Transforming and Activating Places

[Original post, July 2021:  Learning to view the world through Age Friendly glasses ] Being taken on as an intern as a part of the Age Better in Sheffield team I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, I had never before heard of the phrase Age-Friendly and suddenly it was all I’m hearing. What does Age Friendly actually mean? I didn’t know, I have lived here for three years as a student and hadn’t put much thought into how older people navigate the city. As a 21-year-old, I’m sure many my age would agree that we don’t often think about accessibility for older people. I’m not sure why we don’t,  I don’t think it’s because we don’t care because young people are often the fiercest advocates of what is right. It could be partly attributed to people only caring about issues that directly impact themselves. For some reason, when we are young we see ageing as an abstract concept somewhere vague in the future, that may not even affect us. However, it is an inevitability for all of us, we a...

[Original post, September 2021:  Placemaking and Participation in Performing Arts | Forced Entertainment ] Despite what the title suggests, I had little to no experience of placemaking   or   the performing arts until this summer. I found both by joining the Transforming and Activating Places programme in my final year at the University of Sheffield. TAP is a knowledge exchange programme which offers students from underrepresented backgrounds internships with local partners to engage in placemaking projects. After a placemaking crash course led by the TAP team and university academics, I was lucky enough to be partnered with local, long-established theatre company Forced Entertainment. My role has been to help run and develop a new participatory performance project called ‘Subject to Change’. The project aims to deliver workshops within Sheffield communities where engagement with art is low. Here are just some initial thoughts on how Forced Entertainment are practicing pl...