ONE8

ONE⁸ (One Nation for Everyone 2008) is a festival for young people (11 - 24 years) and their families from across the East Midlands and beyond. It's on Saturday 27 September at Nottingham Castle and it will mark the launch of the Cultural Olympiad in the East Midlands, a four year programme of activities linked to the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

ONE⁸ will be a melting pot of global cultural activity including live music, dance, drama, exhibitions, workshops and much more. All the activities are being delivered by a partnership of young people and arts and heritage organisations from across the region, brought together to celebrate the diverse heritage of the East Midlands.

The festival is coordinated and funded by Renaissance East Midlands but is steered and delivered by young people themselves, including representatives on the steering group, the group designing the marketing materials as well as the young people delivering activities on the day.

Renaissance East Midlands is funding the festival which includes grants to widen participation. The funded activities include dance workshops, a fashion show based on graffiti design, interactive theatre performance, performance poetry workshops, cross generational Charity Shop DJ workshops, film screenings, facial reconstruction workshops, circus skills and much more.

The event will also have three main elements - ONE factor, a music challenge for young bands and artists; ONE idea, a speed dating style entrepreneurial challenge and film-making workshops.

ONE⁸ is free and at Nottingham Castle on Saturday 27 September 2008. It will also mark the launch of the Cultural Olympiad in the East Midlands.

For more information about ONE⁸ visit the ONE festival website or contact Sandra Evans on 07949 135753 or email Sandra.

Youth Culture Day

ONE⁸ builds on Youth Culture Day 2006, a festival that developed from a two year Renaissance East Midlands regional project called Dresscodes. The Dresscodes project worked with socially excluded young people aged 13 - 19 and enabled them to explore their heritage in fashion through partnerships between youth groups and museums.

The final outcomes of these projects were brought together in Youth Culture Day, a festival attended by more than 1,500 people which also featured a host of other participatory activities in Lincoln Castle's grounds. There is a case study of the project available below.

View copies of the 2006 Youth Culture Day videos produced by students at De Montfort University on the 24 Hour Museum website.

Youth Culture Day - Dresscodes case study

Six museums and six community groups worked together to develop linked projects that explored current culture through design, fashion and clothing, culminating in a celebratory festival: Youth Culture Day.

The projects were varied and resulted in fashion shows, DVDs, displays and even a dressed tram as different museums and community groups developed their own take on the project brief and used the project to explore their own cultures and their historical context.

The project was a great success and led to a celebration, Youth Culture Day, which brought together the results of the projects with a host of related workshops and activities. Project participants mixed with young people and shared their learning and experiences.

The entire project gave young people a new view of museums as dynamic and contemporary places and inspired the projects and the participants.

View the full case study: Dress Codes case study (43 kb)

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