Common Ground Symposium 2022

How can creativity lead us to alternative ways of seeing and enable youth engagement with heritage?

Are you a professional or volunteer in Heritage or the Arts? Do you work in learning, engagement or audience development? Are you a creative practitioner or young person interested in heritage projects or youth voice?

Join us and our partners at the Common Ground Symposium to celebrate the culmination of this 3-year funded heritage youth engagement project. Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we have connected young people in the East of England with their local cultural and natural heritage through the arts.

The Event

The Symposium will share and reflect on the learning and outcomes of Common Ground. It invites participants to explore how we can make heritage non-traditional, playful and accessible to young people through creative processes.

Ideas around these themes will be shared through thought provoking workshops, talks, panel discussions and a project showcase.

It’s a great opportunity to develop your ideas and practice around youth voice and engagement, creativity, storytelling and alternative ways of seeing heritage.

Programme:

10.00 – Welcome from Chair Amy Nomvula, producer and DJ at BBC Radio Norfolk. Common Ground Film Showcase

10.20 – Welcome from Daniel Brine, Artistic Director and Chief Executive at Norfolk & Norwich Festival

10.30 – Opening Keynote:

• Dr Dominique Bouchard (Head of Learning and Interpretation at English Heritage) will share her inspiring heritage practice, as well as her work on NLHF funded Kick the Dust youth engagement programme Shout Out Loud.
• Accompanied by young photographer Kemka Ajoku, commissioned artist on a new Shout Out Loud project ‘England’s New Lenses’.

11.10-11.55 and 12.20-13.05 – Breakout Activity Sessions (& break)

1 activity per time slot. All activities are repeated twice.

• Phantom Forms: Create Your Own Playable Artwork – Collusion
• Something BAD Has to Happen: Connecting Heritage and Young People through Engaging Storytelling – Chip Colquhoun
• Creativity and Fundraising: Transforming Your Approach and Gaining Success – Fern Potter of Arts, Fundraising and Philanthropy
• Listening, Choice and Sharing Power with Younger People – Lawrence Becko
• Exploring Unconventional Youth Leadership – Jack Wilkin and Lil Woods

13.05 – Lunch provided by The Feed Norwich

14.00 – Plenary session Making Play With Heritage led by Coney – a collection of makers creating interactive theatre, games and adventures that spark change

14.45 – Break & refreshments

15.00 – Panel discussion and open floor discussion asking:

How can creativity diversify youth access to heritage?

• Moderator: Lil Woods – Freelance Artist and Facilitator
• Panellist 1: Meg Watts – EDI Officer, Norfolk Wildlife Trust
• Panellist 2: Kerith Ririe – Property Operations Manager, National Trust
• Panellist 3: Jordan Hunnisett – Common Ground Leader
• Panellist 4: Elle Root – Collections and Learning Curator (Community), Colchester and Ipswich Museums
• Panellist 5: Kemka Ajoku – Shout Out Loud Photographer and Artist, English Heritage

15.40 – Break & refreshments

15.50 – Closing Keynote from artist, writer, facilitator and producer Sipho Eric Ndlovu – A History You Know, A History We Remixed

16.15 – Closing remarks by Amy Nomvula

16.30 – Finish

Throughout the day, explore our creative, youth-led showcase of Common Ground projects and outputs.

The progamme will be youth led, original and offer you space to connect with great practitioners working in Heritage and the Arts, as well as young people active in the sector. It’s an opportunity to discover new ways of working in partnership and creating innovative experiences for cultural and natural heritage with and for young people, whilst supporting youth voice.

About Common Ground

Common Ground is a Norfolk & Norwich Festival 250 project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery Players, it’s been an extraordinary three years of partnership working to facilitate youth voice with Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, The National Trust, Flag Fen, Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service, The Prince’s Trust, SHARE Museums East and a wider creative community.

Ticket Information

Free tickets are available for young people, freelancers and those volunteering in the Heritage or Cultural sectors. If you have any queries about this, please email commonground@nnfestival.org.uk

There is a small travel grant available for young people to attend the Symposium if coming from outside Norwich. Please get in touch with us by emailing commonground@nnfestival.org.uk to discuss this.

Breakout sessions will be booked in advance. Please book these alongside or after your Symposium ticket by following the links above. Ensure you have booked two different activities for the two different time slots.