Reflections on the Sound of Walsall Exhibition
Create Walsall was a community research project using the power of performing arts to support social cohesion, creativity, and regeneration in Walsall, led by the Institute for Community Research and Development (ICRD).
In this guest blog, Kenzie Chadburn reflects on a recent exhibition which they attended as part of their work experience placement with ICRD.
Create Walsall was a community-based research project run by the Institute for Community Research and Development (ICRD), designed to investigate the effectiveness of co-creative arts in promoting social cohesion and community wellbeing. The motivation was to put into practice methods that would provide people with beneficial experiences and reusable skills, whilst also striving to understand the potential value of using the arts to engage with a community as a way of understanding their needs.
The project recruited a small number of volunteers who received community researcher training (via online sessions) to equip them to assess the impact and effectiveness of the project’s activities, principally delivered through (in-person) co-creative workshops in a range of Walsall neighbourhoods. Participants worked with project lead Irine Roesnes on arts activities to help them explore their experiences of Walsall, identity, and belonging. This culminated in a really successful exhibition at the New Art Gallery that celebrated the community, local creativity — the story of Walsall as told by its residents.
We were also delighted to work again with work experience student Kenzie Chadburn, who shares their reflections of the project and exhibition. Kenzie is 17 and lives near Burnley, Lancashire.
“I was invited to observe the activities with community researchers, and to visit the Create Walsall Exhibition in May 2023, and from the moment I stepped into the exhibition room, my senses were immediately flooded with the sight and sound of people. The room was alive with the palpable energy of people coming together in a celebration of themselves and each other; a celebration of the community they were all a part of. Adorning the walls were photos that had been taken around Walsall, all of them hand chosen and submitted by people because they were representative of the area and the community.
There were photos of the architecture, local wildlife, the gorgeous sight of the sun travelling over the horizon or even just photos of the people themselves. All of these represented a different part of Walsall and clearly showcased what was important to people, and what made them proud and glad to be within the Walsall community. Furthermore, during the co-creative workshops, participants were given the opportunity to write poetry so that they could more verbally express their thoughts and feelings around Walsall.
The poems displayed on the gallery walls had a similar trend throughout, with individuals sharing their love and desire for unity amongst themselves, as they reminisced about times where being in a community meant being safe and with people who would support you. More than that though, there was an obvious focus on the value of green spaces, with people talking so fondly about the beauty of nature and its role in supporting their wellbeing and bringing people together.
Admittedly, it isn’t hard to understand why people love green spaces; after all they’ve been repeatedly proven to be beneficial for one’s mental health, and the sense of freedom you can attain from simply just being out in nature is something you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere. However, as so astutely pointed out in the focus of the exhibition, ‘The Sound of Walsall’, these green spaces are unfortunately shrinking, and their benefits may be lost, particularly problematic in a place like Walsall with such unequal access to natural resources.
The exhibition also highlighted that since these spaces act as a neutral ground between people — belonging to no-one and enjoyed by everyone — their absence would contributes to yet more potential divides between people. Which, in such a diverse community, only makes the situation worse for everyone. So why do we see this happening?
Well for starters, the destruction of green spaces can be attributed to various factors, many of which are discussed in the Sound of Walsall. Said factors range from pollution to the careless expansion of urban areas, and to the abuse that green spaces face at the hands of young people. This latter point is more thoroughly discussed in the Sound of Walsall, where members of the community conclude that the rise in antisocial behaviour exhibited by young people is a direct result of the decrease in the number of youth services available. After all, this decrease coinciding with the ever-increasing financial challenges posed by modern day life means that young people are often left to find ways of entertaining themselves. Without sufficient supervision, this leads to them typically engaging in the vandalization of public areas, with green spaces taking the bulk of such abuse due how easy of a target they present.
Sadly, a vicious cycle might be developing where the absence of such connection-fostering neutral areas also prevents young people from learning the importance of being able to connect with a diverse range of people.
On that point, we get to the question of ‘why is connecting with a diverse cast of people so important in the first place?’ My answer is that being able to connect with people who come from different and diverse backgrounds allows for opportunities in personal growth and empathy by learning about a range of new perspectives and other cultures. Not only does this open new avenues of opportunity for people, but it also helps to foster creativity and promote social cohesion amongst large and diverse groups of people.
A notable example of this is the Create Walsall project itself, as the project brought together people from diverse backgrounds so that they could share their experiences of being in the Walsall community with one another and collaborate via the project’s co-creative methodology in order to produce an exhibition that was reflective of their thoughts and feelings. In other words, the project helped to encourage and promote social cohesion amongst members of the community, an effect that was only strengthened when people came together in solidarity to celebrate the exhibition that was produced.
Having more directly discussed the value of social cohesion, the true importance of the work done by the Create Walsall project no doubt begins to fully come to light. After all, even if you don’t factor in how the destruction of green spaces affects the wellbeing of a community, its undeniable that the changes society itself has undergone over the past few decades has resulted in local communities becoming significantly more closed off. Holding true to the Sound of Walsall, an audible example of this is children’s laughter: whereas it was once a common sound, the residents of Walsall remark that it’s scarcely heard nowadays, with many children instead choosing to either remain indoors or their places for play extremely limited.
Once again returning to the Sound of Walsall, one of the most bittersweet parts is hearing members of the community reminisce about the Walsall Market. In its prime, it was a place where the sheer amount of noise could often be intimidating at first, though it was never an offensive noise. It was the noise of people; of talking and laughter; of friends and family; of strangers all coming together to be in the moment. It was the perfect opportunity to get used to being around and forming connections with people who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, over time, the Walsall Market has lost its spirit. Predictably, this is due to the ever-increasing presence and commonality of big brand name supermarkets. With such enterprises around, local businesses and markets begin to wither away as they struggle to keep up with the competition.
I would argue that as in many smaller cities and towns, this results in people becoming unfamiliar with being around those from different backgrounds and cultures, reducing opportunities for beneficial relationships and sympathy. Naturally, people then begin find their ability to form connections with others who are different begins to deteriorate over time, and instead they’ll typically choose to only reach out to individuals similar to themselves. Not only does Create Walsall help to bring situations like this to light, but it points the way to solutions.
After all, the co-creative methodology and system of Create Walsall caters to a wide array of people, and the use of sound as a focus was critical in this by serving as a neutral stimulus for participants. This means that from the start of their involvement with the workshops, they were engaging with one another in response to something they all have shared experience of. The workshops themselves then help with promoting social cohesion by bringing together and connecting these individuals, with the output of the work becoming truly reflective of participants’ thoughts and feelings.”
Kenzie B. Chadburn
September 2023
If you’d like to learn more about ICRD’s work with Create Walsall, please click here.
