At the end of last year we at Germination were asked to put together a website for the Cultural Learning Alliance – a campaign that was to be time tied (1 year) and specific in its aim to unite different interests in ensuring that creative and cultural activities continued to be used to educate our children. This was the result.
The campaign has since grown with over 1,500 people signed up and partners right across the cultural and education sectors – from big name cultural institutions like the Tate, the RSC and Sage Gateshead to the many, many schools in support. As parents around the country prepare their kids for the new school year, and we all get that post-summer-back-to-school feeling, the issue of what and how we want our kids to be taught comes into sharp focus. Research launched last week by Professor Tanya Byron shows that 1 in 5 parents have forgotten how to play with their children (see her statement in support of the campaign here) while another from Barnardos explores the clusters of privilege formed around top state schools. Now is the time to be pushing the issue up the agenda ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review. There are many good arguments as to why culture in education is really important – attainment levels, training for creative industries jobs and holistic learning to name just three - and they need to be made forcefully so that the good work happening in schools around the country can be maintained despite the cuts.
It’s not just government that needs to be convinced however, and its not only about money. Through the campaign we’re aiming to mobilise professionals in cultural institutions, teachers who ‘get it’ and parents to articulate why children learning through culture is vital to education, and how new local networks can be formed to support practice.
Tomorrow we push forward with the campaigns’ social media strategy – a growing Linked In group, the requisite Twitter and Facebook activity and a number of blogs that will mount in content and regularity as we move towards the CSR. Post the spending settlement, we’ll then bring cultural professionals, teachers and parents together in a week long of activities under the Big Links Up Events to crowdsource a manifesto for the future of ensuring children and young people learn through their links with the visual and performing arts, film making, trips to museums, music and so on. This is not a middle class campaign, but absolutely about ensuring all children get access to these activities that enrich and inform us. The Big Link Up Events will unite people with an interest in protecting cultural learning in our schools and set up local networks which will continue well after the event, and we’re proud that our work on the campaign will lead to a longer lasting legacy than simply communications fizz. The website will evolve into a dynamic site containing research and evidence about why cultural learning works, submitted by practitioners, that will live on after the campaign.
This is one of our biggest communications campaigns to date and we’re very proud to be involved. For more info and to SIGN UP, see here. And join us for the Big Link Up Events in November.
We’re very pleased to be working with the excellent games company Slingshot to develop the Interesting Games Festival which takes place in Bristol. We’re working with them to launch a bigger, better festival next year. In the meantime, check out this year’s festival and get on board for the September event and the main zombie chase game 2.8 hours (Later).
Went to the launch last night of Nike Grid – a new street game that kicks of, for 24 hours only, on the 23rd April. The idea is to run between telephone boxes within postcode areas of London, winning points for speed and endurance. We’re looking to see how that game comes together, how many and how people engage with it, but loving the idea.
‘There are no others, there is only us’ video installation directed by Marc Silver and produced by Germination in the summer of 2009.
A 9 minute dance of half a million swarming birds, the installation is a powerful visual metaphor illustrating the nature of collaboration and the power of crowds.
Brilliant talk at the RSA tonight – one of those events that give you a payoff you’re not fully expecting, and all the more satisfying because of it. Jaron Lanier – pioneer of Virtual Reality and musician amongst many other things – launched his book of the above title which, in essence, is a manifesto for people over technology, delivered with an unremitting optimism for the potential of the human spirit.
It’s been a full on couple of weeks for germination with a number of events throwing a light on new experiments in participation and collaboration. It’s now the holy grail in events production – especially in the social change arena – but how do you do it?
germination launched 24 on Sunday 27th oct, at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, East London. 6 teams of 5 young people worked with us over the summer to make a film in 24 hours, showing what they think of the opportunities of the Olympics happening in their neighborhood three years from now. The films include a mixture of anticipation and concern, with fears that the young people who need it most will be the ones who fail to benefit from the regeneration plans.
The Games – winners or losers? We got to visit the Olympics site, just as we premiere the films from our 24-hour film challenge, with stories from young people in east London speculating what the Olympics will mean for them.
We FINALLY made it to Interesting this year, an annual shenenigan that invites an assortment of people to talk about something interesting (obvo) and that’s most definitely not to do with their work. We had high hopes as everyone always talks about how great the event is, and we weren’t disappointed. As event producers, yep, we go to lots of these, and it’s always a joy when they get it right.
Great event at Good Pitch today – an event where the BritDoc Foundation bring film-makers together with NGOs and others integral to social change to see how campaign funding and networks can help to fund/distribute/gain audience for issue led documentaries, and how films can bring vitally needed oxygen to campaigns. Film-makers here were pitching not to one funder, but to many – and for help – with distribution, publicity and marketing. For example, using charity membership bases to publicise a film, help spread the word, and for an eventual sales channel for DVDs.
