A designer & community artist based in Manchester, Nerissa designs and makes stuff. She also helps others to design and make stuff.
I have designed youth & community projects for Aqueous Humour, Creative Partnerships, Rochdale Council, M6 Theatre Company, Activ8, Bury Met, Burnley Youth Theatre, Box of Frogs and TIPP. I create projects in various visual art forms but my specialism is in working alongside other practitioners particularly in performance-based disciplines to bring a visual element to a project.
For a full list of projects please download my Community & Education CV.
As part of the exhibition for the 42nd Street AGM & opening of the new building, we wanted to create something that could link the groups. We also wanted something to remind us of some of the previous projects that have happened as part of Planet Art.
In 2011, 42nd Street moved into a new building which had been especially designed for them. Over the summer before the move, I worked with box of frogs on a project with the young people who use it about the transition & exploring ideas for the interior of the new building.
A project to create work inspired by stories gathered as part of a local history project organised by Salford Council funded by a Heritage lottery grant. I worked with Year 3/4 in St Joseph The Worker Primary School in Irlam to create a puppet film.
Designed to be used as part of the Drink, Drugs, Sex and Anger programme following the success of the STI masks for the Sexual Health programme. It is a performance and education programme for 12 to 25 yrs, that explores and promotes understanding of addiction, personal safety and emotional literacy.
Aqueous Humour was commisioned to work with the M6 Youth Theatre to create a piece of street theatre for the Carnival of Cultures in Rochdale under the title “Where Memories Meet Dreams”.
Over Easter I worked with two groups of teenage girls and a young mothers group at community centres in Langley & Hollins to create golden masks for the choir. The theme for the masks was fire and sun linking in to both the destruction happening in the area but also the new dawn of regeneration.
Devised & Directed by Tom Hogan
I approached the design of the project more like a piece of tv/film than theatre for schools. Having a dedicated space at the PRU was a wonderful opportunity. I was able to spend time turning an unused classroom into a realistic flat for the whole lifespan of the project.
I was asked to create a set of masks to represent a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. These were to initially be used for a drama project with young men in Middleton and then for use in sexual health workshops around the area.