About The Project
Over the past year, we’ve been working with a group of young people and local residents to explore the cities Heritage through our Project Leicester’s Hidden Gems.
Through sound, storytelling, photography, and creative experiments, we’ve been led by our young people’s interests and the twists and turns that have led us into a multi-layered project filled with interviews, DJ sessions, music, walking tours, museum visits, and printmaking.
Getting Started
Starting in April 2024 we opened our Bar and Theatre as a regular open space welcoming anyone to join us on Tuesday afternoons for a relaxed creative space. Starting with different activities based on cultural events happening in the year.
Our residents got involved, initially drawn in by the drinks and snacks, took part in crafts and began to explore old archive materials. We looked at the theatre’s history, mapped out what caught people’s interest, and started building the foundations for what would come next.
Finding Our Voice
With help from our in-house team and visiting artists, we built on interests and explored various activities including, Theatre sound and Lighting, Acting and directing, Music working with a local DJ and also experimenting with podcasting and audio interviews.
We had a great initial session where several of our Young people interviewed each other on the stage using audio equipment bought with funding provided by Historic England, asking questions about personal memories, celebrations, and the idea of “home”.
We also explored our own buildings original plans doing walk arounds to map the changes in the building and exploring and archiving tickets and programmes found as part of our 2023 Heritage Open Day.
We had some well attended DJ sessions, and a slight change in cohort leading to more interest in exploring music.
Out And About
Expanding on our topics of exploration we visited local museums, explored exhibitions on graffiti, ancient history, and Roman Leicester, and revisited archives to dig into stories from the city’s past. A walking tour with two residents led us through the history of the theatre building itself and how the area has changed.
Through this we also began to explore our buildings Architecture and original features. Utilising some donated equipment we also begun photographing interesting original parts of the building including the stone carvings on the exterior of the building, mouldings in the theatre and our original mosaic flooring.
Building on an unused existing space in the building we began dreaming up a new recording studio space, creating floor plans and researching equipment and sound treatment, aiming to reclaim an office space to house music and media experiments led by the young people.
Through The Lens
Through various factors, our plans for the recording studio had to be put on hold and with some changes to the young people involved in the project, so did our music plans.
But with that came a new interest, inspired by a combination of Art exhibitions, practical sessions and the photos taken of our building, our young people landed on new interests that we were keen to support.
Inspired by some printing Ink found while clearing the space initially planned for the recording studio, one of our resident’s pitched for us to explore lino Printing. With no real experience we let them take the lead on this, and with support and some new equipment, they taught everyone the correct way draw, carve, ink and print their own designs.
Next came Photography. It soon became clear that to get the best quality we needed some expertise, and we worked with local Artist Kieran Vyas to learn the basics of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed.
Inspired by historic photos of Leicester’s old theatres, found in our archive, we took to the streets again and set out to capture what stands there today.
Our young people were also inspired to create a hands-on, sensory-led guided tour of our own theatre showcasing the hidden history in our own spaces. The tour was designed by our young people, for visitors during Heritage Open Days 2024.
Each of these activities were showcased as part of our 2024 Heritage open days in September.
Returning To The Podcast
Following the HOD’s we took stock of our work so far, looking at each activity, how it could grow and what roles would be required to achieve it. After reflecting on this our young people chose to focus back on podcasting, but with new skills and purpose.
We recorded conversations with performers in our building during Leicester Comedy Festival, ran interview sessions backstage, connected with our regular community groups, and the wider community of former staff and residents.
With new kit, renewed purpose and absolutely no plan, we stepped out recording our very first podcast and we’ve not looked back.
