INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGE AND DIALOGUE

“Like all citizens and their organisations, artists are part of civil society. They have a distinctive role within it when their work gives voice and visibility to people who are marginalised or not easily heard. In all societies some groups and interests dominate, thanks to their position, strength or control of resources. For everyone else, culture may be the only legitimate (or safe) form of expression. It has enabled women, ethnic or religious groups, people with mental ill health or disabilities, the young, LGBT people, foreigners and many others to explore identity, validate their experience, find common ground, organise and assert their human rights. In enabling this, cultural action can be a crucible of social development and civil society. Having a voice is the essence of democracy – and culture can be a powerful voice.” François Matarasso

Over the past 20+ years Verd de gris arts has developed community engagement work in places like Salford – with the Yemeni community, in Rochdale and Halifax – with the South Asian heritage community, in Liverpool – with the Chinese community. We have also worked with Eastern European communities, including Czech Roma, and with a number of refugee and asylum seeker groups, from Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Sudan and Eritrea.

Much of our work takes place in areas of high deprivation and low opportunity. We regularly find ourselves addressing issues associated with low aspiration and poor mental health, the impact of cultural history and personal identity. We realise that many of the issues people in our local communities are dealing with don’t exist in a vacuum, and that local people have the skills and experience within them themselves to affect change and quality of life for all.

We recognise the importance of the relationship between the individual and society, and of communal expression. Our project work strives to highlight and celebrate communal and / or shared experience e.g. when working with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds we want to explore the impact of cultural difference and similarity. When we bring women from diverse backgrounds together in a safe space we highlight the positive things they share as women together, as well as the painful, limiting issues they live with as individuals. The women would draw strength from this contact with others they would never normally come into contact with and work in a very open and honest way.

We believe that working in isolation, with one particular community, but not educating or sharing work with other communities, does not lead to change. A key objective for us is to push for greater co-working between organisations / service providers that are committed to partnership working with a common goal of bringing different groups together at a grass roots level to explore notions of community understanding.

You can find out more about our cohesion work by having a look at some of the best examples here:

We Belong
Things We Leave Behind
Fusion
Roma Celebration
Storyman

This work emphasises our commitment to intercultural dialogue and exchange – bringing diverse groups of people together to make shared work, explore ideas, stimulate creative thinking, challenge negative perceptions, and share their thoughts and views with the wider community.

Our most recent projects are supported by a range of funders including The National Lottery Community Fund, West Yorkshire Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund, People’s Postcode Lottery, Give Bradford, Pause / Barnardos Bradford, Culturedale – Calderdale MBC’s Year of Culture.

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