Creating Together Programme

Welcome!

Co-creating with communities has been a long-established part of the outdoor arts
sector. In the past few years however, funders and stakeholders have moved co creation to the fore in terms of policy, practice and expectation. We’d love you to
join us for a creative discussion about the challenges and opportunities for artists
and organisations collaborating with citizen stakeholders. How has co-creation has
evolved, and where are we headed? We’re delighted to invite you to join in this dialogue with colleagues in what we hope will be a creative and inclusive
symposium celebrating the richness and diversity of collaborative practice.

Chris Rolls – Facilitator

We’re looking forward to welcoming you to 101 next Monday as we host our
‘Creating Together’ symposium – a chance to explore the wide spectrum of
practice that exists in the area of co-creation, engagement and participation. It’s
been a fascinating journey putting this event together and I’m really exciting
about the range of speakers and perspectives that we’ll have in the room –
amongst them most importantly you and your fellow delegates!

In the spirit of the symposium theme we would love the event to be as
interactive as possible and to help us in this there are some things we would like
you to think about ready to share when you arrive.

• Who or what inspires you in the area of community co-creation?
• What do you hope to discover, discuss or explore today?
• What are the biggest challenges facing us in engaging with communities
in the creation of work?

There’ll also be a gallery wall space where we would love you to post anything
that you think might be of interest to other delegates - materials, images,
information celebrating their own work and favourite any resources to share in
relation to co-creating with communities.

Simon Chatterton – Strategic Lead, 101 Outdoor Arts

Speaker biographies

Orit Azaz is an artistic director, facilitator & creative thinker with a passion for bringing together people who wouldn’t normally meet to share new creative experiences and conversation. Her experience combines devising & directing large scale performances & events, mostly outdoors; creating new contexts for collaborations between artists & communities; and facilitating creative enquiry & artform development. Orit worked with No Fit State Circus from 2009-2015 as artistic director of outdoor performance projects, incl. Parklife, Barricade and Open
House. Other projects include creative director of Portrait of a Nation, as the culmination of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture & artistic director of Something Good, for Birmingham Cathedral’s 300th anniversary in
2015. More recently, Orit has been working with Imagineer Productions as Artistic Director of the BRIDGE project 2019-2021 and Imagine-Bamboo 2021 202 www.imaginebamboo.co.uk.

Susan Clarke is the Artistic and Executive Director of Stoke-on-Trent based B arts, an arts and theatre company she co-founded in 1985. B arts were the first women led
outdoor arts company, touring through the mid-1980s to mid 1990s. B arts neighbourhood-focused co-creation work, connecting artists and communities through theatre, carnival and lanterns, has continued unbroken since the company’s inception. B arts has worked with groups and communities across Europe, particularly in 1990’s in Bosnia during the post-conflict era, and the world (India,
Indonesia, and New Zealand), sparking collaboration and co-creation wherever they went. B arts opened a bakery as part of their public facing base 10 years ago and Susan has led on food justice projects from this base ever since.
Susan has also worked as a performer and director with other outdoor arts companies including Welfare State International and Walk the Plank. In December she is leaving B arts to become the Executive Director of Stoke
Creates, Stoke and Staffordshire’s Cultural Compact. B arts will be publishing a series of handbooks in early 2024- the first of which is on Co-creation. To pre-order check B arts website www.b-arts.org.uk

Shanaz Gulzar – Creative Director, Bradford 2025 Shanaz is known for her skillset as an artist, producer and for her creative vision. With a commitment to the arts and
to creating work that pushes boundaries of cultural expression, Shanaz has emerged as a prominent leader in the UK cultural sector. Her career spans film, visual arts, theatre, public art and media, and she has delivered ground-breaking projects nationally and internationally, most recently as a producer at Manchester International Festival. Shanaz has several TV credits, most notably
working with the BBC to present the documentary film ‘Hidden Histories: The Lost Portraits of Bradford’ and bringing a contemporary artist’s perspective to the
Yorkshire landscape in ‘Yorkshire Walks’. In her capacity as Creative Director at Bradford 2025, UK City of Culture, Shanaz is co-leading a transformative cultural renaissance, with initiatives that celebrate diversity, artistic innovation, and community engagement. Shanaz oversees the leadership and direction of Bradford 2025 alongside Executive Director, Dan Bates.

Ellen Harrison is Head of Creative Programmes for Historic England and has worked for the heritage organisation since 2010. Her work focusses on public programming, exhibitions and artist commissions to help a broad range of people positively connect with community and place, improving their wellbeing, contributing to place regeneration and quality of life in the process. She directs a series of high profile programmes, including the largest ever publicly funded community-led arts and heritage programme, the High Street Cultural Programme, and History in the Making, a national youth-led heritage programme that invites young people to celebrate local history in meaningful ways. She is co-lead for a newly
launched national Blue Plaque scheme for England. Ellen’s background is in campaigns, communications and public engagement. She is an alumni of the prestigious Oxford Cultural Leaders programme and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Phill Haynes : Freelance Creative Producer, Festival Director and Consultant
A career spanning well over 30 years from Performer and community theatre arts practitioner to Head of Arts and Culture for Bristol. The abiding thread which connects Phill’s work is people, the desire to enrich social capital, developing innovative and effective arts projects, harnessing the social and economic wealth they engender, to facilitate inclusive, sustainable and prosperous communities, ensuring opportunity for individuals to shape the creation of work and develop skills. Since 2013 as Director of the Wye Valley River Festival, Phill have focused on developing models of co-creation with communities in rural settings alongside multiple landscape partners. WVRF CIC is an innovative arts organisation, led by artists and communities creating work with the environment at its heart. WVRF brings local people, environmentalists, and talented artists together in an internationally important landscape, to creatively explore and play. It now supports and drive a year round programme of community engagement and co-creation activity which culminates in a unique cross-border biennial arts and environment festival: The Wye Valley River Festival.

Liz Mytton is a Bradford born playwright, lyricist, poet and facilitator. She was a Bristol Old Vic Open Session writer in 2018, and previously took part in the Critical Mass writing programme at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Liz went on to work with their young company on Rise in 2017, and again in 2020, co-creating Like There’s No Tomorrow, a National Theatre Connections commission. Her other work includes Red Snapper (2016), Back Home (2017), Southside Stories (2019), The Festival of Lost and Found (2019) for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shame Shanties (2020) and the co-created verbatim performance, Motherhood in a
Climate Crisis (2022). Liz’s latest play, An Emperor in the West, is set in 1937 and focuses on the exile of Haile Selassie, in the city of Bath. Liz leads Theatre in Flow, a company committed to the championing of marginalised voices and their main project, Women’s Supper Club, a Forum Theatre group for women runs in locations across Greater Manchester. Liz’s other current work includes drama facilitation for The Lowry & National Theatre’s ‘Speak Up’ project for young people, curating the Northern Balck Story Archive and developing two new outdoor performances highlighting the history and resilience of migrant communities.

Liz Pugh, Creative Producer for Walk the Plank. Liz makes work in public space – from large scale civic celebrations and parades to memorable outdoor performances; and, as co-founder of Walk the Plank, set up the UK’s first touring theatre ship in the 1990’s. Currently artistic director of Midsummer Mischief for Bodø2024 (Norway), the first EU Capital of Culture in the Arctic; and last year was Creative Producer (Wales) for Green Space Dark Skies, which invited thousands of people to animate wild places with light, captured through films and broadcast via BBC. Previously co-artistic director of Grimsby’s Festival of the Sea (2021/22), Hull Freedom Festival (2013-15); and Creative Producer of the Manchester
Day Parade (2010-22) – all platforms which offer opportunity for meaningful exchange between artists, communities and new audiences. Liz has worked with British Council in West Africa, Hong Kong, Caribbean, Ukraine; designed and led 2 European training programmes, with 11 partner countries; is an Adviser to IETM, European contemporary performing arts network; and sits on the board of Xtrax.

Chris Rolls - Facilitator
Chris is the founder of Collective Sense, a consultancy on a mission to promote creative and inclusive public engagement across the UK. He has over twenty years’ experience in participatory arts, public engagement and community co-creation. He works with social sector organisations at different scales. In 2020/21 he was a public engagement consultant to producers at Coventry City of Culture 2021. From 2017 to 2023, Chris was Head of Training & Development for 64 Million Artists. Here he developed a range of highly-regarded training courses on community engagement, co-creation and cultural inclusion. In 2022 he co-authored a report for the University of Warwick, commissioned by the Arts & Humanities Research Council on Reasons to Co-create. Chris is also a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice with individuals and groups.

Gemma Thomas
Gemma is the director for Appetite, the Creative People and Places National Portfolio programme for Stoke-onTrent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. Appetite’s mission is to get more people in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme to experience and be inspired by the arts. The organisation works with people and partners to decide what arts programming and projects happen through the programme. The CPP work started for Stoke in 2013 formally expanding into neighbouring
Newcastle-under-Lyme in 2019. Regular Appetite Taking place every June since 2014, Some of Appetite’s regular events include The Homecoming, an award-winning, oneday circus-inspired extravaganza in Newcastle-underLyme Town Centre, Staffordshire which celebrates the life and legacy of local-born legend and ‘father of the modern circus’, Philip Astley and The Big Feast, a free, outdoor event where art and artists pop-up in streets and buildings across the city.