Making the invisible visible with our new project

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have been awarded emergency funding from Arts Council England (ACE). We are incredibly grateful for this support and realise that we are extremely lucky to receive this, particularly at this time. 

This funding will enable us to create the project, entitled ‘Invisible – Visible’, which has been in fruition for a couple of weeks now. 

We will be working with theatre maker and writer Sarah Wanendeya to develop her original script ‘Becoming the Invisible Woman’ (BTIW).

You may recognise Sarah’s name from our ‘Taking the Stage’ event at MK Gallery last September, where she performed this autobiographical story as a “scratch” piece. 

The play charts the journey of a woman who ‘awakens’ to find herself middle aged, stuck in a rut and confused. A burgeoning sense of “invisibility” leads her to question her place in our youth centric society.

Across this six-month project, we will create adaptations of the piece across four mediums – an audio podcast, a short form video interpretation, an illustrated comic book version and a multi genre twine. In addition to this, we will lay the foundations for a completed stage play of BTIW for a performance sometime in the future.

These outputs will be developed by Sarah, myself (Rosemary Hill - Artistic Director at The Play’s The Thing Theatre Company) and specialist creatives in these art forms. It will honour the story and the vision. 

Alongside the development of BTIW, we plan to create a community engagement programme with the theme ‘invisibility in society’. The programme will be delivered by the same artists and it will explore how age, race, gender, disability, socio economic status and our career choices can all directly affect how society perceives us, and why certain people and roles in society are ignored, taken for granted, isolated and forgotten.

This ambition will drive four exciting community projects. Each one will connect with a community group to produce one of the pieces, which will be digitally broadcast and distributed.

The current lockdown has led to a renewed respect and awareness of so many key workers. How can we encourage society to retain these wins, and to work to a future that nobody needs to feel invisible in society again?

We are extremely proud and excited to bring this new project to Milton Keynes and beyond and to be working with some amazing creative practitioners. We will introduce them and the community groups to you over the coming weeks. 

We wouldn’t be able to do this without the support of ACE. As a small company, this funding will ensure our survival during these very tough times; and for that we are truly grateful. 

ACE have done an outstanding job of responding quickly and efficiently to this crisis and supporting the arts when we have needed it so urgently. 

We are so pleased to hear of other companies all over the country receiving emergency funding too. 

Congratulations to Milton Keynes based Motus, Blacksheep Collective and Westbury Arts Centre. We can’t wait to hear what you have planned and to support your projects.

We will keep you updated on our project, so please keep an eye on our blog and social media channels.