About People's Palace Projects

People's Palace Projects creates performances, workshops, debates and publications that push the boundaries of where, how and why art matters. Inspired by artists who offer profound answers and illustrations of what art can do, we conceive large scale, multi-faceted projects authored and shaped around ideas and collaborations motivated by the power of art to progress social justice and change. At their heart has lain the urge to action: in relation to HIV/AIDS, to human rights and the criminal justice system, to gun and gang crime and violence amongst the young, to the challenges of climate change. Our work is rooted in our belief in the capacity of people to discover transformation through the power of art.

Founded in 1999 and based in the historic East London building of the People's Palace at Queen Mary, University of London, People's Palace Projects is an arts organisation that is rooted in local work at an international level in order to connect the margins with the centre, seeking transformation through the insight that comes from difference as well as the increased understanding that comes from shared experience. Our passionate commitment to learning from Brazil, with its rich artistic responses to social crises, help us to go beyond immediate realities to see the possibilities of art where faith in other solutions may have been lost.

Out of extremity and risk, our projects aim to create understanding and connection, working with those who desire positive change. In prison yards, classrooms, theatres, and on violent borders, People's Palace Projects has sought authentic connections and exchanges, which recognise the risk that artists and audiences take when art matters most. We create journeys from one world of experience to another, and seek to stimulate discoveries of what art can do and who the artist can be in our world.

To realise our projects, we develop strong networks and structures of collaboration between individuals, institutions and agencies in this country and abroad, forging relationships and dialogues across disciplines. Each project seeks to explore with diverse partners and participants an understanding of what art can achieve, placing research, learning, skills development and the transfer of knowledge at the core of our activities.

People's Palace Projects is entrepreneurial, ideas-led and ambitious, creating bold visions that in turn seek and find backing and engagement from wide-ranging partners and funders in this country and abroad. We seek to remain flexible and adaptable to the changing conditions of our work, while being constant to the driving energy of our mission to create transformation and learning through art.