New Futures Lab

Video documenting the three days of workshops and final testing on the Soapbox Cars we made together.

In our latest masterclass sessions that we ran over Easter half term, we worked with two artists who helped us design and build two soap box cars.

We worked in family groups and had various sessions running throughout the day, which people booked on to in advance.

This meant that several groups of children worked on the same car, at different times. So it was a real collaboration.

We used some parts from old bikes and go karts, and also used salvaged wood and palletes to build the cars. Once the structure had taken shape, we focussed on the design of the cars. Each having its own theme and look. We spray painted and decorated each car before taking them out on a test run in the local field.

To see what we got up to, have a look at this video.

New Futures Lab is a project for children in Fegg Hayes, Chell Heath and Chell aged between 9 and 13. The project looks at safety in the local area. More specifically, what stops the young people feeling safe in their own neighbourhood.

Through a series of workshops and masterclasses, we are working with the young peple to find out why they don't feel safe, but more importantly we are exploring creative ways that we can tackle this.

The project is very much led by the children's ideas about what makes them feel unsafe and what can help their local area. Because of this, we're not quite sure what we'll be up to next, but we can show you what we've done so far.

Short zombie apocolypse film made by local children.

Earlier in the project, we also made a short zombie film. For this we worked with a local film-maker and an SFX make up artist to get the young people apocalypse ready.

They planned out the plot of the film, their costumes, different scenes, dialogue and the locations for shooting. You'll probably recognise a few of those locations. And of course, they were the stars of the show, acting in each scene.

Once we had finished filming, we worked on recording our own sound effects to add to the atmosphere.

Have a look at the final film here.

When we first started this projects, we asked local children and parents about safety in the area. What things made them feel unsafe, and ways we might be able to tackle these issues.

From this consultation session, a local artist made us this incredible illustration to show some of the ideas and themes that arose.

Illustration created by Jamie Fox, based on the things the local young people said made them feel unsafe in their area and ways to help this.