Creative Encounters is Imaginate’s flagship three-year project in partnership with North Edinburgh Arts focused on the incorporation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. Together, children, artists and Imaginate will explore what it means to put children's rights at the heart of the creative process.
From autumn 2022 until summer 2025, children from North Edinburgh are working with artists and Imaginate staff to co-create new theatre and dance performances, giving a central role to children’s ideas, interests and voices. These new performances are presented in the local community and at Family Encounters as part of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 Edinburgh International Children’s Festivals.
Young people are involved as key decision makers from the beginning of the project. Children commission an artist to create a theatre or dance performance, and they are invited into the artists’ creative process to co-create performances. Children also take part in workshops on curation, content creation, photography, journalism, speech writing, and decision making.
For Imaginate, Creative Encounters is an opportunity to develop a children’s rights-based approach to our organisational policies, processes, and decision making. Through this long-term collaboration with children, we hope to explore and discover new relationships and ways of working.
To find out more, get in touch with Lou Brodie (Creative Projects Facilitator) or call 0131 225 8050.
