[From the #ShakeTheSystem team]
It’s 2020 and we’re celebrating 10 years of Voices that Shake! with an anthology, toolkits, workshops, showcases and more.
This is #ShakeTheSystem: A Decade of Shaping Change
Over 200 marginalised and underrepresented young people have directly been part of the deep personal and community transformation that the unique space of Shake! offers. Many of us have gone on to start our own collective projects, social change action, art initiatives.
We have influenced 1000s of people, in and beyond the UK, through our politics, artworks, short films, poetry, critical writing, events, trainings, actions, talks, activism, and community support. From our family, our friends, to people in youth work, education, youth policy, funders, arts/culture, community and social movements – we have made an impact.
For the major 10 year anniversary, Shake! celebrates with our family and supporters by:
- sharing the bigger picture: the breadth and depth of ten years of Shake!rs’ creativity
- distilling and communicating Shake!’s impact
- creating workshops, trainings and showcases to amplify, upskill, provoke, inspire, sow seeds, deepen legacy, influence change.
What will we make and do?
- an Anthology of Voices That Shake! movements 2010-2020. Creative writing, poetry, artwork, photography, zine pages, and essays, conceptualised and designed by young people, guided by Art Directors – Sai Murray and Shake! alumna Tiff Webster. Publication and launch, Autumn 2020
- Showcases of Shaker!s creativity through live performance, also promoting the Anthology, across four cities in England – London, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Autumn and Winter 2020/21
- Commissioned youth-led research into how and why Shake! makes its impacts modelling new non-extractive methods. During 2020.
- Youth-led workshops and training with young people, NGOs and relevant sectors, including youth work, education, youth policy, funders, arts/culture, community and social movements. During 2020/21.
- a Toolkit of Voices that Shake! Methods and Interventions. Youth-written report Toolkits for Transformation, launched and workshopped, sharing the research to create structural change. Winter 2020/21
The Team
#ShakeTheSystem is being led Rose Ziaei – Producer; Tiffany Webster – Associate Art Director; Sai Murray – Art Director and Strategic Mentor; and Farzana Khan – Strategic Consultant and Mentor. Rose and Tiff were participants on the Shake! programme, and bring their insider experience and high-level skills to the project. Farzana was the pioneering Director of Shake! from 2012 – 2018, working alongside Sai as Co-Artistic Director. Sai was in the founding team of Shake! from 2010.
Funders
The #ShakeTheSystem programme has been honoured with financial support from Arts Council England for the anthology and showcases. Also from the Act for Change Fund (Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and #IWill Fund) for Toolkits for Transformation.
Also we are very grateful to Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation, and other loyal private supporters. We are always looking for new funders to show their support for Shake!’s work. Get in touch – [email protected].
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Voices that Shake! is a project that was initiated by Platform in 2010. It was founded by our colleague Ben Amunwa and team, coming from a burning desire to make a space where young black and brown, working class people could explore and act on the connection between environmental injustice on a global level, with systemic injustices at home. Shake! also aimed to develop a fertile place from which a new generation of powerful creative activists could grow together, to sidestep but also disrupt exclusionary mainstream white-dominated activism.
