Projects

Covid has interrupted many creative projects, including our Young Dissenters’ weekly choir for local primary school children. However, we are restarting with a bang – Evenings at Home is a huge project working with St Matthias School to present a multi-media musical based around the life of pioneering Stoke Newington educationalist Anna Barbauld.

We are conscious that creative activities and group singing in particular have been lacking from children’s lives, and that many schools need to focus their resources on catching up with important but narrow core curriculum items.

We started running workshops within the school for pupils, their families and staff in March. These will inspire the words, songs, props and costumes, tapping into the children’s responses, concerns and creative ideas, and the performance will be signed as well as sung. Every child in the school will have the chance to take part, and there will be opportunities for parents and some older children to be involved as well.

Anna Barbauld was a local resident, writer, poet, proto feminist and pioneering educationalist. Her educational ideas included the creation of books specially for children, with larger more spaced out text and illustrations to help them to engage with reading. She designed a cloth bag that she called the budget where the children would put slips of paper with their ideas and concerns, which could then be discussed in the classroom setting. Sidelined by the Victorians as belonging to the schoolroom, her works and ideas are well worth rediscovery.

We are working with North London musician Suzy Davies on this project. Suzy has collaborated with many top London theatres including the Old Vic, Almeida, Little Angel Theatre, conducts her own choir Angels of Kaos for deaf and singing adults and children, and directed the Signing Children’s Choir for the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony.

As our usual fundraising activities have been disrupted by Covid, we are now looking for donations to fund the musical, plus allowing a video and sheet music of the show to be made, and to fund materials for costumes, props and scenery.

Donations can be made on the Donate Now link on our home page. If you would like to to hear more about the project, or get involved, contact us on dissentersarts@gmail.com

NEWSFLASH!  Charity trustee Ruth Whitehead has sponsored a virtual concert beamed out from from St Matthias Church to celebrate midsummer and raise money for our work THIS Friday June 26 at 8pm….find out how to watch here

Lockdown has intensified an existing need for creative resources among many families and we wanted to make sure that every child who wishes for crayons, paints, paper, colouring books, modelling clay and games at home to fire their imaginations and continue their schoolwork can have that opportunity.

We have donated almost 250 art packs to children at St Matthias School, and also many refugee families who cannot access any of the normal safety nets in our society. Akwaaba is a social centre in Hackney supporting families who are often moved around between temporary accommodation, and schools.

All the children of the 70 Akwaaba families are from BAME backgrounds, most are of primary school age and were born in London but due to their parents’ immigration status are unable to access welfare, facing poverty and destitution as a result.

Our charity has already worked with the Akwaaba children as part of our I am…We are portrait exhibition (see below), and have seen first hand how they benefit from the continuity of weekly art sessions and come alive in the creative workshops. We also became aware that they have very few resources at home: even a few colour pencils to take home were treasured.

Says charity chair Nicolas Johnson: “We are determined to raise enough money so each child receives an art pack which means they can be creative at home, complete school work and see them through the long summer holidays when they will continue to be very isolated.”

Say a spokesperson for Akwaaba: “The art packs contribute to the wellbeing of children by enabling them to continue their schoolwork, and also of their families who can share their activities. They can also join with other families in our online creative sessions, improving mental health and reducing their sense of isolation, not to mention taking the pressure for activities off parents.”

See what the Hackney Gazette is saying

Local artist Victoria Francis has hand-sewn bags for the Akwaaba art packs (below)

Art Event on the theme I AM…WE ARE…

We involved local artists, schoolchildren, refugees, and older residents in art workshops, culminating in an exhibition on April 21 & 22 2018 at St Matthias Hall.

Anyone living, working or involved in a project in N16 was invited to submit a portrait. Dissenters Arts N16 sponsored Portrait Workshops at Akwaaba Migrants’ Project based at Princess May School on Sundays in February and March. We provided materials, volunteers to run the workshops and some of Akwaaba’s running costs.

We raised £600 for the workshops, and then recruited volunteers to help set up and host the resulting exhibition, which attracted loads of visitors.