HEAL

Collective

Hostile Environment / Art-fuelled Learning

CV and creative Portfolio

creative Directors:

Allan Njanji, anna ball, margaret ravenscroft

SUMMARY

Hostile Environment, Art-fuelled Learning ​(HEAL) is a research-led migration arts ​learning collective who produce powerful ​co-creative projects with communities ​affected by the UK asylum system. ​Mobilising our skills as filmmakers, ​photographers, writers, sound artists, ​producers, researchers and community ​educators with and without lived ​migration experience, we empower ​migrant voices, transform community ​understanding and strive for creative ​healing from social division and injustice.

CONTACT

email: healcollective@outlook.com

phone: 07780 530932

address: Dryden Enterprise Centre, NTU, ​Dryden Street, Nottingham NG1 4FQ

instagram: @healcollective_


CO-CREATIVE PROJECTS

Cecilia’s Story: Ghosts of Yarl’s Wood

Arts documentary film and Project Lab exhibition. National Justice Museum, October 2024 (currently in production)

  • 60-min arts documentary film co-created with Cecilia Mwenda, survivor of immigration detention
  • Documentary film accompanied by storytelling exhibition curated for NJM Project Lab, opening October 2024
  • £5250 budget, NTU strategic impact fund.

The World is for Everyone

Writing anthology / sound poem/ photography exhibition. Palewell Press / Nottingham Central Library, June 2017-19

  • Series of co-created projects with Pamoja women’s group at Nottingham Refugee Forum
  • Created multidisciplinary, multilingual groupwork practices to generate collective visual and literary works
  • £8k budget, NTU strategic impact fund and National Lottery Community Fund via Refugee Week.

Rites of Passage

An architects brief for a new kind of sanctuary reception centre, submitted for the Davidson Prize, March 2023

  • Led by Margaret Ravenscroft, with Coffey Architects, Dion Barrett, Rooms for Refugees and Anna Ball at Vanclaron CIC; co-designed with asylum-seeking community ​members currently in Home Office temporary accommodation.

Voices

Documentary / podcast. Bonington Gallery / online, 2023

  • Practice-led PhD visual and audio outputs accompanied by written thesis by Allan Njanji, supervised by Anna Ball, funded by NTU VC Studentship
  • Arts documentary exploring the politics of voice for people of lived refugee experience within the filmmaker’s community.

Owning Our Words

Group writing anthology, released online for Anti-Slavery Day 2020

  • Co-created anthology facilitated by Anna Ball in collaboration with Survivors Alliance members (a support network for survivors of modern-day slavery) across the UK, ​India and Cameroon, facilitated via online conferencing and learning during lockdown.

LEARNING AND ENGAGEMENT

Art of Belonging: Practice sharing and training for artists and creative practitioners

Nottingham Contemporary, 26th June 2024.

  • Programmed and co-delivered best practice workshop for the Art of Belonging migration arts research consortium

Creative Collaborations for Social Justice; Shining a Light on Immigration Detention

National Justice Museum, Nottingham, 29th April 2024

  • Creative community workshop in collaboration with Unchained Collective (University of Westminster), exploring ​best practice in community-led creative practice around immigration detention.

Transformations: Agency and Social Change module in partnership with Refugee Week UK

Nottingham Trent University, level 6 BA Humanities degree

  • Dr Anna Ball, in collaboration with Dr Allan Njanji, designed, produced and delivered final-year module for 180 ​Humanities students at NTU, in partnership with Refugee Week UK
  • Drew students and asylum-seeking communities into dialogue
  • Student outputs released nationally via Refugee Week: Resource Pack

HEAL Inaugural Conference, ‘Seeking creative approaches to sanctuary’

Bonington Gallery, NTU, June 2023, in collaboration with Counterpoints Arts

  • Produced major national conference with presentations from 20 key migration arts practitioners; 80 attendees, ​generating dialogue on academic-activist intersection on migration arts
  • Keynote performances from poet Lorainne Mponela and performance artist Florette Fetgo; lecture from Yen Le ​Espiritu
  • Received headline coverage on local news: BBC conference coverage

RESIDENCIES AND ​INVITED ​PRESENTATIONS

  • Anna Ball, ‘Traversing Queer ​Refugee Territories through a ​Poetics of Crossing’, University ​of Oxford, 26th January 2023


  • Allan Njanji, ‘Securing agency ​through self-representation of ​asylum seekers and refugees ​using Black Lives Matter and ​Indigenous Peoples' movements ​as a back-drop’, York University, ​Canada, March 2021


  • Margaret Ravenscroft, ​‘Intersectional Solidarities in the ​Face of Violent Regimes’, Ghent ​University, 12th Oct 2023


  • Anna Ball, Academic-In-​Residence, New Art Exchange, ​2008


  • Allan Njanji, Refugee Week UK ​Ambassador, 2010

SELECTED PRESS

AND PUBLICATIONS







DIRECTORS

  • Community-led creative facilitator ​specialising in group writing, spoken ​word and visual storytelling
  • Specialist interests in gender-sensitive ​and trauma-informed working practices
  • Producer, Nottingham Refugee Week, ​2019-present
  • Associate Professor in Creative and ​Critical Refugee Studies, Nottingham ​Trent University, 2007-2024
  • Creative Wellbeing Outreach Worker, ​Vanclaron CIC, 2023
  • PhD, ‘En-Gendering the Border’, ​Postcolonial Studies, 2007; MA, Cultural ​Theory 2004; BA, English and Creative ​Writing, University of Manchester, 2003.
  • Filmmaker, visual and audio producer, ​researcher, community advocate
  • Specialist interests in refugee self-​representation
  • Trustee for Nottingham Arimathea Trust and ​Nottingham Refugee Forum
  • Research Assistant, Postcolonial Studies ​Centre, NTU, 2024
  • Production Team for Nottingham Refugee ​Week and former Refugee Week UK ​Ambassador
  • PhD in practice-led documentary-making, ​‘Speaking Back to the Hostile Environment’, ​2024. FDSC in TV and Film Production, 2015; ​BSc in TV and Film Production; MA in ​Documentary Journalism, 2018, Nottingham ​Trent University.
  • Producer, creative facilitator, ​researcher, architectural thinker
  • Core skills in group facilitation, ​communications, visual design, writing
  • Specialist interests in feminist ​architectures and spatialities of ​sanctuary
  • Associate Director and Lead for ​Communications, Outreach and ​Engagement, Coffey Architects, London
  • PhD, ‘Building Spaces, Building ​Selves’, Postcolonial Feminist Studies, ​NTU, 2024. BA English Literature, ​Spanish; MA in Aesthetics of Kinship ​and Community, Birkbeck, 2012.

Dr. Margaret Ravenscroft


Dr. Anna Ball

Dr. Allan Njanji

Creative Portfolio

2024

Cecilia’s Story:

Ghosts of Yarl’s Wood

2023

Voices

2023

Rights of Passage

A co-created documentary narrated by Cecilia ​Mwenda, survivor of detention in Yarl’s Wood ​Immigration Removal Centre in 2008, with her ​young son. The documentary will be premiered at ​the National Justice Museum in October 2024, ​and accompanied by an exhibition in the Project ​Lab, comprising stills, text and interactive exhibits ​that both shine a light on the secretive ​mechanisms of the immigration detention system, ​and that call for change in its operation. Directed ​by Allan Njanji and Anna Ball, with Cecilia ​Mwenda. Currently in production.

From mainstream media to political protest, ​artistic creation to community activism, what does ​it mean for refugees ‘to have a voice’? ​Documentary exploring the politics of voice for ​people of lived refugee experience, directed by ​Allan Njanji as the practice-based element of his ​PhD project in documentary-making. The project ​drew on the director’s own community connections ​and presents a self-reflective narrative also ​exploring his own journey to creative voice.

A co-designed architectural brief submitted to the ​Davidson Prize, led by Margaret Ravenscroft as a ​collaboration between Coffey Architects, Dion ​Barrett, Room for Refugees and Anna Ball at ​Vanclaron CIC. The project drew on workshop ​material generated by people currently seeking ​asylum and housed in Home Office-run hotels in ​order to produce a design for a new kind of group-​build community and scalable sanctuary reception ​centre.

2020

Owning Our Words

2017-19

The World Is for Everyone

2019

Walking With the River

Anthology facilitated and produced by Anna Ball, ​co-created with Survivors Alliance: a charity ​supporting survivors of modern-day slavery. The ​anthology emerged via online workshops ​conducted across the UK, India and Cameroon ​during lockdown in 2020, and resulted in a ​publication releaed for Anti-Slavery Day in October ​2020.

Multi-strand project that emerged over 2 years in ​collaboration with the Pamoja Women Together ​Group at Nottingham Refugee Forum. The project ​began as a multilingual creative learning ​experience in response to the work of Maya ​Angelou, and initially resulted in an exhibition of ​photography and poetry called ‘And Still I Rise’. ​Subsequent place-based creative learning ​sessions generated recipes, group poems and ​reflections collated as an anthology. Co-facilitated ​by Anna Ball and Margaret Ravenscroft.

Within The World Is for Everyone project, creative ​facilitators Anna Ball and Margaret Ravenscroft ​pioneered river-walking workshops, which involved ​participants self-recording conversation and sound ​in response to creative prompts. These were ​collated and produced as a sound poem by Anna ​Ball in collaboration with Andrew Brown. The ​sound poem has been aired as a performance ​piece during a number of public readings by the ​Pamoja group.

Contact

healcollective@outlook.com