Good Grief - Creative Showcase 2020

Our Creative Courses bring together over 80 young people aged 10-18 from diverse backgrounds every term. Delivered in community settings across Bristol and South Gloucestershire, often in youth clubs, we explore difficult topics with young people who use creativity to express themselves, build resilience and develop relationships based on trust with experienced Creative Youth Workers.  

This spring term, we have worked in partnership with Good Grief Festival. Using nine different artforms, we enabled young people to think, talk and learn about grief whilst learning new creative skills. 

The ten week long courses are led by professional artists trained in youth work and assisted by young emerging artists, for whom this is a crucial step into their creative careers.

In light of the Coronavirus pandemic, we cancelled our end of term showcase event and instead we have collated young people's work in this digital space.

Alongside the work from each course which you can see below, the young people have also worked to achieve their Level 1 Bronze Arts Award qualification. We would like to say a huge well done to each of them for completing this term and we hope you enjoy their creativity.

If you love these young people's work as much as we do, comment below! And if you're a young person who took part in one of the courses, tell us what was your favourite thing about it? 

Want to help more young people get the chance to tackle difficult topics through creativity?

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Let's celebrate creativity in this difficult time and empower young people to be open, express themselves and build resilience.

  • Puppet Making

    What characters are in your after life?
    These are ours.     Read more

  • Animation

    Climate grief, inner thoughts and secrets - brought to life. Read more

  • Music

    Jam with us. Read more

  • Theatre

    The five stages of grief enacted. Read more

  • Film making

    You're at the gates of heaven and hell, who goes through and who gets transferred? Read more

  • Craft & Textiles

    Celebrating nature, and its interconnected, ever moving cycle of living and dying. Read more

  • Art & Printmaking

    Exploring different cultural traditions of death through diverse imagery and techniques. Read more

  • Fashion

    What would you wear to welcome back souls during Dia de Muertos? Read more

  • Puppet Making

    What characters are in your after life?
    These are ours.     Read more

The Youth Investment Fund Partnership

The Youth Investment Fund (YIF) has funded six of the nine Creative Courses you can see work from above, alongside youth work throughout Bristol. This funding ended on 31st March 2020 but below you can find a celebration of the achievements of this vital work and partnership. The YIF partnership is a collaboration between acta, Creative Youth Network, Empire Fighting Chance, Travelling Light Theatre Company, Young Bristol and Youth Moves.

  • Held in pockets

    "Held in Pockets" is a spoken word poem by young artist Leeza Awojobi. It compares the comfort and security one finds in youth services to the comfort and security of a pocket - something you hardly notice, but which is necessary. These ‘pockets’ are dotted around the city and help young people to grow into maturity and affirm them in their journey to adulthood, helping them to be secure and ready to take on life’s challenges. Read more

  • The blossoming of creativity and young people’s resilience

    It’s been quite a three years. Since 2017, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), we have provided new opportunities for young people across the city, reaching into areas we weren’t delivering in previously. Read more

Five Stages of Whatever

This film was produced as a separate project to the courses above by a group of 14-19 year olds who have experienced bereavement and used film making as a way to tell their story. They wrote the script and gained skills in camera work, lighting and editing as well as featuring in the film themselves. This film was made by Creative Youth Network in collaboration with the Good Grief Festival, University of Bristol and Winston's Wish.

  • Five Stages of Whatever

    Using lived experience, this short film plays on and explores the framework of the Five Stages of Grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Read more