Reframing the 'Riots' - Voices of the Unheard

We're excited about the premier of a new feature-length documentary in London today - Riots Reframed takes a look back at the 2011 UK uprising in London and reframes the mainstream media narratives of "feral youth" through voices of resistance, dramatic monologue and raw spoken word.

Film-maker Fahim Alam is keen to "emphasise the 'positive' fallout of the riots... in the aftermath, some people began talking about a section of the population that for years had been ignored helping to strip away the veil of normality that concealed entrenched social despair... Sometimes there are deep and profound opportunities within the biggest injustices and if we can use these things to speak to power then we should." [New film reveals the unheard voices of the 2011 London riots, The Guardian12/03/13]

Our event, The Unheard: Youth, the “Riots”, and the Media that took place at the Rebellious Media Conference in 2011 discussed similar issues of youth mis-representation in the corporate media in the aftermath of the 'riots'. Here's part 1 of that event below. Part 2 as well as interviews and poetry from Selina and Rotimi plus Ceasefire magazine interviews with Zena and Sai from the conference can be viewed on our videos page here:

The premiere of Riots Reframed also features a Q+A audience discussion (Akala, Prof. Paul Gilroy, Lee Jasper & our very own Zena amongst the panel). Tickets may still be available from here.
See you there!

Zena Edwards in new video documentary on 'riots'

Check out a taster of this critical new film coming out soon, this one featuring Zena Edwards.

To follow what's happening with the film VoiceOver: Riots Reframed, go here.
They write: ‘VoiceOver: Riots Reframed’ is an independent documentary aimed at countering mainstream discourse on last year’s riots and riots that occur in poor, racialised and marginalised communities generally. Dominant media has towed the government line that August’s riots were about “criminality, pure and simple..."


Young people from Shake! worked with facilitators Ed Lewis, Simon Murray and Zena for their sell-out session "The Unheard" at the Rebellious Media Conference last year, and at the natonal Shake! event "Britain on Trial" in Leeds. Zena is involved in several youth initiatives combatting stereotypical, biased and racist responses to the uprisings.

Videos of Shake! at Rebellious Media Conference

Those good people at RMC have now put up a great compilation of videos from Shake's session "The Unheard: Youth, 'the riots' and the media" at the 2011 conference in London.

Watch recordings from the session itself, plus interviews and poetry performed by Rotimi, Samia, Selina and Kadish (Leeds Young Authors).

 

Also watch interviews with Shake! poet-facilitators Sai and Zena from Ceasefire magazine's Adam Elliot-Cooper over on our videos page.

We had more good news from RMC organiser Gabriel Carlyle recently. He told us that once they'd digested all the written evaluation forms, Shake's session got the most number of glowing reviews. People were energised by hearing directly and unmediated from young people, and they loved the structure (a mix of poetry, commentary, and discussion).

This was the fruit of all that brilliant planning from the team: Selina, Samia, Ed, Sai, Rotimi, Jane. And big thanks to Ed from New Left Project who kept the team cooking across 4 cities in the run-up...

The Unheard: more great feedback

Ro, Kadish, Selina on the panel

The emails are still coming in about Shake's event "The Unheard: Youth, the 'riots', and the media" at Rebellious Media Conference on 9th October.

"...I was over at the Rebellious Media Conference and caught the discussion on the London riots that you  guys were involved in facilitating. It was fantastic....."  From Rabble Magazine  (Dublin)

"...I went to your session about the media and the london riots at the Rebellious Media Conference and I can honestly say I cannot rave enough about the session and the issues discussed.  I have literally told every person I've seen since then about how impressed I was!  Since getting back to Glasgow I spent my whole morning at work learning about the the work you do and about all the people involved, this has only increased my admiration for the organisation and makes me a little gutted that I don't live in London to get involved..."

Samia tells it

gripped...

 Cairsti (Glasgow)

We're waiting for some audio, and video... keep an eye out.

Praises for Shake event at Rebellious Media Conference

Well, we seemed to have totally hit the spot on Sunday with our session "The Unheard: Youth, the 'riots' and the media" at Rebellious Media Conference.

+ here's one of many praising tweets, and an extract from same person on a blog review of the conference:

@RUDY2HATS Best workshop of the RMC, many thanks...

http://rudy2shoes.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/rebellious-media-conference/

...On Sunday I went to the forum on alternative voices from ‘the riots’ this was a focused and well organised session; probably worthy of the trip in itself.  A number of young people talked about their experiences of the riots, their interpretations of mainstream media as well as their analysis of the causes.  They expressed themselves in a variety of ways, including using video and poetry.  This was the ‘rebellious media’ I was looking for, not mirroring the current inadequacies but finding common ground with others and allowing their own expression to be the media.  Concerns of those close to events were raised, not mediated through some elite journalist with a decontextualised catchphrase. This is what a radical media conference should look like as voices from the heart of relevant issues command centre stage while networking and organising follow...  

Mainstream Media Coverage of UK "Riots" compared to War Reporting: John Pilger & Greg Philo at the Rebellious Media Conference

We had an amazing and inspiring experience at the Rebellious Media Conference this weekend and a full house and lively discussion for our session on Unheard Voices: Youth,‘The Riots' and the Media. A proper write up and review of that event and more links soon but for now here is the discussion on the mainstream media's coverage of the UK August uprisings featuring John Pilger and Greg Philo. A more complete video featuring the same discussion is also available here.