Looking Back: Facing Forward

Our first ever outdoor arts production!

Looking Back

Telling the Tale

Facing Forward

Follow the Trail!

Looking Back

Through the Smoke

Facing Forward

Seeds of Hope.

DIY’s first ever outdoor arts production opens with this original song created by the company with musician Sarah Atter.

Looking Back: Facing Forward is an original piece of promenade theatre. It incorporates live music, props, puppets, music and installations. Audiences are invited to join DIY actors on a journey and take time and space to Look Back on Salford’s History and Face Forward to all our Futures.

I loved this piece. It was happy and sad and hopeful.

The show was built on an Inside: Outside project that included research and development. We worked on two key areas to build the performance. These were research into the social history of Salford and of Peel Park and training in Outdoor Arts.

Look back at our “Inside: Outside project”

Looking Back: Facing Forward at the Peoples’ History Museum

Excerpts from Looking Back: Facing Forward were performed at the launch of ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ at the Peoples’ History Museum. This landmark exhibition on disabled people’s activism, opened in November 2022 with a launch to mark the start of Disability History Month. The exhibition will run until October 2023. One of the mini-installations from Looking Back: Facing Forward, created with artist Nerissa Cargill Thompson, is included. The installation shows the scene where the patients find their voice and protest with placards.

Looking to the Future

The performance of Looking Back: Facing Forward ends with a re-vised version of our “We Have a Voice” song:

We have a voice

The power to choose

What we do

And who we are!

Our thanks to Community Learning at Salford City College and Salford City Council Ranger’s Service for their support for this work.

Our thanks also go to the National Lottery Heritage Fund of this project.