What is the Creative Insights project?
Creative Insights is a research project exploring young people’s perspectives on health inequalities through creativity.
As part of a collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Leeds Playhouse, in partnership with Opera North, researchers and Playhouse creative facilitators spent three weeks with 19 young people from Leeds, exploring their perspectives on health inequalities through creative writing, performance, and photography.
The Creative Insights project invited young people from both Leeds and Glasgow to explore the issues with artists and researchers. The Leeds groups worked with performance artists at Leeds Playhouse and the Glasgow groups worked with visual artists from Impact Arts.
What are health inequalities and why are young people’s perspectives important?
There are many factors that shape a person’s health. Many of the most important influences are not things that people choose but are driven by circumstances outside of their control. People living in the most affluent areas of the UK are likely to enjoy many more years of good health than those living in the least affluent areas because of differences in access to things like employment, education, and housing. These unfair differences in health experiences and outcomes across the population are known as “health inequalities”.
Relatively little is known about what young people think about health inequalities and what should be done to address the issue. Young people’s perspectives are particularly important now. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has worsened health inequalities in all areas of life, had a disproportionate impact on young people with disruptions to their education, mental health, relationships, and future outlooks.
What did we do in Creative Insights?
Over the course of three four-day online workshops, the young people took part in group discussions and creative activities to explore diverse understandings of what shapes health and our priorities for potential solutions to the enduring existence of health inequalities. The young people were recruited in partnership with the Bellbrooke Surgery, Market Place and Breeze Arts Foundation.
In preparation, young people had creative packs sent to their homes which included materials for sketching, writing and film-making. Covid restrictions meant that groups were only able to meet online. Creative Practitioners Ellie Manners and Lily Craig led interactive activities to help everyone get to know each other and make everyone comfortable with sharing their experiences, feedback, and creative work over Zoom.
The groups worked together and independently to explore their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns through a series of creative activities including writing, spoken word performance and movement.
The young people produced diverse pieces of writing exploring many dimensions of their experiences, with some common concerns related to school closures, shifting relationships, and the importance of mental health. Working together with facilitators, the groups also choreographed a movement piece which reflected the mundane routines of their lives during lockdown.
Based on discussions of their concerns and priorities regarding health inequalities and policies to address inequalities related to the pandemic, the young people developed speeches and campaigns to articulate their demands for change.
They also explored their perspectives on how the city of Leeds could be reimagined to support the health and wellbeing of the whole population. A range of environmental, social and cultural factors were discussed, with lots of innovative ideas being shared to address issues including lack of affordable, sustainable housing and income inequality.
Each week culminated in an online showcase event, where young people shared their creative writing, speeches and campaigns, and articulated their demands in front of an audience of researchers and industry professionals.
A film has been created laying out the young people’s concerns.
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The research is being conducted by Dr Gillian Fergie and Dr Thu Thuy Phan, researchers in the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow. They are currently working to collate everything the young people shared; their reflections and all their artworks. If you are interested in hearing more about the project, please contact gillian.fergie@glasgow.ac.uk
A special thank you to Moses Anokye and Aidan Walker who provided support to the young people through the workshops.
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council [ES/S001913/1].
