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The Enchanted Palace was a collaborative project between theatre company WildWorks and Historic Royal Palaces (HRP). It transformed the State Apartments at Kensington Palace into an interactive exhibition (26 March 2010 — 1 June 2012) which brought the stories and the palace to life.
The Enchanted Palace enabled Kensington Palace to remain open during a two-year £12 million refurbishment. The project brought in income, safeguarded jobs and drew in new audiences. Thirteen community groups, schools and colleges were involved in its creation while 10 high-profile designers were invited to create work in response to the stories of the palace. The Enchanted Palace increased the numbers of Palace visitors (even during this refurbishment period) and was widely covered in the press featuring on the International Council of Museums website www.clothestellstories.com as an example of good practice.
The Los Niños oral history project has added a new voice to the discourse around conflict and migration, and in doing so has brought a forgotten chapter of Spanish Civil War history to the attention of the public and media. The insights gathered have found resonance locally, nationally and internationally, as people across three generations gained greater awareness and understanding of the experience of exile. Outputs have been widely disseminated through a digital archive of life stories, a popular oral history book, a virtual and a touring exhibition, a set of online education resources and two documentary films.
This research impacted on two of the most important social and political issues to face western governments: joblessness and homelessness. Twenty photographic images and texts showed and described the circumstances of Big Issue vendors, some rough sleepers and some in temporary accommodation, trying to cope through the worst recession in decades and often feeling ostracized by society. Shown in London and Birmingham and cascaded across the media, it reached a wide audience. The impact of the exhibition and its aftermath consists in alerting and informing viewers/readers concerning the plight of joblessness and homelessness in the UK.
Conceived, directed and edited by Clio Barnard, The Arbor (2010) explores the life, work, and legacy of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Among many other prizes and nominations, the film won the Grierson Trust Award for Best Cinema Documentary, and The Guardian First Film Award, both in 2011. It has achieved a wide-ranging and significant impact, informing public debate, transforming the lives of those depicted in and working on the film, bolstering cultural heritage in West Yorkshire, generating sustainable employment in the film industry, influencing fellow filmmakers and making a significant contribution to UK cultural life.
The impact case study relates to two documentaries, ABC Colombia (2007) and Home Sweet Home (2012). Enrica Colusso's practice-as-research exposes, challenges and critiques social structures and institutions, relations of power, oppression and resistance affecting marginalised communities. Her work prioritises the experience of ordinary people living in difficult times. Through the process of filming, screening and broadcasting of her documentaries, this work has had a direct impact upon the communities she films, on the organizations that support them, and on the audiences that view them. This work has an international reach, and significant impact in the following areas:
This unique theatrical and film project is based on the use of volunteers to produce work inspired by a combination of their own experiences of class and Friedrich Engels' book The Condition of the Working Class in England. It created significant impact for those taking part, offering beneficial new experiences of creative collaboration and association, authoring their own stories and developing fresh understandings of the wider context of their own individual experiences — a process unprecedented in mainstream media that constitutes a significant contribution to the documentary genre. This impact was, in turn, transmitted to wider civil society through live performance. Insights generated through the documentation and contextualisation of the process of theatrical production as a documentary film were then brought to a still broader range of audiences, including policy- makers at national level and into a larger arena of public discussion that challenged the widespread assumption that `class' is no longer relevant to contemporary society.
REBOUND is an interactive, media-based drug prevention programme targeted at young people in Europe. Researchers at the University of Greenwich worked with young people to redesign the curriculum and materials for a British audience and produce a series of short educational films which are being used in the programme's resilience training. Preliminary results show a reduction in drug and alcohol harm amongst participants including a drop in binge drinking, reduced cannabis use, increased search for help and greater harm reduction knowledge. After using the films, young people are making their own videos as educational tools to pass on their learning.
Researchers at the Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) study the practice and products of photography in terms of both artistic importance and social relevance, recognising photography's many roles including its presence in: the art world; reportage; autobiographical practice; and in social and political education. This case study demonstrates PARC's impact on cultural life via the production of work and curatorial practice, bringing new insights, challenging assumptions, and raising awareness of the role of photographic practice in the public realm.
Written and performed by Oliver Double, the stand-up comedy performance Saint Pancreas uses the medium of comedy to enhance public understanding of type 1 diabetes, and to challenge prevailing assumptions about the condition within and beyond the community of patients and their families. As a live performance and on DVD, the work has had impact on:
Furthermore, within the field of stand-up comedy itself, it has contributed to challenging and broadening the aesthetic possibilities of the form.
This research, led by Amy Hardie and the Scottish Documentary Institute from 2006 onwards, investigates the practice of communicating and engaging with science through creative documentary filmmaking, developing a screening strategy heralded as 'a completely different paradigm of cinema' (5.1). By drawing out human stories in award-winning, critically-acclaimed films, it has mainstreamed complex subject matter about stem cell research, redressing public and media misconceptions along the way. One film has been watched over 112,000 times in 190 countries, while behind the camera, it has forged cross-disciplinary collaborations between artists and biological scientists that have been discussed and admired by policy-makers in Brussels and Tokyo.