NEWS

Callout for photos and short films that reflect the cultural identity of the West of England

As part of the Citizens Assembly for Culture project we are inviting arts & cultural organisations to contribute photographs to be part of the public campaign for the planned 2025 Assembly.

We’re seeking photos and videos that reflect the unique cultural identity of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) regions—Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, and South Gloucestershire—highlighting both perceptions and the realities of these areas.

What is Citizens for Culture?
In 2025, Trinity Community Arts, St Pauls Carnival CICCitizens in Power and the West of England Combined Authority will collaborate to launch the first regional Citizens’ Assembly for Culture.

This bold new approach to cultural engagement will bring together citizens – people living, working or staying across the West of England – to explore how creative opportunities can be inclusive and accessible for everyone in the region.

What we’d like from you
We are aiming to collate 10 powerful images and short film content that reflect both the perception and reality of the region, with a focus on cultural identity, diversity, and community dynamics. These images and video content will used to create a short film to promote Citizens for Culture. Please see here for an example.

All entries will be collated into an online gallery.

Submission Guidelines
We are particularly interested in images and video that:

  • Align with or challenge the key demographic and cultural characteristics of the region.
  • Reflect regional cultural identity through the lens of different communities.
  • Explore contrasts between how the region is perceived and its reality.

Examples could include:

  • Photos of Bristol’s youthful, diverse population and vibrant creative sector, or imagery that challenges these perceptions.
  • Images from Bath and North East Somerset that reflect its older demographic and affluence, or perspectives that counter this narrative.
  • Visuals from South Gloucestershire showcasing its cultural industry, or alternate views that highlight hidden aspects of the region.

How to submit
Please send your photos that align with these themes to contact@citizensforculture.info. We recommend using WeTransfer if the file is too large to attach to the email. Submissions should be in high resolution (300 DPI minimum) and include a brief description of the image and how it reflects or counters perceptions of the region. Please include any credits.

Help us shape a visual story that captures the complexity of cultural identity in the West of England.

Deadline for submissions: 01 Mar 2025

We look forward to seeing your images and video

We recently attended the Festival of Flourishing Regions 2025 (#FoFR2025).  The Festival aims to promote and celebrate the role that cities and regions play in the economy and prosperity of the country and look at how regions can drive the growth agenda of the government. Emma Harvey, CEO of Trinity Community Arts and a key partner Citizens for Culture, blogged about attending:

“At the heart of this week’s Festival of Flourishing Regions 2025 (#FoFR2025) at the Watershed was a recurring question: Who truly benefits from growth? Economic expansion and large-scale developments continue to bypass existing communities, leaving people clinging desperately to their sense of place, fearful of disruption. Nimby-naysayers, blocking our prosperity.

Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer began with early reflections – and perhaps a warning – about the risks of growth without stability and prosperity without equity. He highlighted the need to shift toward preventative public services that operate proactively rather than merely reacting to crises. This was echoed by experiences of Stephen Peacock, the leader of the Combined Authority, who highlighted the real pressures of escalating expenditure on temporary accommodation hindering efforts to implement permanent solutions. 

Palie Smart from the University of Bristol captured a key theme: The power of powerful relationships… only when we get together can we tackle complex challenges. But, how do we come together to build a vision for region that flourishes for us all when so many are paralysed by the continual threat of precariousness? As Andy Westwood surmised, people are putting more in than they’re getting out”. Why should any of us care about an empty promise of productivity when wealth accumulates at the top while wages stagnate in the middle and those at the bottom are propped up by a living wage that can’t keep pace with an out of control rental market? Why should  I care who’s in charge if power remains centralised and only deepens the majority’s sense of powerlessness? As Arrested Development’s lyrics go, the word ‘cope’ and the word ‘change’ is directly opposite, not the same. 

If we want real progress, we need to move beyond survival and towards meaningful transformation. 

Iain Gray spoke about the need for innovation and the importance of setting clear priorities and pursuing them ruthlessly and talked fondly of memories of the 2012 Olympics. While many remember this fondly for artistic ceremonies celebrating the best of British culture, I can’t help but think about what that ruthlessness looked like in reality; the permanent loss of century-old  covenanted land, the Manor Gardens allotments. I think about that and wonder, more than a decade on, do people still feel the benefits of that cement walkway in the same way as the communal land it replaced?

This tension between social mobility, productivity and asset-based community development ran through many discussions. Harriet Fear touched on the power of new ideas in old buildings with an example of a startup thriving in a former pigsty. It was a reminder that we overlook the value of what we already have we lose those in unusual corners and crevices where minds connect, imaginations are ignited and ideas are formed.  

From public infrastructure projects, the much lambasted HS2 to regional funding pots and the constant churn of central government infrastructure funding pots locked needlessly to short-term political cycles. That churn of out with the old in with the new. 14 growth strategies in 16 years. Yet here we are, no closer to a solution that works for everyone.

Jim O’Neill places some of that blame at the foot of the merciless 247 news cycle that reduces everything to 15 seconds of infamy. As does former Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees who talked of the toxic trolling limiting our ability to attract and keep people even wanting to work in a political space. 

With so much focus on productivity centred around, aerospace, tech, and defence, what actually makes a city like Bristol ‘sticky’ place people want to call home? It’s all about food and friends and gigs and carnivals and sound systems and heritage, and culture and and and…yet if it wasn’t for Katy Shaw who said, “culture isn’t an add-on—it’s intrinsic to regional growth strategies”, you’d be forgiven for thinking our route to happier healthier lives could be delivered by chips and wings and missile nose cones.

When mulling over our collective lot, we can all be too good at talking about what we don’t have. The poverty of capacity, devolved funding for culture that still remains fragmented, or the challenges in land use, where freehold sites are given away for developments never realised. Using your powers wisely, has never been more important. This tied directly into Trinity’s work with partners to deliver Roots of Resilience, which explores how community buildings can be leveraged by the voluntary sector to safeguard spaces, creating a holistic approach that blends the old with the new. 

If we start from a place of what we do have – our wealth of talent, ideas skills, assets – as investment decisions shift to combined authorities – we can try to ensure that investment isn’t just about top-down economic development but enables communities to shape their own futures. As Nick Pearce spoke of the urgent need to structure deliberative democratic processes as part of these devolved regions – ensuring citizens have a direct say in how their regions evolve – I was bouncing out my seat ready to shout about our work to deliver the first regional Citizens’ Assembly for Culture, in September 2025 – giving people a stake in shaping the future of devolved investment in the creative and cultural industries.

In a fractured system where few understand how regional authorities operate, John Denham noted, rarely do we get a chance to sit down and ask, what do we have in common? Citizens for Culture is an opportunity to do just that – in a region of rural and urban wealth and deprivation how do we build a shared identity, weaving and crafting an authentic narrative to define our place in the world.

This isn’t about growth. It’s about betterment. Creating places where people can hope for more than just to survive. Where economic strategies don’t just serve a privileged few but create lasting, equitable prosperity. 

The Festival of Flourishing Regions made it clear: the power to shape our future exists, but only if we have the courage to grab hold of it.”

Emma Harvey, CEO Trinity Community Arts

#FoFR2025

 

We’re connecting with cultural leaders to explore the civic and democratic tools that we, as citizens, can access

Here LaToyah McAllister-Jones, executive director of St Pauls Carnival, reflects on her experiences of using various tools to facilitate democratic decision-making.

Opinion: LaToyah McAllister-Jones on voices in decision-making

I have always been attracted to work and play that enables people to have a voice. To be heard. After years of working with marginalised groups, from managing accommodation services for street homeless people to community organising in Hackney, I have developed an interest in the right to influence decisions being made about our lives.

One of the most interesting things about leading a community arts organisation is just how integral the community is to our work. St Pauls Carnival CIC is merely a custodian for the iconic event; we provide a stage and the community fills those spaces. Carnival celebrates African Caribbean talent in St Pauls and beyond as well as our culture and heritage. Our communities continue the traditions of our ancestors using music, dance and storytelling to share lived experiences and connect to our heritage. This is one of the most important things about our event: it allows us to tell our own stories, in our own words, using our voices.

In 2021, I was asked by Involve to facilitate Bristol City Council’s Citizens’ Assembly that would support policy development in housing, health inequalities and transport as the city emerged from Covid. The process was new to me, and I loved the way it cut through many of the challenges that we often come up against when engaging communities:

  • Participants are randomly selected, and usually aren’t experts in the central assembly topic. There is a process to ensure that all participants are able to meaningfully contribute to the discussions, and this is critical to the success of an assembly.
  • The process seeks to facilitate consensus, rather than debate which tends to have a winner and a loser.
  • Participants are encouraged to explore what their real priorities are and what they might be prepared to forego for those priorities.
  • Assemblies bring together a diverse range of people who you wouldn’t necessarily find together in a traditional social setting. This creates an opportunity for vastly differing viewpoints to be heard and influence how others participants might think about a topic.

St Pauls Carnival are currently delivering a Citizens’ Assembly for Culture in partnership with Trinity Community Arts, Citizens In Power and West Of England Combined Authority. The idea developed just as we were coming out of the pandemic and thinking about the lessons learnt; particularly the role of community. Together, we were curious about what it would look like to use the assembly process – democratic, person-centred and thinking about strengths of a place, its people and its assets – to reimagine what the cultural offer could look like in the South West region.

Democratic decision-making allows citizens to actively contribute to the discourse that shapes their communities. We also believe culture is experienced by everyone, in many different ways, and everyone should be able to access the culture that represents them. If this is to be the ambition, it is vital that we put people at the centre of that process. This means understanding how people experience culture, what it means to them and, as cultural leaders, asking ‘how can we reflect this in our approach and programming?’

The new Labour Government expressed an interest in the use of Citizens’ Assemblies earlier this year, and the format has been used to unpack challenging issues like abortion in Ireland. The South West region is already embedding this approach into how we speak to our communities, and we are at the forefront of using assemblies to understand how we deliver for everyone, and not just those who can afford it or who have easy access to culture.

Our Citizens’ Assembly for Culture project offers an exciting opportunity to create a new approach to engaging people in the cultural life of a place. The Assembly will take place in Spring 2025 as a central programme within Culture West, funded by the West of England Combined Authority and Arts Council South West. The recommendations coming from this Assembly will become part of the regional approach to delivering a citizen-led cultural offer.

Reflecting on our series of research sessions exploring how citizens can co-create a cultural strategy

We are exploring how we can use a Citizens’ Assembly to co-create a cultural strategy for the city and surrounding region.

During the research phase of this project, funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch), we invited a range of collaborators from the sector who place participation at the heart of their practice to hear from some of the best speakers working in democratic decision making.

These focus groups were a chance to share ideas, experiences, knowledge and expertise on co-creation, participatory democracy and how we can do things differently in the culture sector.

This series of blogs documents and shares what we are uncovered on this journey.

Part 1: what is a Citizens’ Assembly?

For the first focus group we welcomed Brett Hennig, co-founder of the Sortition Foundation. The Sortition Foundation is an organisation that believes in representative and participatory politics, with a particular focus on Citizens’ Assemblies.

The purpose of these assemblies, Brett outlined, is that they bring people together from all walks of life and give the time and space for people to collectively tackle issues. It is a model, Brett shared, that Bristol itself has delivered as part of its plan for post-Covid recovery.

Citizens’ Assemblies work by a three-part process of learning, discussion, and decision-making. In the learning stage, evidence is presented on the topic by ‘expert witnesses’, the group then discuss this evidence and work together to come to a consensus to create recommendations. These recommendations are then put to the vote. The recommendations that are most supported can become the official recommendations of the assembly.

Brett stressed the importance of having representation in a Citizens’ Assembly, so the pool must be reflective of demographic data and, in the case of our project, cultural engagement. He shared that, unlike politics, Young People (30 and under) are represented in Citizens’ Assemblies because of the nature of the selection process that reflects a city’s demographic data.

Participants of Citizens’ Assemblies are selected via an independent third party – these organisations will initially contact citizens directly using a database, such as the Royal Mail’s database of every postal address in the UK. There is then a second selection of the people who respond to the invitation based on the demographic data they provide.

The group were interested in how the experts are selected – as this could be contentious. Using an example of congestion in a city, Brett explained that a Local Authority could commission an external third party to collect the evidence at hand, perhaps from an open call out. An Oversight Group for the assembly will be given the responsibility for ensuring the evidence that is presented to the assembly is balanced. Assembly members can also be part of the process of identifying contributors to the assembly. This would enable a wider pool of opinions, practically from those invested in the topic with expertise and/or lived experience.

The group wanted to understand how large a Citizens’ Assembly should be. Brett shared that, in deliberative democracy, it is not a big numbers game. The key is representation. Brett shared that in Ireland, assemblies have seen numbers of up to 100 people, France had 150 in the Climate Assembly, but many local assemblies are around 40 people.

In summarising his talk, the discussion centred around how to ensure that voices are heard and amplified in Citizens’ Assemblies, specifically those from Communities who may face barriers to participation. Brett shared that perhaps over-representation could be a consideration so that more communities are attending for specific areas whose voices are historically not amplified. Brett also explained that representation is not only about the citizens in the assembly but also about the voices of those who give evidence.

Producer, Anjali Prashar-Savoie and project manager, David Jubb, answer some key questions about the project

We caught up with them to ask what Citizens for Culture is, why we’re running it and what we hope to achieve.

David and Anjali – what is a Citizens for Culture all about?

A Citizens’ Assembly brings people together to learn about and deliberate issues and together, reach conclusions about what they think should happen.

Our project, Citizens for Culture, will invite citizens from areas in the West of England to create a set of recommendations for a Cultural Plan for the West of England Combined Authority Region.

Taking place across multiple sessions citizens will explore how creative opportunities can be inclusive, accessible and representative of the many people living across the region. They will immerse themselves in creative and cultural activities, hear from experts who will share their knowledge about creativity and culture and then, working together, develop recommendations for a Cultural Plan to be delivered across three regions in the West of England.

Following the Assembly, citizens will oversee the implementation of the Cultural Plan with support from funders, local authorities, organisations and individuals, all working together to deliver these citizen-led recommendations.

What is the story so far?

The project was created in response to the partners wanting to explore how using a Citizens Assembly model – a deliberative, democratic and people-centred approach – could reimagine what a cultural offer could look like in the South West.

Each partner brings their own skills to the project – St Pauls’ Carnival CEO, LaToyah Mcallister-Jones brings her wealth of expertise and experience in leading and facilitating Assemblies.

Using their expertise in citizen-led decision making, Citizens In Power have been securing support for each stage of the project, from the initial research phase in 2022 to the delivery of the final Assembly in 2025 and Trinity’s CEO, Emma Harvey, brings over 20yrs of expertise of using arts and culture as a tool for civic participation.

Together, we delivered a research phase for the Assembly, where the principles for the design were shaped by a group of people from across the region, chosen through a random selection process.

Based on these design principles, the Assembly was further developed by people working in the cultural sector. The research phase provided the building blocks for the framework for the planned 2025 Assembly.

Why are you running Citizens for Culture?

The Assembly aims to help shape a regional cultural offer that is relevant, accessible and reflective of diverse voices and perspectives. By co-creating cultural leadership and decision-making with the people who live, work and stay in our region, we hope to build a more democratic approach that will help shape the future direction of culture in the West of England.

What do you mean by “citizens” and “culture”?

When we say citizens, we simply mean the people who live, work or stay in a place.

We feel that the Assembly is best placed to arrive at its practical definition of culture – one that best serves the creation of the regional Cultural Plans.  We want to ensure the people taking part can participate fully and that thoughtful conversations happen that aid in guiding this. By allowing the Assembly process to refine this definition, we hope to ensure that the Cultural Plan has a clear focus and achievable goals, while still acknowledging the richness of cultural diversity across the regions.

“By using this (a Citizens’ Assembly model) democratic approach we hope to inform future cultural policies and priorities for the West of England, creating a legacy that will serve as a model for the UK’s continually evolving arts and cultural landscape.”

How do people get involved?

Citizens will be invited to participate in the Assembly through a sortition process, or democratic lottery, rather than by election or appointment. This ensures that the selection is impartial and includes a wide representation of community voices from across the region.

We’re continuing to invite people and organisations working in the cultural sector to help shape plans for the 2025 Assembly.

If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you – feel free to get in touch with the Citizens’ Assembly producer, Anjali Prashar-Savoie, at anjali@trinitybristol.org.uk to arrange a chat.

We’re connecting with cultural leaders to explore the civic and democratic tools that we, as citizens, can access

In this piece Dr Edson Burton, Curator at Trinity Community Arts, reflects on the role of voting in democratic decision making.

Opinion: voting matters, Dr Edson Burton

‘Politics time again, are you gonna vote now?’ lamented the reformed Buju Banton, alluding to the lethal elections of his native Jamaica. But the question could equally be applied to the forthcoming British election. During the last General Election (2019), 67% of the population voted, up from the all-time low of just over 59% in 2001.

While that figure is on the rise, it still means that over 30% of the population has no say in how they are governed. According to a recent YouGov poll, the reasons given for not voting include a lack of access to polling stations, ineligibility, and no forms of ID. However, the most prominent reasons are a lack of trust in politicians and a feeling that voting will make little difference.

One might argue that cynicism is rife in politics, with pledges that are misleading if not downright dishonest. It has ever been thus, but in a crowded information world, voters may become so confused as to become indifferent.

Perhaps the dance of truth owes as much to us as to our politicians. Few would jump for joy at the thought of higher taxes, but without increased taxation, how can we fund our troubled public services, invest in green technology, or ensure education offers opportunities for all?

Responding to concerns over national identity, political parties offer a raft of immigration control measures that, if implemented, would lead to a national staffing crisis. Yet, to extol the virtues of immigration is to risk electoral suicide.

The convergence between the main political parties may also fuel voter apathy. “There’s no difference between them” is the often-heard lament. Despite the barbs and bites, there appears, at times, to be more that unites than divides the main parties. They vie to expose the actual commitment to an agreed-upon agenda rather than the agenda itself.

But it is worth remembering that this consensus is the result of political participation. The impetus to secure or woo working-class votes in this election is a result of the extension of the franchise beyond a small property-owning class. Once enfranchised, all parties have had to take seriously the interests of a wider range of citizens with divergent interests and lives. Further franchise expansion was not some benign gift of a ruling class but the result of blood and guts campaigns by working-class men and women. Think Chartists, Unions, the Suffragettes.

What is the point of voting if you cannot meaningfully participate in society? If your race meant you could be legally denied access to jobs or employment? If your gender meant you were denied promotion, let alone equal pay? If your sexuality or sexual identity could lead to your imprisonment?

Such was the case prior to major civil rights campaigns: the Bristol Bus Boycott, the Gay Rights Movement, the Disability Rights Movements of the 1960s-1990s. These campaigns or movements have led to legislative changes that have, in turn, transformed our social attitudes.

Broadly speaking, all our political parties have arrived at baseline of inclusivity consensus. In recognition of new voting demographics and the reputational damage of appearing to be illiberal parties may wish to appear to be race, gender, and disability friendly

But how safe is this consensus? Is it a pragmatic concession to the present while some hanker for an illiberal past? The USA has recently demonstrated the danger of complacency as civil rights advances have been eroded by reactionary forces. Could the same thing happen in England? Perhaps if it is electorally beneficial, but certainly not if it is electorally damaging. It could only be so if we vote or hint that our vote is for the preservation of our rights.

Beyond preserving our rights, further changes that we want to see in society will inevitably involve legislation, which in turn will involve exerting pressure upon politicians. The time scale of change may not suit the urgency of our demands, but rather than lose heart, we must continue to exert political pressure through campaigning and ultimately through the ballot.

Not voting is a verdict on politics, but it cannot lead to change; rather, it will maintain the status quo. In the calculus of win or lose, only voters and their interest’s matter.

Vote.