Ignite! Projects:

Report of the FriendShip Project

FriendShip Project 2005

As an experiment in trading ideas around problems and their solutions, Ignite! proposed to the London 2012 organisers a project involving young people in the maritime centres of Bristol, Plymouth and Greenwich – all areas where we have been developing the Ignite! initiative.

The structure of the project was relatively simple – we invited the young people to explore the barriers to friendship and to pass them on to another centre to interpret and resolve.

23 young people, mostly drawn from the Ignite! awardee portfolio, took part over three days – Wednesday 22 to Friday 24 June 2005. Their work was then transferred to London on Friday evening and displayed in an installation/exhibition in Greenwich on Saturday 25 June 2005.

Working with a facilitator and a team of workshop leaders from across the arts and technology disciplines, the young people produced artefacts and other outputs from their initial explorations of the barriers to friendship. These were packed into boxes and couriered overnight on Wednesday to one of the other centres. Amid great excitement on Thursday morning the newly received box was opened and the contents examined and interpreted.

From that point forward the young people worked on overcoming the barriers to friendship and created a multi-media installation to illustrate their solutions.
The work created by the close of Friday was transported to London and assembled in a mobile theatre truck adapted as an exhibition space for the event. Parked by the Cutty Sark, the truck was fitted out to be fully accessible and equipped to display the full range of multi-media work.

Over 2000 people visited the exhibition over the course of five and a half hours.