Young Digitals Festival 2023 (YDF23)

Language is something we use every day to communicate, especially how we feel and think. The English language is what connected us all together, it allowed us to hear the stories and observations of the young people of Oldham.

Within Oldham roughly 150 languages are spoken, and through the exploration of digital mediums I wished to explore how this can be visually represented.

Language is something that we visually take in and process all the time through what we see around us: flyers, magazines, books, posters, signs, adverts. We paid close attention to how young people of Oldham experience and process what they see and hear in a visual way and used different digital technologies to show this.

Artists engaged with a range of groups: Silver Arts Award with Oldham College, outreach programmes with Mahdlo and our Digital Saturdays programme in Limehurst. By subverting the theme, we were able to connect through the use of English and highlight the diversity of other languages.

Digital Saturdays and artist interventions explored photography, video work and graphic animation, through to transcribing videos or recorded audio into experimental music and sound - stripping back the multi-layer facade of the digital and going back to basics to hone valuable skills.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect was translating spoken word into visual imagery. To address this we engaged artists who already explore this through digital collage, video art, illustration and animation - artists from different backgrounds whose experiences enrich the young people they work with.

What we learnt so far has been through the act of speaking, connecting through different creative sessions and establishing a safe space for each young person to express themselves visually and verbally.

We now invite you through the journey of YDF23 and its creative outcomes from both the artists and young people involved.