Project partners
Kickstart Arts Inc, Headway: Rebuilding Lives, ANZ Bank, Learning Services, South (Tasmanian Department of Education)

In 2009 Headstart began as a creative development in which professional CCD artists conducted a series of workshops in partnership with Headway with survivors of Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). These artists lead a collaborative exploration into what it means to live with ABI and developed understanding of acquired disability.

In the 2009 stage of the project Kickstart Arts has engaged professional writer and media artist Ben Ross to produce a script based on the spoken words of Headway workshop participants. The project has evolved to not only include those with ABI but also those in the highest at risk category for ABI, namely 15 – 18 year old young men and women. These young people have been engaged in a series of creative development workshops and in 2010 they will be mentored through a process to develop the material gathered into a full-scale performance installation.

The out-come of the Headstart project will be a professional, exciting and innovative performance installation which will validate and empower those living with ABI, those at risk of ABI and the community at large. We seek to create an immersive, cross art form experience that is both exciting and educational. By placing those who are most at risk of ABI at centre stage we are therefore giving them an opportunity of both out-reach and of empowerment through creativity and research.

Utilising the script portraits from the Headway workshops, along with a script developed in partnership with at-risk youth, video and design elements this immersive production will take place in a venue to be announced soon.