Sounds Like Graffiti: Bradford is a participatory project using creative writing, audio production, telephony as well as audiovisual forms. Young people have produced original sound plays, which audiences can listen to via their mobile phones as they walk around Lister Park on 10th and 11th July 2010. These plays will be available online, on air and as a book from 10th July 2010. This project has been funded by MediaBox and Arts Council, Yorkshire. 1001 Inventions sponsored the Lister Park Event.

At the core of Sounds Like Graffiti: Bradford is a radio play told in thirteen small episodes. Each sound play is a stand alone piece but when heard together the whole play is an interwoven collage of song, actuality, poetry and dialogue, which celebrates the diversity of Bradford.

Since February the Nation of Aslam has been working with young people in Bradford, these young people are aged 13 – 19, from diverse communities which are recognised as disadvantaged.

The Process:

Through workshops with artist facilitators we collected writing and stories from young people about their feelings and observations about Bradford. These were structured into a series of short plays by the artist facilitators. There are thirteen short plays ranging from five minutes to one minute. The total is 46.03 minutes of original Radio Drama.

The stories follow one young woman who has been sent out to look for her wayward brother. Farrah decides to look for him in Lister Park. This journey takes her through a series of fantastical adventures based on the story of Odysseus for instance:

Farrah hears music coming from the Fountain in the Mughal Gardens, she goes towards the sounds and falls into the water and emerges in Amritsar during the Partition wars in 1947. She meets her grandmother and comes to understand a little about the meaning of migration and ancestry. This story is Episode 4 “Ripples from the past” . Which has also been made into a short film.

Episode 4 was created by the young women at Toller Café.

Whilst walking past the bandstand in Lister Park, Farrah hears rap music which calls to her. She’s pulled into a circle of MC’s. Inside, she believes she’s found freedom but when she really listens to the music she’s in danger of losing her  memory…will she swallow the pill the MC’s are offering? Listen to Episode 6 to find out what happens.

Episode 6 was created by the girls at Belle Vue Girls’ School and is based on their perception that drugs are rife in Bradford but family and home are where you are safe.

The boys group at UMMID contributed several raps used in the final play which formed the character of MC Memory/ Ali and the ‘Lost Souls’.

Easter Workshops with Mind the Gap participants created the whole idea of being ‘lost in the woods’. In these workshops the young people adapted fairytales to express their lives in Bradford.

PARTNERSHIPS have been formed with:

UMMID: who work with young people who have been excluded from mainstream schools because of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. There are ten young men in this group and comprised of both white working class and Muslim working class.

BELLE VUE GIRLS’ SCHOOL: This group is comprised of eleven young Muslim women aged 13 – 16.

MIND THE GAP: During the Easter holidays we worked with nineteen young learning disabled people, some white middleclass but mostly white working class. There were also four BME participants. Some of these participants continued to take part in the project, by attending further workshops and performing in the final audio plays.

BRADFORD YOUTH SERVICE: There is now a group of seven young women based at the Toller Café who are involved in the project. With Kala Sangam’s contribution we extended this project to include the boys’ group at Toller Café.