Our reflective round-up of the project.

BY KATIE:
Hands are a form of identity; they show our age, our experiences, jobs and history. A photograph of somebody’s hands can tell you a lot about a person. Give Me Your Hand’s aim was to record the diverse culture of Lozells and East Handsworth by the collection of people’s hands, but we did not just want to record the hands, we wanted to join them. By asking people for their hopes and dreams for the their own futures and for the future of Lozells and East Handsworth we could demonstrate that many people from many different backgrounds can be united; united in how they would like to see the area changing, improving and also what they would like to stay the same.

Our project began at the Community Ward Meeting in Welford Primary School, where we were immediately impressed by the strong views and opinions of the few that were there. This meeting led to our connection with Heathfield Primary School, where many young opinions would be heard. Wire sculpture workshops and Good Luck symbols were the backdrop for our discussions with the groups about what they want for the future. Many wild and wonderful dreams were announced, including hopes for mansions to live in, horses to ride and theme parks to play in. These high hopes were accompanied by simple wishes like dust bins to put the rubbish in, less littering in the streets and for people to just get along; wise words for such young people and realistic goals for a City Council to work towards. The next group we worked with was Dorcas, this group of older ladies meet every Wednesday at Lozells Methodist Church; they have an abundance of art and craft materials but often don’t get the chance to use them. We went along to the group to encourage them to use their hands as tools and as imagery to decorate fabric bags. Whilst we talked with the women they discussed that they had already lived their lives and any hopes they had would be for other people, although they did all wish that they could feel safer, that there was a feeling of wellbeing in the area and that people could cooperate. Similarly in Bangladeshi Youth Forum the young men talked of wanting Lozells to be a peaceful place and wanting a happy community. Whilst learning Portrait Photography techniques and how to create Origami flowers they told us that ‘there is no divide between Lozells and East Handsworth,’ showing just how close the community is to achieving many people’s wishes.

For the final part of Give Me Your Hand we took a large Suggestion Box on a tour around the area, the box was decorated with the posters we have produced throughout the project. This was an attempt to take the views we had gathered back into the community. Whilst we walked we continued to ask the people that we met for their suggestions, which were posted into the box, and we gathered more hands with a scanner and computer built into the box. In order to deliver our project we have had to be sensitive to the community and just before our planned tour there was a serious shooting incident that resulted in the death of a young man, we were a little concerned about how the community might respond to a performance such as this, but all of the people we spoke to responded well and had lots to say. It was interesting to see how the box served as an attraction for people and also how it became a tool for writing on, leaning on and standing around. The views we gathered throughout the tour were reflective of those that we had gathered through the other events during the project with most people hoping for more community cohesion, activities to do and less litter and crime.

BY ANNA:

The notion of ‘community’ is something that kept cropping up throughout the project, and this has provided for us an understanding of the difficulties which arise from the use of this word. Whenever we asked people about their hopes and dreams for the area, community cohesion would be brought up again and again. We realised through our interactions with people that here, as with any place, there is not one overarching community, but many, some of which interrelate and overlap, and others which do not. We found that in some ways the word, rather than being a positive force which brings people together, in fact may at times help to segregate and divide. This was something that the people of the area were very aware of, and which many of the people and groups we worked with on the project, were trying to do something about, by putting on events and setting up projects which might cross boundaries, and bring people together.

We knew from the beginning that it was important for us to gain a foothold in the community, and this is something that I have always wondered about…How does an artist find the community in order to work with them? With this in mind we attended the ward meeting in the hope that we might interest people in the project, and it was there that we found our first Key Person, Nigel, a Community Support Officer. We learnt that there is no secret to this process of approaching people, it is just about being open and honest about what you are trying to do, and what you are offering - we discovered the benefits of identifying the key person within the community who can help you find an ‘in.’ Nigel was able to suggest leads for us to follow up, and put us in touch with local schools.

The project as a whole was designed to find out what the people of the area really feel about the place. The surprising thing for me has been just how willing people have been to talk to us, and not just in the workshops, where a relationship and trust can be built up; but also on the streets during our tours. There have been a lot of consultation initiatives in the area over the years, and this shows itself in the very rehearsed, almost fatigued initial responses we would get from people when setting out our questions. We knew from the research and development days that people were tired of outsiders coming in and portraying the area in a negative way; and their answers, when stopped on the street, could be seen as a community showing a united front. In response to this we found that distraction is a very good tool for consultation. The workshops we did with people all involved working with our hands in various ways, but for us the most important part of these sessions was the conversation generated in between making and doing. While making bags, or doing origami the process of shared enterprise can form a bond. Even to some extent on the street, going through the process of scanning in a person’s hands and printing them out allows a space in time for an exchange to take place, the individual’s guard would on occasion drop for a moment, the result of which was a deeper understanding for us about the individual’s true feelings about where they live.

The project required us as practitioners to be flexible in our approach, responding to the groups and individuals, and picking up on what they may be able to gain from the exchange. This has helped us to define our own feelings as practitioners working with communities, helping to sketch out an ethical map, and understand what is really at stake when working with people in this way. The recognition that trust is key to the relationships formed, and ultimate success or failure of the project is something that we will definitely take forward into future projects. Trust can be formed in any number of ways, but here we learnt that it is simple things that make the difference, like mucking in and making the tea, or just doing what you say you are going to do - for example if you say you will send someone a photo from the workshop you did, then you should do it, and making it a personal rule to always be on time.

So, what did we find through our workshops and tours?

A welcoming vibrant community, where people will happily chat to you on the street. People are realistic about the problems here, but as was reiterated numerous times; the problems in Lozells and East Handsworth are much the same as other places. Crime, violence and drugs are problems, but perhaps these are exaggerated and focused on too much by the media.

People want a safer, cleaner place to live, where there are more activities and opportunities for young and old people alike. These things are not too hard to achieve, with a little thought, and the people of the area have lots of ideas of how to go about it.

Beyond Bricks Showcase Event 16th May 2009

Our final day of the Give Me Your Hand project started with an early drive down to St Paul and St Silas Church in Lozells. It was already a busy atmosphere with everyone preparing for the day ahead. We set up the Suggestion Box and a seed planting workshop and waited for the visitors to arrive.



The morning event gave us a chance to have a look at some of the other imagery that had been produced through the other projects involved with Beyond Bricks. But soon we were too busy decorating plant pots, planting seeds and scanning in hands to notice that 3 and ½ hours had gone by!




After packing up the workshop we set off on our second tour of Lozells and East Handsworth with the Suggestion Box. The sun shone down on us as we walked, pushed and pulled our way to CMAT. People we passed along the way were interested in what we had in the box and slowed down to look at the images and comments we had gathered.



Finally we arrived at CMAT for the second part of the Showcase event where all the work that had been created through Beyond Bricks was on display. It was really great to see how our work fitted in with all the work that had been created and to see the variety of projects that had taken place.



Now that the project has come to a close we are able to reflect on all the things we have learnt about Lozells and East Handsworth. The comments and imagery we have gathered have been collated into a leaflet (available on request).


The leaflet and this blog serve to record Give Me Your Hand. Through them you can see the diversity of Lozells and East Handsworth; we have gathered hands and comments from across the community and discovered the hopes and dreams of the people living in the area. From wild dreams of mansions and ponies to more achievable goals such as dustbins and less crime we can see how people feel about the area that they live in, the things that they want to change and the things that they want to stay the same. The intention is now to share this information with the City Council and developers with a hope to help them better understand the community of Lozells and East Handsworth and to show them the issues that are at the forefront of their minds.

Give Me Your Hand Tour

Last Saturday (April 25th, 2009) Katie and I returned to Lozells and East Handsworth to carry out the first of our Give Me Your Hand Tours. We took with us a photographer, a load of our postcards and our suggestion box. Th suggestion box was adorned with posters generated through the various workshops we have been doing over the last few months, and are a way of disseminating back to the community all that we have discovered. We found that people were really interested in reading the quotes and asking about the images, as we went around.
The suggestion box was constructed from a big trolley, and houses a scanner, printer and laptop. The idea being to trawl the streets meeting people to talk to them about the area, and how they feel about it, and asking them to scan their hands in order to add to our hand collection.
We arrived at Lozells Methodist Church, as we had decided that this would be a good place to start the tour - being familiar to us.We were a bit nervous, as we were not sure how people would react to the spectacle. The first group of people we came to were a group of boys outside the petrol station trying to blow up their football with the tyre pump. We said hallo and told them what we were doing, and the boys were all keen to fill in the postcards and scan in their hands. They said they wanted better places to play and a skate park. We gave them the print outs of their hands and moved on... I went into Asif's takeaway, but the man working inside didn't live in the area, so we tried next door in the barber's shop.The man running Shak's barbers was really friendly. I asked him what he thought of the area, living here and running a business here. He said it has always been a good place to live and work. He said he opened the Barber's shop about 5 years ago and it was a good business, but that recently with the credit crunch things have been hard. He thought there should be more support. He asked us to take his photograph, and I promised to send him a copy.We posed outside the salvation army building which is boarded up these days.We made our way to St. George's Park where there was a lot going on.People playing in the children's area, and a group of teenage boys playing a game of cricket. We met this young man who was on his way to another park. He was really friendly and filled in one of the postcards and posted it into the suggestion box.He said he was on his way to the other park, and said we should go there on our tour later. We met two very friendly ladies, only one of them could speak English, so the other lady, who may have been her granddaughter explained what we were doing. They scanned their hands in together, but the older lady moved before it had finished.That was ok though.
We carried on around the park and met a young man with a very cute tiny girl. She was having a lot of fun. The young man filled in one of our postcards and posted it into the suggestion box. We asked him to scan his hand in, but he said 'No way, that's police stuff innit?' but offered to scan in his little friends hand instead. This was the smallest hand we have collected so far.While in the park three police cars drove past at speed. This had an effect of causing a great commotion in the park, with people scattering in different directions, and what had been a very positive atmosphere suddenly changed, and we found we were suddenly eyed with suspicion. It may have just been our perception, but strangely it seemed that the presence of the police in the vicinity, rather than creating a feeling of well-being, somehow did the opposite. This was a strange occurrence, and not something that we really understood. We moved off from the park to continue our tour of the streets.
We went up Wills St. a little way.
We contemplated where to go.We had thought we would try to avoid Lozells Road, as we thought the trolley might get in the way a bit, but in the end we decided to go for it. We met a Rastafarian man on the street, and he asked 'So what's this then' indicating the trolley. I explained what we doing and asked if he had any suggestions or hopes or dreams fro the area or himself.
He said, 'the same as anyone really - I need about £50,000 right now.' We carried on down Lozells Road, but it was quite hard to manoeuvre the trolley along the path at times, as there were a lot of cars parked on the pavement.
Dumping is a real problem in the area.We ended up back on Wills St. where we met some men who lived on the street.We asked them if they had any suggestions, and they said 'we don't, but this young man is the clever one' gesturing to a young man inside the house. He came out to talk to us. He was a very friendly and articulate young man, and told us about the good and bad things about living in the area. He said 'A good thing about living here is that there are a lot of really good people, but a bad thing is that there are also a lot of bad people too.' He said that there were problems with drugs and crime in the area. He said that only the week before someone had come along and keyed all of the cars on the street. He said that people work very hard to raise the money to buy their cars, and that it is really awful for something like this to happen. The older men agreed, and we discussed if they thought there was anything that could be done. 'Yes,' they said. 'We could really do with some security around here, perhaps some CCTV.' We were going to scan in his hands but the computer crashed at this point, so we photographed them instead.
This site at the end of Carpenter road always has a big pile of rubbish there, and this day was no exception. We made our way back around to the church where we had started. As we were going along the road a group of lads called out from where they were hanging out, 'Give us an ice cream.' I shouted back that we didn't have any ice cream, and they said what have you got then. I called out that we were photographing hands, they laughed and put their thumbs up. As we went round the corner they ran over, shouting 'Take a picture of my pants' they had misheard. We explained that we weren't photographing pants, but hands. They were very interested in the box, and the laptop inside, with one of them saying 'We are going to rob your laptop.' The oldest one told the other one off, saying 'No, that is not EVEN funny!' Perhaps being aware of the very negative way that young people in the area are often portrayed by outsiders. He was really polite and friendly, keen to show himself and his young pals in a good light. They were our last group of hands for the day.We enjoyed the tour, and were really pleased with the openness of the people we spoke to during the day. It did feel like an area where people are used to being asked to take part in things of this nature, and many of the people we met seemed quite savvy, in terms of what our motives might be, and how they may wish to be portrayed by us. We look forward to our next tour on 16th May.