Project Focus
Youth-led creative spaces that prioritise identity and choice can support emotional recovery and self-worth with marginalised young people.
Supporting Themes
Co-production, emotional safety, lived experience leadership, creative agency, identity-affirming practice.
About the Project
This project offered a flexible, co-produced residency for young people from global majority and LGBTQ+ communities, many already supported by 42nd Street’s mental health services. Participants shaped the structure of the sessions, chose their creative media, and designed permanent artworks for the building. The project embedded emotional safety, lived experience leadership, and peer support in its approach.
The residency created meaningful opportunities for creative decision-making and identity affirmation. Supported by trusted facilitators and mental health practitioners, young people were able to express themselves authentically and safely, at their own pace. By de-centring clinical narratives and offering culturally and emotionally relevant alternatives, the project supported participants’ self-expression, connection and confidence. The lasting presence of their work in the building reinforced a sense of ownership and value.
An 18-year-old LGBTQ+ person of colour took part in the 42nd Street creative residency after being referred through their existing therapeutic support. Initially reserved and uncertain about creative expression, they gradually found connection and purpose through the project’s flexible, peer-led structure.
The non-clinical setting and co-designed nature of the sessions helped create emotional safety. As the participant engaged more deeply, they contributed ideas to the permanent artwork being developed for the 42nd Street building, and reflected:
“I feel more supported, like I have a purpose. It gets me out of bed. Less reason to rot.”
They went on to co-lead a group reflection session and shared that having their identity reflected in the space made them feel “seen, not just helped.”
It illustrates how a creative residency, designed and led with input from young people with lived experience, provided a space where identity could be affirmed. The participant’s sense of purpose and confidence grew as their creative ideas were taken seriously and visibly reflected in the final public artwork. For this LGBTQ+ participant of colour, the project offered a culturally relevant, peer-informed alternative to traditional support, enabling emotional safety, connection and long-term self-expression.
