We're over the moon about our Arts Council England grant towards a full TURNING POINT project! We now aim to raise additional funding towards the cost of production and exhibition. Please help us to deliver landmark Black heritage-inspired storytelling and digital resources - for learning, wellbeing, and dementia support, nationwide.
We hope to Crowdfund a minimum of £5,000 of the £30,000 match funding we need to find, to deliver this project on the scale it deserves.
ART, BLACK HERITAGE, AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION...
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery will exhibit TURNING POINT from 1st October 2022 - 16th April 2023
TURNING POINT workshops with community participants in Bristol and London will help to create a sumptuously-crafted art video installation set in the early 1920s British West Indies, to engage national and international audiences.
The installation will feature an all-Black cast performing 4 vignette stories inspired by our oral testimony interviews with Black WW1 veterans, and women who experienced this epic period. Each story has a clear theme that is strongly relevant in our modern lives today - and although the stories are sparked by real-life experiences, they have relevance for all races.
2 Actors confirmed...
Rising star on stage and screen - Veronica Beatrice Lewis
Rising star across TV, stage and screen - Ashley D. Gayle
The resulting video - plus a host of downloadable resources - will be freely accessible nationwide: shown in galleries, community centres, a project website; and via posters with QR codes linking to the website's online exhibition.
Thanks to our wonderful partners and collaborators, the production - its stories, themes, visual elements, and soundtrack - will be a catalyst for learning and wellbeing for lasting public benefit nationwide.
Key outcomes we're aiming for include:
- Schools nationwide will creatively embed a new scheme of work inspired by TURNING POINT
- Young people will develop their talent through creative participation in our workshops
- Libraries and museums will gain resources to widen their relevance
- Elders will reduce isolation and improve wellbeing
- Raising Black and Asian awareness of dementia, and dementia support services
- Giving Black and Asian people living with dementia, resources they can relate to
- Giving support workers and carers better understanding of how culturally relevant creative expression can benefit Black and Asian people living with dementia
HOW YOU WILL BE HELPING US
Funds raised in this Crowdfunder will support:
- Cost of video projection and 3D sound for gallery exhibitions
- Costs to film 2 more vignette stories (to exhibit an installation with 6 stories in total) - plus workshops and resources related to their themes
- Wages for a Coordinator/ Community Partnerships Manager - to ensure this project delivers its potential for lasting public benefit
- 1 Traineeship - providing hands-on experience of producing high-quality art in collaboration with Black community participants (and diverse partners from the arts, learning, heritage and community development sectors)
- Any donations above our target will help us to fund BSL interpretation.
Other ways you can support us:
If you can't financially contribute, you can still help us by sharing our Crowdfunder link to your social media and sharing it with people you think might be interested! Don't forget to tag Sweet Patootee Arts! @SPatootee on Twitter, @SweetPatooteeArts on Facebook, and @sweetpatooteearts on Instagram. www.crowfunder.co.uk/
WHY THIS PROJECT IS IMPORTANT
We have all seen the recent upswell of activism in the Black Lives Matter movement. But the teaching of Black people's contributions throughout history is still being neglected in multicultural Britain. Not only that, but British reticence to engage with and confront the slavery era is palpable.
TURNING POINT is a catalyst for conversation, enabling participants and audiences to see early 20th century descendants of slaves, not as 'passive oppressed', but real people with thoughts, feelings, and stories of their own. Stories of tremendous suffering, but also incredible triumph and determination of spirit. It is an opportunity for social cohesion and a chance to see the impact that these Black men and women have had on Britain's history: such as the building of the Panama Canal, which spared ships leaving Bristol and Liverpool from making the treacherous voyage around Cape Horn.
REWARDS WE'RE OFFERING
A range of benefits are available on this page. And we are also very happy to discuss tailored packages and corporate sponsorship options with individuals and businesses who want to be more deeply involved. Just email [email protected] - to arrange a chat.
THANK YOU
If you can contribute to this campaign, then we want to say a massive THANK YOU! But even if you are unable to give personally, we want to thank you for reading this far!
ABOUT US
Sweet Patootee Arts is a 'non-profit' formed by Tony T and Rebecca Goldstone in 2017 and based in London (now seeking charity status). We aim to imagine and build a more just world by amplifying the voices of those whose history has been neglected. We are driven by a belief that everyone has a story to tell, and that storytelling can be a social catalyst for multicultural audiences to participate in, learn from, and engage with.
Our new organisation inherited confidence and trust as a reliable brand, built by Tony and Rebecca's 20-years' working as Sweet Patootee Ltd. they are specialists in bringing participants from diverse backgrounds and perspectives together; to creatively engage in high quality programmes across the arts, learning, heritage, and community development sectors - from concept to delivery - sharing outcomes, nationwide and abroad; in original works, exhibitions, workshops, and evaluation.
TESTIMONIALS
- "We like the way how you tell the stories. you don't need to change nothing." R&D community feedback workshop, 2019
- "Really good. Really gets you. I didn't have no trouble understanding, no, i love the acting." Linda Brown Chairperson, Mildmay Community Centre Trust
- "We think that Sweet Patootee Arts' work is valuable, in and of itself, valuable to us in achieving our aims and will allow us to produce materials that will be valuable to teachers and students in this country." The Schools History Project
- "Rare Dementia Support is pleased to support Sweet Patootee Arts and TURNING POINT as a consulting partner; working closely with the team and other partners to design, develop, and deliver participatory workshops and other public engagement strategies in response to TURNING POINT and Black British heritage-inspired stories, and we are particularly keen to work together to embed diversity into mainstream practice for people living with dementia." Rare Dementia Research Support (UCL)