“I have people who come to my sewing group each week and for some of them that’s the one time when they push themselves to get out of the house because their mental health is not good enough to sustain them going out all the time. But knowing they can come to this class and be safe and feel welcomed is really important to them” – Coralie Datta

Growing up in Hackney, in London, during the 90s, I feel like I had a culturally privileged upbringing in that there were lots of arts-related things happening all around us. Looking back, it feels like something of a heyday and as a child I was fortunate to be surrounded by community arts – I remember my whole family was involved in a community opera.

So the idea of being creative was always there for me from an early age, though my mum’s view was ‘you’re not going to make loads of money from doing that’. But it didn’t stop me pursuing it as a career.

I studied photography at university in Hereford, and went on to set up Coralie Datta Photography, which I still run today. And after moving to Leeds I did a masters degree in curation.

For the past four years I’ve been working for Space2 – an arts and social change charity based in east Leeds. I work across a wide range of community projects including Common Threads, which teaches people to sew across east Leeds, and I help run a photography project that encourages men to take pictures about their mental health.

I’ve also been heavily involved in a heritage project looking at the history of Gipton’s Old Fire Station (where Space2 is based) which has led me to producing my first stage production, Trailblazing – a new play inspired by the real-life stories of female firefighters from Yorkshire, spanning from the Second World War to the present day.

Trailbazing credit Coralie Datta

It follows the stories of three different women who reminisce about their experiences, from air raids and car accidents to farm fires, hosing down elephants, and even delivering old fire engines to Ukraine. It’s a one woman show that’s just done an initial tour and will head out again for a bigger tour in January.

The is the second project that Space2 has worked on about Leeds fire heritage and it started two years ago. The project works on uncovering women’s stories in the fire service. As part of the funding, I knew there was going to be a one women theatre show so from the start of the project I began thinking about what stories of women firefighters we could use. I then passed my thoughts over to a scriptwriter who then turned these ideas into an incredible script, something I could never have done. I really enjoyed this collaboration, and it continued with the director, set designer and performer.

I’ve learned that theatre can be such a powerful way of telling stories. I knew that already because I’ve seen a lot of theatre, but actually producing a story for the stage and seeing how someone else tells that story has been really illuminating.

Jane Morland in Trailbazing credit Coralie Datta

It’s also a reminder of why the arts matter. I think sometimes they’re seen as for someone else, or not a space for everyone. But for me, art is a human right and we should all have the opportunity to be creative.

I’ve seen firsthand the difference this can make. I have people who come to my sewing group each week, and for some of them that’s the one time when they push themselves to get out of the house because their mental health is not good enough to sustain them going out all the time. But knowing they can come to this class and be safe and feel welcomed is really important to them.

It’s hard these days to make a sustainable living from the arts, but being able to share stories and offer safe spaces for people to be creative is so important.

Coralie Datta is a community development worker at Space 2, an award-winning arts and social change charity based in east Leeds, where she runs community sewing groups and just produced her first theatre production, Trailblazing, which tells the story of our female firefighters from the Second World War to the present day. Coralie has a background in photography and curation – she runs Coralie Datta Photography – and is a Red Ladder trustee.