MOTHer, motHER, mOTHER was a collaboration between Faith Young (a young writer and performer with care experience), Fiona Evans (an award-winning playwright) and Pauline Goldsmith (professional actor, writer and theatre-maker).
Faith and Fiona have worked together over several years on creative projects via the South Ayrshire Champions Board where Fiona identified Faith’s natural storytelling abilities and interest in developing new work. This project was an exciting opportunity to work together collaboratively, as artists. To facilitate the development of Faith’s ideas into a piece of writing, Pauline Goldsmith joined the team bringing her extensive experience as a theatre-maker and actor.
The collaboration took form as a short, intensive period of development and writing which resulted in the creation of three vibrant short performance pieces. In April 2024 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Faith, Fiona and Pauline shared the works-in-progress to an invited audience of artists and educators, including those with care experience or estrangement. The pieces were written by Faith, with support from Fiona and Pauline, and performed by all three.
The project aimed to:
- Create a safe and open working space without expectation or pressure.
- Provide an opportunity to develop and deepen skills in creative collaboration.
- Explore the possibilities and nuances of co-creation and ‘ownership’ of stories.
- Provide an opportunity to share work-in-progress with a supportive invited audience.
- Build Faith’s confidence and autonomy as a writer and artist.
- Invite further potential opportunities and connections by sharing the work.
“…to create an atmosphere that allows spontaneous, artistic, creative reaction. To be in the moment. To create an environment where there is an absolute freedom to express without self-censorship.” (Artist)
The approach
With just a short period of time to work together, the creative team recognised the importance of creating the right environment to enable all three artists to work equally, authentically and spontaneously, without self-censorship. The ‘in’ to this space for the artists was food, as a means to share experience, create connections and break down barriers.
“Letting people be human. Understanding. Because this experience made me look at how it must have been for others.” (Artist)
The team started with a simple writing exercise ‘Let’s Talk About…’ to generate jumping off points of shared interest. These were explored through discussion, writing and improvisation with the aim of finding stories to communicate experiences which Faith felt were important to be heard.
“It was the telling of stories – parts of yourself that often feel like obstacles to creativity – to shine a light on them and to allow them to become part of creativity. The things that you repress or don’t look at that form part of your life – to allow that to happen in a conversational or collective way.” (Artist)
Storytelling tradition and conventions were explored by the artists as a means to safely bring the stories of care experienced people into a shared space, to talk about things usually hidden or repressed. The artists acknowledged that to make this possible there was a need for collective vulnerability, for trust and a sense of community between them.
“For me it was about trusting other people to create rather than me thinking ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to help. I’ve got to give it some direction’. And it was just sort of allowing that to happen. Which was quite a vulnerable place I think for me.” (Artist)
The audience invited to attend the sharing was made up of care experienced students and artists, creative professionals with experience of working in this area, friends of the artists, a colleague from the South Ayrshire Champions Board and RCS Fair Access staff. The sharing was framed carefully to ensure the audience understood the context of the work, the sensitive nature of the content and what would be most helpful to Faith in her journey as an artist. Following a rehearsed reading of the work, the creative team shared their process and responded to questions and reflections from the audience.
“The more it developed, for me it became about breaking down shame, sharing with people, building a community and hopefully using my experience to reassure and inspire others.” (Artist)
Other factors that helped us achieve the project:
| Equality | . | The emerging writer and experienced professional artists received the same fee for the project and worked in a non-hierarchical way. |
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| Trust | . | A high level of trust was identified as particularly important for care experienced artists who have had trust broken repeatedly in other contexts. |
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| Specific timeframe | . | In this instance, a short timeframe enabled a focused, intensive process with full commitment from the creative team and productive use of time. |
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| Skilful ‘holding’ of space | . | Although the process was collaborative, the sessions were skilfully held by project lead (Fiona Evans), safely bringing people in and out of a creative space where they could be vulnerable. |
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| Audience care | . | Due to the sensitive nature of the material shared, trigger warnings were provided for the sharing, and opt-in post-show counselling support was available for participants and audience members via Pure Potential Scotland. |
What next?
- Faith aspires to further develop the material generated during the project into a full piece of staged theatre and present it publicly.
- Fiona is keen to seek more opportunities to work collaboratively with people as part of her writing process.
- Fiona hopes to connect Faith into the NTS Caring Scotland project which will be working with care experienced communities across Scotland to create
You can read a PDF of the report called ‘Let’s Talk About’ here.
