ALTERNATIVE BELFAST is a youth-led creative project that gathers stories, songs and ideas from young people across Belfast and Northern Ireland, and gradually weaves them into something larger: a collective, a club, a temporary society of makers.
Working with groups of young people aged 11+ from different backgrounds, the project offers a series of short, intense encounters with professional artists and musicians. In these encounters young people form bands, write and record songs, talk, argue, imagine, and decide what they want to make next.
The emphasis is on making, not being taught; on generating, not replicating. Young people are co-authors and instigators. The adults in the room are there as tools, mentors and collaborators. What emerges will not attempt to represent young people; it will be authored by them.
At its core, ALTERNATIVE BELFAST collects and interrogates stories of space, time, belonging, and the relationship between self and other, from a young person’s perspective. It is also a reimagining of the city itself: what Belfast is, what it has been, and what it could become, with young people as active agents in reshaping it rather than inheritors of a fixed narrative.
Workshops and interventions are taking place across Autumn/Winter 2026.
Interested in finding out more? Email [email protected].
This project is funded by the Belfast Stories Community Fund. Run by Dumbworld in partnership with Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble.
