Since 2022, Imaginate have been working in partnership with North Edinburgh Arts on Creative Encounters, our children’s rights-based project which allowed us to collaborate with children to co-commission and co-create performances with children in North Edinburgh.
As the project draws to a close, we decided to celebrate the last three and a half years with our first ever Children’s Summit, held on World Children’s Day (20th November) at North Edinburgh Arts.
The day was co-designed and co-hosted with children from North Edinburgh, who we have been working with throughout the project.
The children were particularly keen that the day felt like a party, to celebrate their hard work and everything the project has achieved. They decided to theme rooms in the venue around specific arts activities, so we held three different workshops: arts & crafts, dance, and music.
The arts & crafts room was led by Cynthia Cheung, who was commissioned by Forthview Primary in the first year of Creative Encounters to make Hat, Hat, Hat. During the Children’s Summit workshop, Cynthia recreated a workshop she initially delivered at Forthview in 2023, where children designed their own hats using a variety of colourful materials.
The dance room was led by Vince Virr and KJ Clarke-Davis. The duo led a workshop for Creative Encounters a couple of years ago and we’ve been dying to get them back ever since! They led a high energy dance workshop exploring opposites, extremes, dancing together and finding interesting shapes with your body.
The music room was led by Geraldine Heaney and Ronan McMahon from Sprog Rock. Geraldine has been creating a film about Creative Encounters in collaboration with young people, so it was brilliant to involve her as a musician this time! Children sang, played instruments, dressed up and posed for an album cover photo.
After lunch (provided by North Edinburgh Arts), we were treated to a reading of Ellen Renton’s poem FREEDOM which was co-written with families from Spartan’s Community Foundation. We also screened the film about Creative Encounters by Geraldine Heaney.
In the second half of the day, children took part in round-table discussions about children’s cultural activity in Scotland. These discussions were observed by "VIP adults" including the Children’s Commissioner, Imaginate’s new Festival Director Adjjima Na Patalung, and representatives from Scottish Government and Creative Scotland.
We wrapped up the day with a performance of POP! by Vince and KJ, which ended with everyone dancing together surrounded by confetti from a giant party popper!
It was an incredible way to celebrate everything we’ve achieved through Creative Encounters, and consult with children about what really matters to them.
