Connect Dudley — a tale of virtual connection and creativity during a pandemic
Connect Dudley is a creative writing project led by CoLab Dudley Collective member and Time Rebel Rick Sanders. (CoLab Dudley Collective members lead Doing in Dudley. They run creative spaces, lead creative projects and are growing social enterprises on and around Dudley High Street).
As part of Connect Dudley local people met on the ‘Virtual High Street’ (the CoLab Dudley online platform) in a series of 8 weekly creative writing workshops. Writing prompts invited responses which captured local people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences of being in lockdown. The workshops are part of a wider creative project, in which two local poets responded to what had been written, producing poems that were then given to workshop participants as a gift. An exhibition of some of the writing, the poems and photos of participants will take place on Dudley High Street when possible in 2021.
Learning from Connect Dudley participants and convenors
We created a short slide deck of the learning which lifts up all that has happened because of Connect Dudley. The learning has been generously shared by Connect Dudley participants and convenors. As ever we are genuinely grateful for the time, wisdom and the way doers embrace lab learning to help iterate, share and celebrate experiments on the (Virtual) High Street.
The learning shows this experiment has been abundant with tangible and intangible fruits!
Participants describe feeling greater creative and personal confidence, being inspired to start new creative experiments, forging new creative collaborations, feeling grateful for the safe space and informal peer support it offered and — importantly at this fraught time in our history — noting how it nurtured a growing sense of empathy with strangers as the group shared their very diverse reality of pandemic experiences.
You can dive in HERE to read a summary of the findings drawn out of conversations with participants about their Connect Dudley experience; their views on their lockdown experience; and what they value in terms of the conditions for creative connection, spaces and experiences.
As the Connect Dudley participants came back together to co-design the next chapter of this creative gathering the following insights from the learning have been really helpful. Might they be helpful for you too as you convene creative spaces and experiences?
- Creative spaces where you can express yourself and connect to like-minded people is even more essential in a time of flux and uncertainty. The therapeutic value of these connections and creative spaces is without question.
- As physical distancing and political tensions increasingly alienate us from strangers, creating safe spaces of connection where we can develop deeper understanding of our respective experiences and perspectives is key for a thriving society.
- The CoLab Dudley Collective are passionate about a kinder, more creative and connected Dudley High Street. How do we link this work more explicitly to that passion?
- What links to other local projects might be forged (such as The High St Theatre Lab, or Dudley People’s Archive)?
- What design considerations are there for the bridges between the virtual and real life platforms of creative connection?
- How to design in relationship building that leads to action in future iterations of Connect Dudley? For example, links to other local creatives?
- What further consideration of digital accessibility and comfort with digital platforms can be made?
- Connect Dudley shows there is a potency in documenting ‘now’ to enable reflection, future gazing and new urban imaginaries — what other themes might inspire such social history documentation and imagining?
- What might co-hosting or co-design look like in future iterations of Connect Dudley?
Excitingly Connect Dudley has been growing and evolving over the winter months and will be springing back to life — building on the learning and experiences of those that took part in 2020. An all new singing and dancing collaboratively co-designed Connect Dudley will be emerging in Spring 2021. Rick — the lead convenor and CoLab Dudley Time Rebel explains here:
“Excitingly off the back of the original project, there was a heart-warming desire to keep going as a group and keep writing together. Therefore, at the end of January we are convening a new creative writing group to build and develop the skills and connections we established in lockdown #1. I have managed to get seed money from Creative Black Country to help us establish the group using the skills and energy of Rob Francis, a creative writing lecturer from Wolverhampton University and a resident Wrenner*! This will allow us to get some great tips on how to set ourselves writing tasks, build the creative elements of storytelling and give each of us the confidence to lead and shape content.It’s going to be fun!
The closing element of Connect Dudley will be the exhibition. Plans are still in place to exhibit our output in the window of the CoLab HQ on the High Street. Kerry from CoLab helped develop some really striking visuals, which will look fabulous in the space. I plan to have a virtual launch event once the exhibition can go ahead to bring everyone back together from the original group and share poetry and stories from those that want to. This will be open to anyone to attend, so I am hoping that the poetry community will come out in force to see what we’ve been up to in Dudley.
Having a legacy group to go at now, in lockdown #3, seems entirely appropriate and prophetic to a certain extent. I am excited to see where it takes us as a group and to bring more writing and creativity to the fore in Dudley — epic times!”
P.S. Paying attention to social infrastructure
As a postscript to this learning it is useful to take a moment to reflect upon the role of the lab as a form of social infrastructure that helped animate this experiment.
It is important to be explicit about the agency of social infrastructure as it doesn’t happen by accident.
Without care and intention social infrastructure decays and eventually goes missing from our lives just as we have witnessed with so many of our libraries, community centres, youth centres, playgrounds and parks. So we know it needs care. It needs to be intentionally designed and animated in our communities so that future creative and nurturing experiments — like Connect Dudley — can thrive. In the case of Connect Dudley the lab helped create conditions for connection and creativity by:
Hard Infrastructure
- Virtual High Street platform — Like all Collective members Rick was able to use the lab Zoom account for free to host creative experiments.
- Lab Imaginarium space — like all Collective members Rick is free to use the lab spaces to host experiments. He will use the Imaginarium Space to host an exhibition of some of the letters and poems created during Connect Dudley for passers-by to enjoy.
Soft Infrastructure
- During early lockdown in March-April 20202 the lab convened regular conversational space for the Collective to connect and develop creative experiments — the seeds of Connect Dudley emerged in this supportive space.
- Signposting to support from Creative Black Country’s Creative Connection Commissions which helped pay for the skills of a signer to ensure the experiment was open to all and for the time of the poets.
- Technical support from the team in making the connection online more comfortable for participants and hosts. The Virtual High Street (the CoLab Dudley online platform) was successfully tested for convening participatory creative projects. We learnt lessons around convivial, accessible and safe convening online.
- Promotion of invitation to participate through lab and wider network communications
- Shared learning support from the lab team to draw out key lessons to help with experiment iteration
- Support from CoLab Dudley team in the curating of the exhibition
- Co-design facilitation support from the CoLab team to help with the convening of the Connect Dudley participants to explore future iterations of Connect Dudley
*Wrenner is a local affectionate term for Wrens Nest a 1930s housing estate located a mile North West of Dudley town centre.
