Friday saw the culmination of our fantastic joint Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project on Social Haunting at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle Under Lyme. Amanda went along to watch as the show reached the stage.

Working in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University and Unite Community Union, the performance was immensely powerful, with actors and participants drawn solely from the community, including young adults from groups such as Phab.

The project...

This research project has also run Ghost Labs in Barnsley, Rochdale and the Co-operative College and more recently with the Hackney Voices of Youth at the AHRC Utopia Festival. 

Overall, the project focuses on how past social and political upheavals and conflicts continue to show themselves in the world in many different ways, even when some prefer to argue that ‘they are over and done with’ and are ‘best forgotten’. This is powerful community and individual learning. 

The project has produced poetry, mapping, comic strip and sound art workshops. 

You can learn more about the project and the methodology of social haunting by visiting their website here.