With its focus on expanding impact and engagement from a previous research grant, Performing Local Places will use arts practices to improve the living environments of two sets of people in two geographical areas of need in UK: Camden (London) and Oldham (Greater Manchester). Findings from these projects will be disseminated and publicised to all local authorities in the UK, promoting a new mode of service delivery for enhancing health and wellbeing in complex living environments . Project participants will be within the oversight and services of local authorities and councils will be helping to broker the activity within their provider frameworks. The arts practices comprise a cultural product called 'Performing Place' which has been developed and tested in previous practical research projects with vulnerable groups affiliated with, and engaged via, arts organisations. Building on that project, in this new development we have consulted on priority areas within local councils who have identified a future need for such work. Two practical projects will be planned, one in Camden and one in Oldham, working between Arts leaders and other departments, Mental Health in Camden and Stronger Communities in Oldham. Both the planning and delivery period will include working with local council representatives, key workers and leading artist/facilitator practitioners with the new end users. In Camden we will work in at least one Council-owned area of the Supported Living Programme, in buildings that house those with need of 'stepping stone' support to live more independently and whose cultural engagement may also be at the lower end of the spectrum within the Borough (which is an indicator of health and wellbeing). We will run 15 weekly sessions based in the residences, engaging adults with their current and potential 'place'. In Oldham, we will work in the ward of Clarksfield with long-term residents and comparatively newly arrived Roma residents, assuaging disharmonies arising from different cultural understandings within the same local community. This work will follow a different model of Performing Place practice - a week's intensive engagement rather than weekly, workshops (as in Camden) - and will take place over a week in the summer of 2016. In the planning and delivery of the projects, we will work with specialist lead facilitators following and adapting models used in the previous project, 'Challenging concepts of "liquid" place through performing practices in community contexts', 2011-2014 (Challenging Place). Such activities will include a range of improvisation and performance-related activities that are shaped from everyday operations and behaviours. None of the participants are likely to be performers but the activities are non-threatening, accessible and shaped to raise levels of cultural engagement where there may be existing barriers. This is an important part of Performing Place, that it can be accessed by participants without particular skill or experience in performance. (See http://www.performingplaces.org/placepracsitesotw.html for example.) The impact and engagement of these two follow-on projects will be formally documented in line with local authority reporting and disseminated via simple web pages on the existing site, three symposia and a 32-page document (with executive summary). This document will be sent to the 400+ local authorities in the UK with the intention that such practice be promoted and assimilated for use in other priority areas. Two symposia will take place in London and Manchester with representatives from all nearby local authority councils invited, as well as nationally. A third symposium will take place for the 33 members of London Arts Forum.

Challenging concepts of 'liquid' place ...' (abbreviated to 'Challenging liquid place') brings together two research teams - Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, and Aberystwyth University - and three community arts project partner organisations: Half Moon Young People's Theatre, London; Oldham Theatre Workshop (OTW); Cyrff Ystwyth, Aberystwyth. Using recently devised performance practices with each organisation, the research asks to what extent contemporary theories of dislocation and transience are evidenced in particular 'real world' contexts, how performance practices can be used to consider relationships to place and how dislocation can be eased through such practices. The projects will stimulate theorisation together with 'best practice' models for further dissemination as material for facilitation in community arts organisations.\n\nTraditionally, 'place' is associated with longevity, continuity, community, the normative and security - as well as boundaries, defence and exclusion. In contrast, contemporary existence is more frequently described as place-less, characterised by transience, wayfaring and deterritorialisation. This project makes use of current academic thinking about place, mobility, globalisation and cosmopolitanism while also raising questions about how we define and experience place and 'dislocation'. In real social contexts, there is wide variation and the situation is hugely complex: whilst deterritorialism has led to geographical dislocations, with all the concerns and problems that displacement can imply, other people may experience place very differently. \n\nThe research comprises three stages, each of a year's duration. First, three participatory performance-related research projects will be developed and refined. The research teams will work with project partner organisations (all of whom have established reputations in community drama) to create place-based projects that use models of performance practice previously derived within research environments. The community groups comprise newly located refugee families (with OTW), unemployed predominantly second generation translocated migrants (with Half Moon) and learning and physically disabled adults who do not have mobility of place (Cyrff Ystwyth). The choice of the three organisations offers a diversity of location, target community group and form of practice. While all the participating groups might be described as socially vulnerable, most importantly they have been selected as demonstrating different relationships to place. \n\nIn Year 2, a range of performance manifestations will take place. Forms of performance will include fully realised devised performance, a workshop series and short residencies. The researchers will provide guidance, 'training', oversight and evaluation as well as some hands-on facilitation. The focus is the participants' response to their sense of place and 'locatedness'. The projects will be documented through recorded interviews, questionnaires, film footage and observation notes. This will provide material to judge the effectiveness of the practical research, to prompt refinements of both the models of practice and current theory.\n\nIn Year 3, analysis and organisation of the outcomes of the research will take place. This includes re-forming the models of practice into material for use by other community arts organisations, the completion of three journal articles and a book proposal. The models of practice will be disseminated through an industry-related symposium held at Central with approximately 75 representatives from international and UK community-related organisations. The flexible models of practice will be presented through web-based documents that offer a series of performance-based activities with graphic representations, DVD clips and reflections on appropriate usage. This work will then be made available on dedicated website pages at Central.

Our cities are in crisis. There are real uncertainties about issues such as austerity, economic growth, diversity and sustainability. Most people are beginning to recognise that existing ways of working aren't delivering benefits for the people who need them most. Citizens and third sector organisations are often left out of the picture as formal urban partnerships spend their energies negotiating with central government. Local expertise, innovation and creativity have often not been seen as part of the answer to our urban crisis. But we can see that there are people and organisations taking action locally and coming up with different kinds of solutions. Jam and Justice is a novel project that seeks to address wicked urban problems through collaborative working on messy solutions. 'Jam' is about trying to bring together different constituencies in the city to experiment and innovate to address our shared problems. 'Justice' is about re-connecting with those who have been disenfranchised and excluded from the search for solutions. We want to create an Action Research Cooperative - or 'ARC'. The ARC is a space which will allow a different way of thinking about how to work together to address 21st century urban challenges. Researchers know some of the answers, citizens have other ideas and solutions and insights, practitioners bring yet another perspective, and political leaders have visions for how they want things to be. The ARC will bring these different groups together to co-develop innovative approaches to address complex urban governance problems. The ARC is made by the people who take part in it: academics, politicians, practitioners, citizens and activists. Some of us will try and play more than one role, for example as practitioner researchers and academic-activists. We want to use the ARC to help us bridge the gap between knowledge and action and to shape the action which we can take together. First, the ARC will set the principles for how we want to work together. Then we will initiate a series of 'learn and do' projects, which will generate the primary data needed to answer the research questions: what sorts of new ways to govern the city-region can help transform the debate? How can we include voices that have been neglected previously? Who can help mediate between different groups and interests? We will open up the opportunities to be part of the ARC not only through our projects, but also through a creative social engagement programme, including live debates, online communities, blogs and podcasts. We are going to tell people what we are up to right from the start, so they can follow, share and engage with our work. We will be holding a range of public and special interest events, where people can hear about and become part of the project. So where is this all going to happen? We are going to start in a place we know, working with people who share a commitment to urban transformation. We will build the ARC in Greater Manchester, a place right on the cusp of change, as the first English city-region to be negotiating more devolution of powers from central government. Greater Manchester is a unique test-bed for our research interests, a city-region where we can further academic knowledge and deliver high policy and practitioner relevance. We have already identified key partners across the public, voluntary and community sector in Greater Manchester who want to work with us in the ARC. We will also network with national organisations and learn from what is happening around the world through fieldtrips to Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Cape Town and Scotland. The ARC is a unique space for social innovation to co-produce, test and learn from new ways of governing cities. This will help us critically reflect on how to organise knowledge better to make positive urban transformations happen that are inclusive and equitable.

Our cities are in crisis. There are real uncertainties about issues such as austerity, economic growth, diversity and sustainability. Most people are beginning to recognise that existing ways of working aren't delivering benefits for the people who need them most. Citizens and third sector organisations are often left out of the picture as formal urban partnerships spend their energies negotiating with central government. Local expertise, innovation and creativity have often not been seen as part of the answer to our urban crisis. But we can see that there are people and organisations taking action locally and coming up with different kinds of solutions. Jam and Justice is a novel project that seeks to address wicked urban problems through collaborative working on messy solutions. 'Jam' is about trying to bring together different constituencies in the city to experiment and innovate to address our shared problems. 'Justice' is about re-connecting with those who have been disenfranchised and excluded from the search for solutions. We want to create an Action Research Cooperative - or 'ARC'. The ARC is a space which will allow a different way of thinking about how to work together to address 21st century urban challenges. Researchers know some of the answers, citizens have other ideas and solutions and insights, practitioners bring yet another perspective, and political leaders have visions for how they want things to be. The ARC will bring these different groups together to co-develop innovative approaches to address complex urban governance problems. The ARC is made by the people who take part in it: academics, politicians, practitioners, citizens and activists. Some of us will try and play more than one role, for example as practitioner researchers and academic-activists. We want to use the ARC to help us bridge the gap between knowledge and action and to shape the action which we can take together. First, the ARC will set the principles for how we want to work together. Then we will initiate a series of 'learn and do' projects, which will generate the primary data needed to answer the research questions: what sorts of new ways to govern the city-region can help transform the debate? How can we include voices that have been neglected previously? Who can help mediate between different groups and interests? We will open up the opportunities to be part of the ARC not only through our projects, but also through a creative social engagement programme, including live debates, online communities, blogs and podcasts. We are going to tell people what we are up to right from the start, so they can follow, share and engage with our work. We will be holding a range of public and special interest events, where people can hear about and become part of the project. So where is this all going to happen? We are going to start in a place we know, working with people who share a commitment to urban transformation. We will build the ARC in Greater Manchester, a place right on the cusp of change, as the first English city-region to be negotiating more devolution of powers from central government. Greater Manchester is a unique test-bed for our research interests, a city-region where we can further academic knowledge and deliver high policy and practitioner relevance. We have already identified key partners across the public, voluntary and community sector in Greater Manchester who want to work with us in the ARC. We will also network with national organisations and learn from what is happening around the world through fieldtrips to Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Cape Town and Scotland. The ARC is a unique space for social innovation to co-produce, test and learn from new ways of governing cities. This will help us critically reflect on how to organise knowledge better to make positive urban transformations happen that are inclusive and equitable.