GRIT: BROKE

What does culture look like when people are tired and money's run out? Raw unscripted conversations. Grab a cuppa. Join the conversation. GRIT No panel. No platform. No spectators. This autumn, Middlesbrough is having two conversations about itself at once. One is being written elsewhere, with national headlines reducing a town of 150,000 people to crime stats and decline, a story told about Middlesbrough rather than told by it. The other is actually happening here. Navigator North celebrated 15 years of incredible transformation of empty spaces to cultural power houses, MIMA have just hosted New Contemporaries and is hosting the Turner Prize exhibition, The Auxiliary has reopened with a brand new gallery and studio facilitates, Creative Factory are driving cultural regeneration with live work space in communities, and the town is in the running for UK City of Culture 2029. Middlesbrough's culture isn't an afterthought to its regeneration, it's the engine of it. In partnership with Off The Ground, GRIT throws out the traditional panel format for something rawer. Three conversations with invited guests, where the line between speaker and audience disappears. Everyone in the room is part of the conversation. Staged at the same time as the Turner Prize, GRIT takes on the questions that Boro, Teesside, and the North East, can't afford to dodge: BROKE — What does culture look like when the people are tired and money's run out? BUILD — What does ‘cultural regeneration’ actually create, and for who? (re)BORN — As new opportunities arrive, who risks being left behind? Off The Ground will be serving coffee throughout, with seasonal hot food available to buy, so the conversation can carry on long after the talking's officially done. If the headlines have already decided what Middlesbrough is, GRIT is where the town gets to answer back. Pull up a chair. Bring an opinion. Let’s have a conversation. Between each bimonthly coffee conversation, GRIT takes to the streets to hold three pop-up interventions at the Six Bells. With art installations responding directly to what's been said in the room, free tea and coffee for all, and a space for anyone passing through to join in the conversation, share their thoughts, or just listen.