So, 2022 saw us bring back our annual Community Reporter conference for the fourth time. This time we were back to a large-ish in-person event, with online/hybrid elements and were focusing on talking about power and lived experience.

The event had a range of talks, workshops and activities that were hooked around exploring:

• Who controls the narrative? Basically who is setting the agenda in ‘lived experience storytelling’ spaces.
• Whose story do we hear? And perhaps most importantly, whose story are we not hearing and why?
• Who watches the watchmen? Are those of us who work in the co-production space (i.e. folk like us!) being critical enough of ourselves and how we may be unwittingly upholding power imbalances?

The day kicked off with some short soapbox talks from attendees who shared their own perspectives on power and lived experience. Ben shared a talk titled ‘Offering closure to your past self and others through sharing lived experiences’, Selva came and talked about real and faux co-production and Eleanor created a powerful video exploring disability and power.

From here we went to a workshop delivered by people involved in the Closed Cultures project, that asked attendees to reflect on how subtle power imbalances and control can lead to closed cultures developing… and most importantly, what role we can play in addressing this. Later in the day, a group of researchers asked us to reflect on language and power – exploring the hidden and not-so-hidden power dynamics that are at play in language and how it is used. Following this session, the ‘What is the value of co-production’ project took the stage and explored how we can create the right conditions for co-production to flourish; trust and relationships came through strong here. And finally, we wrapped up the day with what our team has been learning through the work that we do and showcasing some of the fab stuff that is happening in the spaces we work. We heard from Curators of Changes about the ‘iceberg of co-production, from BLAST Fest about their work in exploring science and technology through Black arts and culture and from Sparkle Media about their role in bringing different voices into the media.

If you missed the day, don’t worry we’ve created a folder that you can download the slides from. You can access it here. We’ve also made a folder of interesting stuff we’d love to share with you – toolkits, reports, animations and things… have a gander here.

Any more events coming?

Well, we have an online Community Reporter catch-up happening in September. You can get a FREE ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/community-reporter-network-online-meet-up-2-2022-tickets-332056749677

We run 2 online catch-ups per year for the people, groups and organisations that make-up the Community Reporter network. They are a great way for members to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the Community Reporter network, learn new stuff, share expertise, find out about opportunities they can get involved in, meet other members, network and much more. 

And if you’re not a member of the Community Reporter network… then don’t worry – you can still come along and find out more about us! See you there!