Culture Liverpool has utilised and supported its creative and cultural sector to regenerate Liverpool’s community, neighbourhoods and creative industry in light of the global pandemic.
The challenge
Liverpool’s cultural and creative sector is the beating heart of the city, its cultural identity is one which runs through the DNA of its residents uniting all who live, work and play here with a unique personality which has enabled the city to overcome countless barriers to thrive and succeed.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the city, like the rest of the world, it caught Liverpool off-guard, and the cultural sector saw unprecedented changes as many were unable to operate due to restrictions and national lockdowns. Many cultural organisations suffered huge financial loss. Our theatres, live performance venues, galleries and museums were put on hold, while individual artists and freelancers struggled.
As a city, the cultural sector has played a vital part in Liverpool’s continued economic renewal with 48 per cent of the city’s economy coming from the cultural sector, attracting more than £4.6 billion and 57,000 jobs to the wider city region. In Liverpool, for over a decade our investment in our cultural sector has not been reduced and this has enabled the city to achieve recognition as one of the UK’s leading visitor and cultural destinations and top places for residents to live and work. A pandemic would witness a stop to this development, regeneration and success in its tracks.
As well as impacting the cultural sector, the pandemic was having a disastrous impact on the mental health on the city’s communities, and with public sector services already stretched in Liverpool, dependence on the critical services would be impacted further without intervention. With more than 44,745 of the city’s residents identified as being at risk and vulnerable, 5 per cent higher than the national average, residents became afraid to engage, advice told them to stay home and stay safe, and the city streets became void of cultural activity and the people who so thrived alongside them.
As a city whose culture has proven to be the rocket fuel of its regeneration, that has inspired its residents to achieve, grow and thrive and showcase its personality, heritage and unique identity on the world stage, the pandemic had the potential to have catastrophic impacts on the city and those who live under its liver birds eye gaze.
The solution
The cultural organisations, artists and the creativity of its people are some of Liverpool’s strongest assets, and combined, this enabled us to support and rebuild our economy, our communities, and our neighbourhoods throughout and following the pandemic.
The LGA states that the Covid-19 pandemic provided ‘The Perfect Storm’ for health inequalities and exposed how these existing inequalities - and the interconnections between them such as race, gender or geography - are associated with an increased risk of becoming ill. In 2021, ward level data found that the most hospital admissions were from those in the most deprived wards of the city.
As the most vulnerable communities in Liverpool were being hardest hit by the pandemic, Culture Liverpool launched a unique events programme which was, and is, designed to enrich the lives of those residents who have been impacted the worst by the pandemic. This involved the introduction of a brand-new community programme which was designed to re-introduce culture into the lives of those residents classed as clinically extremely vulnerable as well as to those who had been shielding during the pandemic, and those who had experienced mental health challenges, bereavements, or even financial hardship. The city council-funded initiative sought to reduce social isolation and loneliness, promote improved well-being, and empower residents who had been adversely impacted by Covid-19.
A diverse range of activities have been running and continue to run ranging from performances on the grounds of care homes, cinema screenings for those who have been shielding, aerial productions that explore mental health and creative workshops which will give young cancer patients the chance to mix with others after periods of isolation. Each of these cultural events is delivered by arts organisations across the city, benefiting in two-fold by engaging residents in cultural activities while also supporting a heavily impacted industry.
Providing support to the city’s residents and cultural organisations through a specially curated programme of cultural engagement has continued in a celebratory fashion through a unique visual arts project which has highlighted this impact of the pandemic on the city’s communities and how, while it has also impacted them, it has also united them.
‘Visible Virals’ witnessed a series of pop-up works in public spaces and venues in neighbourhoods across the city as digital screens, street art and installations were used to invite people to interact either digitally, on social media or physically to show how communities came together to support each other throughout the pandemic and celebrate the residents of the city through culture and art.
This partnership project between Culture Liverpool and the city’s public health team provoked public discussion and reflection on the city’s experience of the pandemic, and encouraged resilience and community spirit as we headed into the next phase of responding to and recovering from the pandemic. Driven by the people of Liverpool in the most deprived and heavily impacted communities of the city, residents were asked for their personal reflections on the pandemic at a series of workshops with their words displayed as part of the pop-up artwork around the city.
As well as pop up artworks, projections and community-based events to engage and support both the community and the cultural sector further during the pandemic, Culture Liverpool partnered with the Everyman, Playhouse and Mersey Care Life Rooms to bring cultural activities to the doorsteps of individuals especially identified within their communities who could not necessarily be reached with wider activities.
Taking place over Christmas, specially designed performances were shared with front line staff and service users at risk on their doorsteps. The pandemic's impact in terms of isolation, loneliness and mental health along with increased poverty levels meant that a large number of those in the most deprived communities were struggling at a traditionally difficult time of year.
The impact
The cultural sector in Liverpool (at the time of writing) currently employs 340 full time, 263 part time, 736 casual staff and 2,468 artists who are supported through projects undertaken and funded by Culture Liverpool.
Activities targeting communities and residents who are most at risk are still ongoing with over 17 targeted projects currently running communities across Liverpool. Visible Virals, an ongoing project as part of Liverpool’s recovery directly engaged with community workshops and artwork installations across the city have received an estimated 15,554,512 impressions at the time of writing – not including digital and social interactions.
Door to door cultural performances witnessed 41 performances with 340 people experiencing theatre on their doorsteps in the most vulnerable communities during Christmas. Performances took place on doorsteps, pavements, streets, between bins and in gardens. This partnership has been extended and developed into a programme of Jubilee Folk Theatre currently being delivered at the time of writing by the Liverpool Lighthouse to seventy streets in Anfield, Liverpool, a targeted deprived area of Liverpool through the earlier identified programmes.
These cultural initiatives have enabled residents to safely socialize and experience positive leisure experiences while enabling cultural organisations to operate. Although not quantifiable at this time, research alludes to the positive impact this has had in reducing issues concerned with negative mental health and the impact on council health services. During a challenging time for the public sector budgets, the pandemic added to an already stretched public sector with less resources needed to achieve more. Through close working relationships with the cultural and residential communities of Liverpool we have been able to achieve and deliver outcome-based services which are in line with the Liverpool City Council city plan.
Projects like those highlighted have enabled the creative community of Liverpool to ensure their continued operation throughout the pandemic and have provided opportunities for engagement through paid employment. Prior to the pandemic, the economic impact of culturally funded organisations in Liverpool was at least £30.6 million directly generating £29.4 million in turnover for the city.
How is the new approach being sustained?
These projects are all ongoing (as of May 2022).
Lessons learned
The success of the Visible Virals programme, for example, has been identified in the maximisation of community engagement around the public health report, a statutory report which can often struggle to achieve engagement with the public. A partnership approach utilising Culture Liverpool and the associated cultural organisations has enabled the project to link in the engagement element on a much wider scale into the public health agenda and is a lesson which has been learnt for future success.
Working across departments, community groups and private stakeholders has enabled projects to fully address and utilise community spaces which previously had been derelict, unloved and underappreciated. Redressing and amending these community locales for engagement and promotion as opposed to private media and advertising platforms has enabled direct engagement with communities while addressing community concerns. One such introduction of community messaging alongside Liverpool Football Club in a previously disused area has provided high profile awareness of the words of the community on an international platform.
Additional lessons learnt have highlighted the power of artist collaboration in developing ideas, opening opportunities, and engaging wider audiences. The Visible Virals piece, for example, was concept and community led, not necessarily artist led and the lesson to learn in this is everything takes longer if you’re truly engaging the community in developing the concept and not just presenting a concept to them. Collaboration meant that vision for the project expanded, and outputs increased.
The team on Visible Virals all felt they had been privileged to share people’s stories and that those people felt comfortable to share their stories with the artists. All work in health and community engagement starts with trust and relationships.
Contact
Culture Liverpool, email: [email protected]