‘This nation’s tattered dignity - I get up.

First Base Participant 

I Get Up was a multi-media performance project (2018-9) involving unhoused clients at First Base Day Centre, Roberta Piazza (Sussex University) and RBD Design.

Thoughout the twelve week project, over 20 clients at First Base explored ideas around life and selfhood by examining living in the city. Through autobiographical writing, performance and film-making, the group created weekly video diaries and a final film.

The city as a topic inspired poetic, political and social reflections. It was often revelatory - opening up critical and personal discovery - and joyful. Self-narratives and autobiography were explored but using forms which allowed the individual to be in control of their artistic response – metaphor, sculpture, movement and storytelling.

The group expressed a desire for the work to be seen by a wider audience, with a hope that by opening awareness of their stories, the general public might come to a better understanding of what it means to be unhoused. The final film, which uses a collective poem created by the group, ran alongside shorter process videos.

The exhibition ran at ONCA Gallery in May 2019 during the Brighton Festival.