘pride’ places and stories via social media with the hashtag #prideofplace for automatic inclusion on the site. At launch facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube will be supported and there will even be a dedicated phone number where people can phone and leave their stories!
Get Involved!
- Do you have a story about somewhere you are proud of? Are you a group within Greater Manchester who would like to partner with us?
- Do you know of an arts organisation producing content that fits with the ethos of Pride of Place? Projects with themes of place, pride, recognition, access and positivity? Let them know about Pride of Place, and that by using the hashtag #prideofplace their work can be shared with our audience, or ask them to get in touch with us about how we could work together
- Do you know of an ongoing arts project where we could provide workshop leading to the creation of digital ‘pride’ stories? This could be a literary course, a media training workshop, community media teaching or any number of activities, we are open to ideas!
Visit http://pop.fullcirclearts.co.uk/
UPDATE! August 2013
Continuing our Pride of Place project, we again went to our friends at the Factory Youth Zone in Harpurhey.
On bank holiday Monday they opened their door for a community fun day where members of the public could attend and try a range of activities and games.
We were there interviewing people about places in Harpurhey that made them proud, whether that was the street in which they lived or the parks and areas they relaxed in. We managed to get a lot of great launch stories about civic pride for our site http://pop.fullcirclearts.co.uk/
The site will be launching soon and will enable people to submit their own stories and media about places that make them proud.
Watch this space for news about the website launch!
UPDATE! Summer 2013
We launched our Pride of Place project at the Factory Youth Zone in Harpurhey.
Pride of Place is a project asking people for positive stories about the places they call home. Starting in Manchester and running over the summer, we are holding events and workshops, and asking why people are “proud of their place” over social media channels, and the stories we receive will be displayed and mapped on our Pride of Place site.
The Factory Youth Zone in Harpurhey was the perfect place to start the project, with over 200 young people in attendance over the 2 days. Using photography and film, we asked the young people to tell us why they are proud of where they live. Some of the young people also became community reporters, collecting stories from their peers.
(“We like Manchester because we was born her and we like going to youth clubs that are here.” By Kayleigh and Lois )
Our official site for the Pride of Place project will be officially launched soon and watch this space for more events.
The Factory Youth Zone is a Manchester-based charity in Harpurhey offering a fantastic schedule of activities and opportunities for young people to try new things and learn new skills. They also provide relaxed informal spaces for simply hanging with mates, making The Factory North Manchester’s first choice venue for young people.
(Three young people drawing and writing their thoughts on their ‘pride of place’)
Full Circle Arts are about to start a digital mapping project that will travel around streets, neighbourhoods and places in Greater Manchester.
The media is full of negative stories surrounding place; sink estates, ‘grim up North’, the unemployed being feckless and idle ‘behind closed curtains’, the poor being ‘Chavs’ and therefore un-deserving poor, disabled people being cheats, liars and a burden, and all of them believed to be living other lives in ‘other’ places. Full Circle Arts want to give unheard people and places who are marginalised, stereotyped and misrepresented the chance to make their own positive marks on the map. Placing themselves in ‘Pride Of Place’.
To do this we are creating a digital mapping project, collecting personal stories both digitally and in person throughout Greater Manchester, and then displaying them, online using trans-media (or across media) techniques and in physical location.
Our starting point for the project will be Harpurhey and yesterday we visited the brilliant The Factory Youth Zone. They do some amazing work in an astonishing building.
You should really check out their work here http://www.thefactoryyz.org it’s an absolute asset to the community and certainly a Pride of Place.