Dr Rhiannon Jones | Derby Voice

Primary resident Dr Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor and CEO of S.H.E.D., led the project Derby Voice with a team of researchers, cultural partners and students to co-design a public installation. Derby Voice featured the work created by dozens of young Derby artists and took centre stage in an innovative exhibition set outside Derby Cathedral last July.

The artistic research project Derby Voice engaged 300 young people from areas of deprivation in Derby and at risk of exclusion from education. The methodology used S.H.E.D to create a co-designed site-specific installation at Derby Cathedral. It provided young people with opportunities to create work for a public context, to talk about their city and issues exacerbated by the COVID pandemic in the UK; such as BLM, education reform, employment, mental health and well-being. The research identified key barriers including the lack of cultural integration outside of school time in the UK and the impact on financial or family support. Derby Voice highlights the value of devising an artistic and dialogic methodology.

The research’s impact is noted within UK contemporary social contexts. It enhanced wellbeing, widened access and increased cultural opportunities for young people in Derby. It shifted thinking about formal education settings and redefined the way young people’s voices are understood and can influence policy and act as a call for change. The research highlights the benefits of temporal installations as cultural and consultation spaces for stakeholders, public and policy-makers to engage directly with youth voice, through creative place-making by young people. It provided essential life skills resulting in social mobility and widening access to the arts. It disseminated both the design and impact of the research, proposing that dialogic methodologies are an instigator for change in order to enable and empower young people. The research actively contributed to the cultural offer in Derby and impacts of socially-engaged art.

Research Lead Dr Rhiannon Jones (University of Derby) and co-I Dr Daithi McMahon (University of Derby), Barend Slabbert (University of Derby) and Dr Victoria Barker (Manchester University).

Team S.H.E.D: Sarah Webb, Harry Freestone, Craig Paine, Simon Burrows, Ollie Smith