The workshops:

The ‘Otherham’ project ran for six weeks as one of Grimm & Co’s Out of Schools programs, during the Autumn Term 2024. This project was in partnership with imitating the dog, as part of the Children’s Capital of Culture programming for 2025. The group of young people participating in the project explored five buildings in Rotherham that were chosen by imitating the dog and given new purpose in an alternative Rotherham. Using a range of different writing prompts, each week the young people created a variety of creative writing pieces, ranging from a song, newspaper articles and short stories to help bring each of the buildings to life. These characters and narratives ranged from magical fairies who were retired dancers, podcasts with magical guest speakers and live callers, public letters calling to the magical beings of Otherham demanding they stop misbehaving in the Cinema of Future Films, Dwarves with long pointy hats and beards on fire in an indigo blaze, and many many more!

imitating the dog then took inspiration from the children and young people’s writing to create art installations for Rotherham’s Winter Light Festival in January 2025.

The young people’s pieces of work now live here on Grimm & Co’s website, beautifully curated together by Mollie, one of Grimm & Co’s volunteers.