Community / Youth

Working at the intersections of community engagement and photography we co-author with the people we document, creating opportunities for those involved. Through education, workshops and street engagement, we facilitate youth, vulnerable groups and the wider communities to document and archive their own stories. Participants are given hands on training in heritage, oral histories and documentary photography. We have links with frontline, arts and youth organisations across London. We are known for ‘creating dialogues’ between organisations and creating positive alliances. 

Throughout 2024 we are working with Hackney Museum, Museum of Youth Culture, The National Trust, Sutton House and Rise 365 to create skills, workshops and exhibitions with young people. If you would like to access any of these workshops, please contact  donnatravis@futurehackney.com.

In February 2024 we ran a youth event with Sutton House and Museum of Youth Culture called ‘Generation Hackney’. A series of activities collecting and sharing stories and photographs about growing up in Hackney. The night included our photography exhibition and stories alongside, workshops, DJ’s pop up studios and heritage discussions and workshops. Young people learnt about photography, local history and heritage and shared their own histories. We are currently working Hackney Museum throughout 2023 – 2024 as part of their exhibition ‘At Home in Hackney’ showcasing a range of local photographers. We facilitated young people around storytelling, heritage and photography. Connie Swift @connieswift featured is a talented photographer “I photograph young women in intimate spaces like nightclubs and bedrooms. My main body of personal work aims to photograph women in a true, authentic way that battles the world of ‘perfection’ pushed by social media and influencers. My images are personal to me, with a focus on youth and realism. I like to capture freeness in people, the best images for me come from the moments where people let go.” Connie will also be employed and paid to work with us as part of our up and coming exhibitions in 2024 with her focus on women and nightlife on the ‘Dalston strip’. We felt that Connie would bring something unique to the project as a young storyteller documenting the nightlife of Dalston in Hackney. A vibrant space with radical black reminisces and histories alongside a young community who frequent the spaces in the present. 

We work with a number of academic organisations, Universities and colleges to highlight and expand new audiences for heritage and documentary work we produce. We produced an online chat and discussion about the project and its importance to London’s heritage with London Unseen as part of The Mayor of London’s diversity in the Public Realm.  

We work with The Bronx Documentary Centre in New York to learn how they set up their centre and educational and documentary programmes and we are currently planning to open a photo/documentary and educational centre in 2025 with a range of partner organisations, artists and educators.