When Blossom Comes C.I.C.

The company's activities will provide benefit to local communities in terms of creative expression, interaction with the environment, and community cohesion through inclusive, place-based devised theatre projects that engage diverse groups, foster connections, and promote a deeper relationship with local spaces. When Blossom Comes C.I.C delivered Echoes of Us with funding from Arts Council England in partnership with KLS and Wandsworth Borough of Culture. Echoes of Us engaged 16 isolated elders across 7 creative workshops at KLS. We co-created 6 aural stories inspired by memories of the estate and local area. We explored themes of care, public housing and regeneration. Through the workshops and the live audio trail events - Elder participants deepened relationships with peers, the local area and the wider community. All the elders said their confidence and skills increased across the project, this increased confidence was noted in the project debrief by all the facilitation team and KLS Support staff. 100% of participants said they would like to engage in future projects. “I didn't know I could write before but now, through this, I've made a story for a bench. And there's so many benches out there! I could just keep going!” - KLS Elder “Theres so much change going on. It's important to remember and share all the things that have happened here, this has been such a good way to do that.” - KLS Elder When Blossom Comes was invited to be part of the London Architecture festival recognising EOU as an innovative, community-led approach to cultural and heritage, archiving community memory of public space. We built connections with local youth services eg - Providence House and KLS Youth. We engaged a youth worker to create workshop plans and resources for the trail to support youth participation (via local schools+youth services) - these are publicly available on the Echoes of Us website. “Our members got so much from it, and they felt part of their community and reflected on their heritage. They enjoyed being creative and having a voice” - Hannah Bailes, Elders Team, Age Using binaural microphones we recorded 6 stories attached to 6 benches on the Winstanley Estate. These aural stories are hosted on the newly created ‘Echos of Us’ website - an immersive and accessible website which will remain live for a minimum of 10 years (ensuring a legacy for the project), they are also accessible onsite via QR codes mounted on the benches. The stories have so far been listened to by over 500 people. Through EOU we developed our practice of co-created, site specific community storytelling. Offering accessible creative workshops, facilitating creative community led archiving and engaging local working class residents as active audiences. “Such a privilege to hear them talk about the area. I learnt alot. It was really great to be part of such a location based project. Rooted in the local community.” - EOU Assistant Facilitator + local resident.