NINE RED PRESENTS
NINE RED Presents is Luton’s longest-serving Community Interest Company, building bold creative projects, healing spaces, exhibitions, performances and community-led experiences for more than two decades. This page brings our story and our projects together in one public-facing timeline that celebrates where we began, what we have built, and how the work continues to evolve.
One organisation, many pathways
NINE RED Presents began as a DJ and Poet collaboration producing Sound with Vision, then grew into an interdisciplinary organisation working across theatre arts, multimedia performance, art installations, exhibitions, spoken word, soundworks, carnival arts as therapy, bespoke art projects, cultural exhibitions and workshops, photo mosaics, waxworks, 3D printing, community art, and visual, digital and graphic art.
Today, that same spirit runs through Art Un-Defined, Art Medicine, Words Chose Me and the wider NINE RED ecosystem. Each strand speaks in a different voice, but all are connected by the same commitment to transformation, wellbeing, creativity and community power.
Creativity as expression, healing and belonging
We believe art is a powerful tool for expression, learning, therapy and healing. We use our artistic skills to interact, inspire and promote cultural diversity, working with clients, communities and participants to create exhibitions, workshops, events and experiences that the wider public can enjoy.
Our social purpose is rooted in bringing people together, reducing cultural deprivation, supporting community cohesion and creating spaces where diverse identities, histories and voices can be seen, heard and valued.
The values behind the work
23 years of projects
This timeline brings together key projects, commissions, exhibitions, workshops and public programmes from across the history of NINE RED Presents, with each project given its own space and identity.
Art Medicine
One of the earliest strands of the work, Art Medicine grew from a belief in creative healing and has developed into a wider practice using arts, performance, carnival arts, creative therapies, holistic treatments and integrative approaches to support health and wellbeing.
The AVS Project
The AVS Project began in 2001 as a survivor-led programme rooted in lived experience of domestic violence, sexual violence and rape. Over time it has expanded its reach while keeping care, advocacy, visibility and community-led strength at its centre.
Volunteering and the NINE RED vision
Volunteering began in 2003 alongside the organisation’s deeper philosophy: a vision of social creativity, dignity, justice, access and transformation that still shapes every strand of the work today.
Diverse Britain exhibitions and workshops
Through exhibitions, workshops and cultural programming, Diverse Britain has supported community cohesion and reduced cultural deprivation by bringing people together to discover, enjoy and engage with culturally diverse art.
Parkfest! 4 A.V.S.
A party with a purpose. Designed and run by survivors of sexual and domestic violence, this community family fun day celebrated local talent and local community as part of the AVS Project.
Part funded by Bedfordshire & Luton Community Foundation, Arts Council England and Awards For All England.DAMSEL – Carnival Band
Part of the AVS Project, the Darkness Makes Sense In The Light Carnival Band used carnivals, festivals and events to bring colourful and playful costumes into public view while drawing attention to its cause.
Part funded by Bedfordshire & Luton Community Foundation, Arts Council England and Awards For All England.Team SP – Digital Art
Working with residents and staff to capture years of Team SP volunteering and celebrate community projects and events, this project produced two large photo mosaics for display in the Signposts Head Office.
Commissioned by Signpost Starting Over.Lewsey Farm CC – 40th Anniversary Digital Art Project with NCS
Commissioned by Lewsey Farm Community Centre to celebrate its 40th anniversary, this project worked with NCS to create a documentary film highlighting the history of the centre, its staff and its activities.
LMHS Enrichment Day
Eight classrooms were transformed into different continents through exhibitions, performances, workshops and cultural foods, including Africa and the Middle East, the Caribbean and South America, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, the United States of America, Western and Eastern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, the Far East and Asian continent, London 2012, and a Cultural Art Room.
London 2012 Paralympic Closing Ceremony
We encourage our service users to step into the light and expand their boundaries through carnival and theatre performance. Leading by example, Debra auditioned and was cast in the London 2012 Paralympic Closing Ceremony.
Love Luton 2012 – The Other Side of the Ring
This digital art exhibition and spoken word performance celebrated art, culture, diversity and sport while highlighting the social and political dimensions of the Olympics, and the ways nations, cultures and individuals shape and are shaped by wider transformations.
LMHS – Digital Art
Part of Lea Manor High School’s enrichment week, this project worked with students to create a 1.5m x 2m photo mosaic for display in the Exclusion Zone. The final work contained thousands of photographs taken by students around their school.
Commissioned by Lea Manor High School.Lealands High School – BHM
This project used digital art portraits inspired by 17 individuals nominated by students and staff to celebrate Black History Month at Lealands High School.
Commissioned by Lealands High School.16 Days of Action – Our House
Our House has evolved into a powerful body of immersive community work with five distinct iterations. Beginning as a 3D Advent Calendar House with 25 windows containing artwork and images created by survivors of domestic and sexual violence, it has continued to grow through touring, workshop development and deeper public conversation.
Advent Calendar House
The original art installation featured windows on both sides, set on a printed display mat depicting a garden, and toured Bedfordshire during 16 Days of Action.
Who Killed Eve?
A chilling immersive workshop and art installation that exposes rape culture, flips the script on victim-blaming, and invites participants to help rewrite the story.
Where’s Adam?
A new adult community workshop pilot developed from the Who Killed Eve? sessions, shifting the lens onto men by examining masculinity, accountability, trauma, social conditioning, silence, coercion, shame, peer norms and the factors that can contribute to harmful behaviour.
Who Helped Eve?
A signposting strand connecting people to services, support and routes into help, care and informed action.
Doors into Bedfordshire
A further iteration extending the project’s reach into place-based engagement, pathways to support and wider community conversation across Bedfordshire.
The project toured in 2015, 2019 and 2025, has now developed into five iterations, and continues to create space for reflection, prevention, challenge and change around domestic abuse, sexual violence and the systems that surround them.
Commissioned by OPCC and developed through NINE RED Presents… CIC.Luton International Carnival – 40th Anniversary Exhibition
Commissioned by Luton International Carnival to celebrate and honour 40 years of carnival history in Luton, this exhibition brought archival material, memory and public storytelling together in one celebratory space.
Luton Celebrates
Designed to bring people together in celebration of Luton, this art installation, documentary and performance highlighted Luton’s place in the history of industry, manufacturing and the arts, from the small hamlet on the River Lea in the 6th century to contemporary ambitions for City of Culture.
Part funded by Bedfordshire & Luton Community Foundation and the Big Lottery Celebrates Fund.Girl in a Box
An immersive digital theatre concept exploring light, projection, sound, movement and poetry to create a shared feeling space rather than a fixed location. The piece invited audiences into an emotionally connective experience centred on compassion, empathy, appreciation and joy, while challenging the idea of the labels and boxes people are placed in.
Piece by Peace at the Sundon Square Garden
Beginning in 2020, this strand has centred community creativity, shared making and neighbourhood transformation through the Sundon Square Garden and wider Piece by Peace activity.
Radiant Roots
Radiant Roots began in 2021 and continues as a living strand of creative, cultural and community-based work rooted in heritage, identity and healing.
A living story, not a closed archive
NINE RED Presents is not simply a record of what has already happened. It is an evolving creative, cultural and healing practice that continues to grow through new ideas, community energy, partnership and purpose. This timeline honours the past while leaving space for what comes next.
Buy, book and help sustain the work
Every order, booking and enquiry helps support the wider creative, healing, cultural and community work we are building through NINE RED Presents. Visit our Order & Book Online page to explore ways to purchase from us, book with us and support the projects.