Newbiggin Hall Creative Consultation

Digital Voice for Communities had an exciting summer in Newbiggin Hall, working with Newcastle City Council’s Arts Development Team and their partners Projects 4 Change, Inspire Youth, Bedeburn Short Stay Centre, Action for Children and D2 Youth Zone.

Digital Voice were proud to support young people to creatively express themselves about the issues that matter to them and their local community. The emphasis during this ‘Creative Consultation’ was on exploring and enabling local voices through fun, accessible digital media workshops. The results of which have not only been powerful and informative, but also a joy to watch.

Groups of people from the estate, which sits to the north of Westerhope in Newcastle, were encouraged to chat about their thoughts, feelings, wants and needs and learned photography and film skills to create a visual narrative. The focus of the project was to capture residents’ lived experiences, as well as their insightful local knowledge, so it can be channelled into innovative, long lasting and collaboratively developed improvements for the benefit of the whole community, accurately reflecting the cultural needs and aspirations of local people.

The sort of questions that the Newbiggin Hall residents and consultation partner creative teams were asked to explore together included:

 What has it been like for people over the last year and a half?

 What do you do here?

 What would you like to do?

 What would improve your lives?

Newcastle Arts Development Team, along with Digital Voice and other creative partners Action for Children, Newbiggin Hall Play and Youth Providers Network and New Writing North, want to offer a creative programme on Newbiggin Hall which will lead to longer-term access to appropriate cultural activity on the estate. Following a busy summer of arts activities, the film and photography projects the Creative Consultation had produced were showcased at an event at the Galafield Youth Centre in Newbiggin Hall on Wednesday 25 August, with a second, online, opportunity to view the work at an online event on 30 September.