Wollaston Estate, Dudley, 1987. Throughout the '80s Jubilee created celebratory events with local community activists, whether one day or one week. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Jubilee Theatre and Community Arts Company began in 1974 with a group of local drama students inspired by the educational and cultural changes of the 1960s. Its mission: change the way art was made and experienced at a local level.
It started out with two grants of 75 pounds ($108), performing street theater in the British metropolitan borough of Sandwell, which had no theater, art center, or bookstore at the time. The group had the use of a disused library branch, a kitchen for a darkroom, an old ambulance, four kazoos, several boilersuits, and an outside toilet. It later acquired a double-decker bus, which became a mobile arts center. For more than two decades, until it was absorbed into a larger cultural entity, Jubilee became well-known in the region for its street and educational theater, festivals, and murals.
From the beginning, the group wanted to document its work, but without a photographer on the team or the resources to hire one, cameras were passed around to whomever was willing to take photos. Soon, however, organizers recognized the value of sharing control of representation, so Jubilee started making a point of enabling community members to photograph their own artistic and political endeavors. The work was shown locally in nongallery settings.
In 2011, Brendan Jackson was invited to curate an exhibition of images about the Black Country, of which Sandwell is a part, sourced from local photographic archives. He'd worked with Jubilee since the late 1980s, so he went in search of its photographic catalog in hopes of finding material for the exhibition. When he finally located it, in the basement of the West Bromwich Town Hall, he found a jumble of 20,000 images. He's since assembled some of the material online, along with Bev Harvey, in a wide-reaching and fascinating collection.
Oldbury, 1980. Operating from the Bus, Jubilee ran several photography projects with local children, encouraging them to document their lives and local environment. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Windmill Lane, Smethwick, 1980. Though starting as a street theater group, Jubilee developed mixed-media projects with young people to positively respond to and address their issues and concerns, using recording, film, and video. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Friar Park, 1980. The Bus was a mobile resource, which could park up on any piece of waste ground and generate excitement, offering a range of activities from photography to play, mural painting to silkscreen printing. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Left: Owen Street, Tipton, 1983. Self-portrait booth on the Bus as part of the project "The Illustrated Tipton Times." The Bus was used as a mobile photography studio, setting up popup exhibitions. Right: Play Day, Hateley Heath, 1980. Jubilee worked on creative holiday events with local community schools, engaging kids in drama and role-play. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Oldbury, 1974. Street theater with kids. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Play event, West Smethwick Estate, 1983. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
The photographs in the archive, which date between 1974 and 1994, show working-class people at play and protest, engaged as joyfully in labor strikes as DIY theater events. They also show the borough evolving, as immigrants shifted demographics in Sandwell and heralded even more diverse and vibrant communities.
"The images provide an antidote to stereotypical representations of local working-class people, whose roots were not only in Blackheath, West Bromwich, or Smethwick, but also of the Caribbean and the Punjab. Here we see local neighborhoods and activities recorded by local people," Jackson said.
Brades Village, Oldbury, 1982. Alongside the play activities for younger kids, Jubilee encouraged older teenagers to get involved in a variety of ways. Here, using their go-kart, a group of lads became the documentation video crew for a processional event. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Games Day, Friar Park Festival, 1980. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Sandwell Valley, 1982. A group of lads from Friar Park making a photography project. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Left: Eddie, Friar Park, Wednesbury, 1980. Right: Horror Week, Tantany, 1981. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Mike Peckmore from Housing Aid solicits support for tenant action against rent rises, Wallace Road, Rowley, 1981. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Windmill Lane, Smethwick, 1983. The Bus was turned into a mobile film-making unit for the summer to create a series of short films with kids, in this instance involving pirates and treasure. Courtesy of Jubilee Arts Archive
Source: A Theater Group's Immense Photo Archive Captures the Spirit of Community Art
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