LUMA Supporting You Through The Pandemic 
by P. Max Alder

Covid-19 has hit us all in some way or another. Whether it’s meant you haven’t been able to see friends, family, loved ones; that you’ve had difficulty getting things you need from the shops; and even worse for some, there has been extreme pressure on your livelihood and your ability to still be employed – whatever, we have all struggled since this pandemic really struck in March.



Here at Luma Creations, the most obvious impact was on our ability to connect with all our audiences, participants and volunteers. Just a few weeks before the lockdown, we had to take to difficult decision to cancel our second Cosmic Café event in partnership with the Liverpool Astronomical Society, which would have seen dozens of people coming to our base for an evening of stargazing, talks about astronomy both ancient and modern, and a feast of multicultural foods – this was an early sign of things were going to develop for the next seven months.
Within a couple of weeks, we set up a weekly Zoom session with all Luma staff and volunteers, just so we could still touch base with everyone, be there to support people if and when they needed and offer a safe space for everyone to share their feelings, thoughts and anxieties.
Within another month or so, we had rehearsed and recorded a musical performance for an online festival presented by the University of Liverpool, as well as filmed our highly successful puppet show, Little Ears. So very quickly we were able to have at least some content contact with our audiences, as well as develop new audiences.
As our ongoing work for the Amistad project was severely curtailed, we planned and developed online taster sessions for some of the elder groups we had planned to work with, as well as delivering a number of online creative writing and making workshops for many of the refugees we connect to and work with. We also brought in an expert on finances to give a brilliant presentation on all the benefits and rights in relation to Covid-19.
As time has gone on, we have gradually adapted and continued to grow, as well as being enabled to commission new work from Latin American artists across the world and involving our artists and volunteers in over 40 creative and performance activities for Feria Latina and most recently for projects around Black History Month. We have again begun, under very strict Covid guidelines and practices, to deliver face-to-face workshops in creative writing and making to different groups, and are now in the planning stages to deliver a more formal creative writing course either online, or face-to-face, adapting to the ever-changing landscape of restrictions.
From November, we will be delivering a new training course, Reconnecting Futures, which will deliver learning in personal development,  confidence building & motivation through creative sessions and online tutorials to get people ready for working through and post Covid-19.
Going forward, despite the many obstacles which may still be in our way, Luma Creations is still very much open for business and wanting to connect with people on many levels. If you just need to chat about something, get information that you don’t seem to be able to access from your communities, or talk about developing future creative projects with us, please get in touch and we’ll do what we can – we can Zoom, talk on the phone, or with enough notice, see you face-to-face – strictly safe and within all current Covid-19 guidelines – our door is always open, so please, come and engage; we are here for you.
P. Max Alder 
November 2020

#SaveTheArts
by Francisco Carrasco

I have been involved in the Arts & Culture Industries in the UK since I was 13. By that I mean I have been a performer, stage hand, project manager, facilitator, director, creator, writer, activist and many other things.
 
The Arts are my life and through the Arts I have been able to share, support, encourage and pass on skills to thousands of people. There are so many stories and anecdotes of people who have been touched and helped by the arts, through difficult times or simply because the experience has been life changing or has touched us in so many ways.



People often tell me how their lives and special moments are marked by a song or a film, a special event, how they used to dance or they dance now, their favourite comedian or a film. The theatre show that was a once in a lifetime experience. The understanding that most of us have a favourite book or an event we always go back to. Festivals and carnivals. The crazy street artist we saw on Church Street in Liverpool or Campden Town, London. 
In 2019 the Arts and Culture Industry has grown £390million in a year and now contributes £10.8billion a year to the UK economy. The sector contributes £2.8billion a year to the Treasury via taxation, and generates a further £23billion a year and 363,700 jobs. 
We at LUMA Creations are extremely lucky to be able to be involved in this industry. It is hard as we primarily work with freelancers who have been placed in the hardest of positions. There’s little to no work available and yet the mental health of the population means that the arts, in the same way as sports and fitness activities can go a long way to help our communities deal with this pandemic. If only the government worked with our industry to make this crisis a little more bearable. 
If we can help we will. Get in touch through at Luma Creations Facebook page or @lumacreations on twitter or simply send us an email on hola@lumacreations.org


Francisco Carrasco
November 2020

Developing Small Island for the monologues by Maya Mitter

LUMA Creations in collaboration with Liverpool Central Library was asked to film some monologues from Small Island, a novel by Andrea Levy which won the Orange Prize for Fiction, as well as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Whitbread as part of the 100 Novels Project and for Black History Month. It is a fictional account of the experiences of the Empire Windrush generation. In doing so, the themes I’ve chosen are to do with expectations, reality, bigotry, displacement and the longing to belong of each of the characters.



The book explores the lives of two ordinary couples, in Jamaica and England, who are brought together as a result of post-war Caribbean migration. Hortense and Gilbert, who migrate from Jamaica to London in 1948, just as Britain is recovering from World War 2, and an English couple, Queenie and Bernard, in whose house in London Gilbert and Hortense find lodgings.
Hortense and Gilbert feel out of place in their native country of Jamaica and look toward the wider world of England as a place where they can truly thrive. Gilbert having been an airman in the RAF and served during World War 2, feels the calling of the ‘Mother’country where he feels he’ll be treated like a hero. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, longed to escape and start a better life in England away from the restrictions of Jamaica and fed by the dreams of her mother, of leading a privileged life in England because she is a light-skinned Afro Caribbean, and the wife of a RAF airman who has served to make England safe from Hitler. Queenie Bligh’s marriage to Bernard is her escape from her Lincolnshire farming roots, and when her husband fails to return after the war and wanting to earn a living, she takes in Jamaican lodgers and wants her neighbourhood to be more welcoming towards war refugees and immigrants of colour. Bernard’s modest career as a clerk before the war made him feel valued and he adhered to all the conventional norms expected of a man of his position. He is also an airman in the RAF and when he returns, he finds that his career isn’t valued any longer, and he has returned to a post war Britain that has changed significantly.
Each of the characters individually strive for acceptance from a society that doesn’t live up to their expectations and Gilbert, Hortense and Bernard learn where they can escape to, to achieve a sense of belonging denied to them by the society they’re living in. Only Queenie, also a ‘guest’ in her husband’s home when he returns and wants to remain in the house but the pressures of society forces her to follow her husband’s dream.

Maya Mitter
October 2020