Features
TEATIME TOP-UP
15.04.2011 / Communities / 1 Comments
Hybrid is committed to using creativity to initiate positive social engagement. Its director, Dr Samina Zahir, describes how tea parties can ‘pop up’ and bring art to inhabit community voids
Inhabit was a programme of travelling “arTea” rooms that journeyed across Birmingham and was delivered by Hybrid. The aim was to encourage creativity on local high streets where closing shops may have dented community confidence in public spaces. The programme was part of the empty spaces initiative, funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government and Arts Council England.
Hybrid engages in cross-sectoral and intercultural conversations and research, and we have been producing community based arts work with individuals and groups since 2001, so it was with this background that I approached Inhabit.
I have grown familiar with the idea of supporting other organisations and individuals to develop their own arts outreach and engagement programmes, and I paused to ask whether – as someone now used to advising others – I could still deliver an arts programme that offered genuine community involvement and high quality creative engagement. Did my own advice hold up against the realities of delivery?
Birmingham, like other major cities in the UK, is home to incredibly diverse communities. My challenge in identifying a concept for Inhabit was a theme that resonated across such diversity. It was reflecting upon this that the social act of tea drinking emerged.
I felt then, and even more so now, that this crosses boundaries of class, culture, ethnicity, age, education and ability. It provides a basis for creative engagement and drawing people into a social space. On entering the tearoom, visitors were greeted with a friendly welcome and asked their tea of choice (from a varying list which included ginger, lapsang souchong, fresh mint and ordinary tea).
Having long grown tired of the art-as-instrumental/art-for-art’s sake debate, the artists Hybrid connects with are those who not only believe in the creative process but also succeed in delivering outstanding products.
The trawl for artists brought us our high street explorers Parrabbola, who discovered stories for our theatre promenade and captured dreams for our skyward bound procession, and alongside new relationships there were artists that continue to inspire me and who set the benchmark for the kind of work that I want to see take place. Mel Tomlinson seems to effortlessly engage visitors in the delivery of high quality arts work; Wanjiku Nyachae gives of herself in such a way that it encourages others’ creative story telling; emerging artist Charis McNerlin encouraged us to reflect upon well being. Some of our artist’s recruitment evolved alongside Inhabit. In talking to our visitors, we uncovered skills in crochet and photography – our visitors called in for tea and stayed to share skills.
What touched me was the degree to which people enjoyed Inhabit. Such a simple combination - art, tea, space - generated affection and warmth, people came in and stayed, they talked to us, to each other, to people they had never met, and seemed to do so with remarkable ease. This was a real “big society”.
Our largest table was always the first space occupied, a tour of the artwork on the walls was de rigueur, and once one’s tea and cake order was in there was time to turn to the artist’s workshop and imprinting one’s own creative intervention on the tearoom.
There have been battles. Who would have thought that it would have been so hard to convince landlords that their long term empty shops would be looked after and well used if only they would agree to us inhabiting them? Who would have guessed that local authorities wishing to see improved high streets could be so unforgiving when it came to business rate reductions?
At the close of Inhabit, the programme will have occupied five empty shops for 400 days. It will have connected with over 1500 people, through over 100 workshops delivered alongside 20 new exhibitions and performances. While the future for such programmes remains uncertain, Inhabit has inspired the empty spaces it occupied. The community organisations who allowed us to use their empty space have been inspired to re-open as a café/ community hub, another is to be used as a commercial café/tearoom, a third will continue to develop the tearoom/social space theme for local communities.
www.hybridconsulting.org.uk
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Melanie Tomlinson
19.04.2011
I have worked with many arts organisations over the past 14 years and rate Hybrid as one of the most successful and interesting ones to work with. Hybrid never pays lip service to its projects - it delivers well researched and informative programmes that challenge communities and artists in many different and positive ways. Inhabit certainly was a project that was enjoyed and cherished by the communities it visited and one that will be missed. I also think the dedication and care Samina Zahir took in delivering Inhabit must be mentioned as her approach has ensured a vibrant experience was had by all.