Age of Difference
The ‘Age of Difference’ is a year-long season of participatory arts projects that will engage; children, young people, and the wider Brent community in an active dialogue about how they perceive identity. Over the year we will be testing whether true empathy can be found through the process of learning about each other and creating art collaboratively.
We are based in Brent one of the most diverse boroughs in the UK - our rooms reflect this. It started with a series of questions. “Am I a minority?” asked a young person from Asia during a session. We give everybody lanyards on which they can write their pronouns (e.g. he, she, they), if they want to - “Why would I do that?” asked one young person, who is a refugee from Eastern Europe and falls into the category of ‘disadvantaged’ for other reasons. She asked this while sitting next to another young person from South America who identifies as gender fluid. “What is a refugee?” asked a young person who arrived in the UK in 2022 fleeing the war. This is the make up of a typical Unique Community session, identity matters.
We are living in a time when both self-identification and assigning identity to others have become politicised acts that affect all of us everyday - we want to explore this with our community safely and calmly. We want to learn about how different identities have been shaped by history - whilst having a lot of creative fun and making brilliant new theatre!
“I love to meet my best friends everyday at the park”
Students are Park Lane and Chalkhill Primary School’s have already started to explore their identity.
The Age of Difference will see the opening of 5 ‘Community Meetings’, inviting the wider local community to explore the theme alongside session participants, especially their families. Over the last year we have been delivering the Stork Project, an intergenerational program for Ukrainian refugees that will welcome the Afghan community in its second year. The intention was to open the conversation between peers and within families about their experiences with the outcomes of building social ties and reducing the sense of isolation migration brings. We noticed that the conversations with families, when supported by a trained therapist, gave CYP greater access to subject matter and further encouraged participation. We want to take our learning from the Stork Project and apply it to all of our community sessions. We will invite active involvement in shaping our cultural provision with the hope that the more open we are the more people are able to access our work. These meetings are part of a pilot program that we intend to make part of our core delivery.
The year long program will work in 3 stages:
The community will explore their own identities against the backdrop of the local area and wider world. This exploration will be guided by highly skilled theatre/design/movement/music professionals dependant on the session participants are accessing. These sessions will always be supported by a wellbeing officer, ensuring that content is appropriate and safe.
The community will be invited to share their findings about themselves with their groups and search for differences and commonalities between each other. This sharing will form the basis of the work that will be created.
The community will create collaboratively leading to shows, exhibitions and music concerts.
We hope that at the end of the year we are all a little bit more patient with each other’s differences.
