Past projects

CHANGING THE SCENE 2002-2005
"Changing the Scene represents the symbolic sense of human beings changing their mind… it is about art and the art of rebuilding lives… changing the Scene is changing prisons, prisoners and society, each one watching and playing their social role"
(Humberto Vieira de Melo, Secretary of Justice and Citizenship for the State of Pernambuco, Brazil)

Changing the Scene was an epic and pivotal project for People's Palace Projects spanning over three years from September 2002 until December 2005. During the course of the project, the initial aims altered and shifted intuitively responding to both the needs dictated by the research and the social conditions under which the project evolved. This brief overview of the project will touch on its aims, outcomes and activities.

The project began as an investigation into how performance-based methodologies can define and/or defend human rights within the juvenile justice system in the state of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. The inspiration and research imperatives behind Changing the Scene originated in the staged reading of Romeo and Juliet by a group of fifteen adolescents in September 1999 at a juvenile detention centre on the Ilha do Governador, Rio De Janeiro. Paul Heritage's article Stolen Kisses provides the contextual background out of which the project was created.

Throughout the project, a practice-based research model was implemented creating cycles of drama-based workshops that led to performance outcomes. These further resulted in publicly staged dialogues that took place in Vigário Geral, Parada de Lucas, Tijuca and Itaborai taking distinctive forms across the years. These dialogues bridged the gap between participants, community members and those in positions of power.

During the first year, the programme was successfully carried out using the Forum Theatre techniques of the Centre of Theatre of the Oppressed. In subsequent years, the project incorporated a range of different artists using diverse performance-related art forms (including sculpture, digital arts, installations and Live Art). The use of various art forms allowed the staged discussions that debated the effectiveness of cultural strategies as a means of intervening in situations of extreme abuse to take on new and distinctive forms.

At the end of the first year, the focus of the project altered from those within the detention centres to concentrate on adolescents who leave detention centres to return to their communities.

Through the investigation of methodologies to increase respect for the rights of young people in the State of Rio de Janeiro during the final year of the project there were public performances at Vigario Geral and Parada de Lucas by 'Na Lata' and 'Ciranda Cirandinha'where more than 400 people attended. At the Tijiuca Center there were three presentations attended by more than 500 people and at the Itaborai Center twelve presentations. Postcards were published featuring drawings created in the Comic Strip Project held at Vigario Geral and Parada de Lucas.

In order to increase societies role in protecting the rights of young people in the State of Rio De Janeiro four forums were held during the last year of the project exploring issues that had arisen in relation to juvenile rights. The forums mainly separated by subject were: DEGASE (State Department for Socio-Educational Measures), domestic violence and young people in conflict with the law, adolescents in conflict with the law and a new model for social integration and Staging Human Rights. The forums were hosted and run by young people from the communities where the workshops had been implemented.

The use of performance (in its varied guises) to define human rights provided the young people involved with modes of expression that they were able to tailor to their individual experiences From the multiple artworks produced throughout the duration of this project to the range of articles inspired by the work, the awareness of rights their implications and functions has clearly begun to have a voice. The most important aspect of this voice is that it comes from those who are directly affected by inadequate systems and those whose fundamental human rights are constantly in jeopardy.

It is difficult to measure the exact impact of the project and almost impossible to offer an example of how performance can reduce crime or change offending behaviour as there is no simple summary of events and their impact. There is no final word or closing statement as the project continues, though now in fragments scattered between England and Brazil it resides in memories, on computer files and paper documents. These archival remains continue to speak to researchers, funding bodies, government officials and the curious.

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