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The second round of Peshkar’s Crisis Commissions programme is called ‘Communicate’. In April, we launched an open call for artists to get in touch with us about a project they wanted to get off the ground. Some of these were lockdown specific, some were ideas that had been flying around looking for a home for a while. We dedicated most of May to having conversations with these artists, making connections, shaping ideas and eventually, commissioning some of them.
Here are the artists and artworks that were commissioned in this first iteration of the project…
Originally formed in 1991 as a community theatre project for Oldham’s Asian community, Peshkar has evolved into the UK’s leading participatory arts organisation targeting young people who are deemed hard to reach or socially disadvantaged.
Emily is a creative facilitator from Cheshire who put together an engagement project for young people to get involved with drama and creative writing while stuck at home.
Sung is a dancer and choreographer and Lucy is a visual artist and theatre designer. At the start of lockdown, they began a collaboration that involved sharing their practice in the form of a conversation. Here are some of the artworks that they created.
Susanna is a theatre maker and clowning artist based in Hulme, South Manchester. She wanted to engage people in her local area in using art to project forward to beyond the lockdown with the stimulus ‘One this is over…’. These written pieces were blended together with images and printed into a series of posters that were used to create a pop-up gallery in the ‘ginnels’ of Hulme, bringing light and life to a dark time. You can explore the work here https://oncethisisover.squarespace.com/media and on the Instagram account here https://www.instagram.com/oncethisis_over/
Richard is a sound artist based in Bristol. His piece explored themes of hope and community through a rendering of the Pinocchio classic ‘When you wish upon a star…’ The piece was created using crowd sourced sounds provided by the general public.
You can hear the piece here https://soundcloud.com/user-809778429/when-you-wish and Richard invited the public to join him to listen on 29th August at 8.30pm when Jupiter and Saturn were visible alongside the moon in the night sky over at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTG2SH8_i_s&feature=youtu.be
Miriam is an artist and animator based in Stockholm, Sweden who explored the stories of young lesbians through lockdown. She wanted to learn more about how women were managing their coming out stories during this time, whether they were out at the time of lockdown or still finding their way to this big moment.
Her website is here https://www.miriamivanoff.com and we will share the completed work with you as soon as it is ready.
Sian is a visual artist based in Sheffield and her project invited children, adults and families to respond to stimulus and create their own art as part of the Stay At Home Art Club #PeshkarSAHAC.
The project ran throughout July with x people taking part and submitting their work to the online gallery. You can view the challenges and the pieces that were shared here https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/peshkarsahac/
‘The workshop was absolutely fantastic. I felt very lucky to be on it’
Sita and Kamal are a theatre/ movement director and writer pairing who are experts in creating audio drama. They came together to help practitioners across the UK explore this as a medium for creating new performance work as themselves or with participatory groups in these socially distanced times. The workshop was attended by artists and practitioners from all over the UK.