If someone had told me when I started leading Her-Place that one of the things I would love most about my work would be the opportunities to work alongside people in the arts, I am not sure I would have believed them.
But looking back over this year, I can honestly say that working with the arts has made this one of my favourite “working years” since leading the charity.
And perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise.
I love the theatre.
There is something magical about sitting in a theatre and watching a story unfold in front of you. The lights go down, the audience becomes quiet and suddenly you are transported somewhere else. You can laugh, cry, learn, question and sometimes see something from a completely different perspective.
But for me, the arts are about much more than entertainment.
They are a way of telling stories.
And, importantly for Her-Place, they are a way of making sure that women’s stories are heard.
Giving lived experience a voice
One of the things I have always wanted to do through Her-Place is find different ways to highlight the lived experiences of the women we support.
Too often, we talk about statistics and systems without hearing from the women who have actually experienced them.
I want to change that.
I want people to understand what it feels like when the systems that are supposed to support you fail you, sometimes once, sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes at almost every turn.
Working with Her Productions this year has been a real highlight for me because it has given us an opportunity to bring those experiences to life through storytelling.
There is something incredibly powerful about seeing a woman’s experience performed rather than simply reading about it in a report or hearing a statistic in a presentation.
It makes you stop.
It makes you listen.
And hopefully, it makes you question.
The Tide
Another huge highlight has been The Tide.
To see a film that we commissioned appear on the large screen was a very special moment for me.
There is something quite surreal about watching something that started as an idea and a conversation become a finished film that other people can watch and engage with.
But what I have enjoyed just as much has been developing the training around the film.
For me, that is where the real opportunity lies.
We can use the film to open conversations about an incredibly unfair system and encourage people to think about what women experience, why systems don’t always work for them and what needs to change.
The arts give us a different way of delivering those messages.
Sometimes a film can make someone think about something in a way that a report or presentation simply can’t.
Ask For Angela
And then, very recently, came another fantastic opportunity.
We were invited to work in partnership with the Davenham Players around their production of Ask For Angela.
For two evenings, we held question-and-answer sessions following the performance.
I absolutely loved it.
Having watched the play, it was fascinating to then sit with the audience and talk about the themes it had raised. The questions, conversations and different perspectives made the evenings really interesting.
For me, this is exactly what the arts can do.
They can start conversations that might otherwise never happen.
They can make us uncomfortable.
They can make us curious.
They can help us understand someone else’s experience.
And they can give us a safe place to ask questions.
Making the arts accessible
There is another reason why I have loved this work so much.
I want the arts to be accessible to everyone.
I don’t think the theatre, film or any other form of art should feel like something that is only available to certain people or certain communities.
That is why working with local, independent theatres and local creative organisations has been so important to me.
There is something really special about working with organisations within our own communities.
They know their audiences. They understand their communities. They bring creativity into places where people live and work.
And when charities and arts organisations work together, I think we can achieve something really powerful.
We can bring stories to people who may not normally engage with the arts, while at the same time using those stories to raise awareness, challenge perceptions and create conversations about issues that really matter.
The magic of the arts
So, when I look back at this year, I don’t just remember the productions, the film screenings or the evenings in the theatre.
I remember the conversations.
I remember seeing people connect with stories.
I remember the excitement of watching The Tide on the big screen.
I remember the discussions after Ask For Angela.
I remember working with creative people who are passionate about telling stories.
And I remember why I love the arts so much.
Because stories can change how we see the world.
At Her-Place, we talk a lot about amplifying women’s voices.
Working with the arts has given us another, incredibly powerful, way to do exactly that.