Together with Gravesend Theatre Company Walk Tall and renowned director Andy Field, Cement Fields worked with young people aged 12-17 from Dartford and Gravesham boroughs who have an interest in performing arts to create a new piece of theatre exploring the past, present and future of the local area.
Using memories recorded for the Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive as source material, participants took part in workshops and rehearsals to devise 20 minute performance piece All Change, which was presented at the Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive Launch and Celebration event at Northfleet Veterans Club on June 8th.
The new piece of theatre brought to life memories captured for the Archive, whilst also reflecting on the young people’s lives today.
All Change was part of Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive, a community-led project capturing and preserving the varied stories and histories of the people and places of Ebbsfleet, Greenhithe, Swanscombe, and Northfleet, inviting local people to work with artists, historians and fellow residents, to explore the area’s unique historic and contemporary identity through objects, sounds, videos and photographs, collected by and from residents past, present and future.
Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England, and supported by Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, Gravesham Libraries, Dartford Museum and Libraries, and Kent Archives.
All the materials gathered through the project can be now be accessed via ebbsfleetcitizenarchive.org, where you can also upload your own contributions.
Andy Field is a writer, curator and artist based in London. He creates projects that invite people to consider their relationship to the places they live and the people they live with. He works with children and young people on creative projects that initiate new and different kinds of conversations between children and adults. He is the co-author of Performance in an Age of Precarity (2021), the author of Encounterism (2023), co-director of the award-winning arts co-op Forest Fringe, and one half of theatre maker duo Andy and Becky.
Walk Tall are a Gravesend-based Theatre Company and charity who advocate for arts as a vehicle for change, kindness and improved wellbeing. They provide education for young people between 13-16 and 16-19, offering training in core academic qualifications, while also helping students learn how to look after their mental health and develop their emotional wellbeing.