Partners: Castlefields Regeneration Team, Castlefields Community Chest
Aim: Engage the local community in the redesign of 6 subways in the area. Deliver a festival event.
Project description: A team of 15 visual and performance artists (music, dance, theatre and spoken word) worked with local residents to create permanent murals/artwork that improve the look of 6 subways, and create site specific performances to launch the artworks. The project engaged a range of local organisation to ensure that the widest cross-section of people were involved. Participating groups included five primary schools, young people from MENCAP, adult learners from the Acorn Adult Learning Centre and young people referred through the YOT. Working with artists over several months, participant’s created visual artworks and performances for the Going Underground Launch event on 14/08/2012. The performance included live uploads and twitter feeds to a digital map of activity. Other groups contributed to the event to create a festival atmosphere. There were 321 participants, 7 new performances groups established and five permanent artworks created in the subways.
‘By far the most successful engagement project we’ve done in Castlefields, amazing’ – Nathan Renison, Castlefields Regeneration Team