The End of the World Immersive Adventure

The project evolved through co-design and co-production workshops and cycles from ‘The End of the World Adventure’ to Climate Crisis- WILDFIRE!  A new concept in informal science and engineering learning, and a public engagement action research approach by SMASH_UK (SMASHfestUK). 

The project was created within a community co-design framework. There was significant change and learning through this process, as intended and expected. The top-level narrative evolved through the process from an exaggerated ‘Hollywood’ style disaster, to a more grounded localised interpretation of climate change/WILDFIRE consequences. This enhanced the ‘hyperlocal’ intent, with each community development group and the final ‘LiiVE Adventure’  basing the fire genesis in a park local to their meeting area. This gave a personal resonance to both the creative teams and participant audiences that was positively recognised. 

The focus on hyper locality and grounded reality also led to a larger focus on fire safety, general health and safety, fire hazard identification, fire type identification, fire extinguisher training and general emergency training being embedded in the stories and shows. This move from grand ‘disaster movie’ to local disaster drama reinforced the underlying philosophy of the SMASH approach and will create a new focus for the legacy stage of the project. 

The headline response was very positive: For the final experience, based at Lewisham Youth Theatre between March 31st and June 16th, 100% of participants enjoyed (with 58% saying it was 'Brilliant'), 49% of participants 'Never' attend engineering events or activities ('new audiences') and 76% of participants 'felt like an engineer' during and after the experience (exploring transformation of identity through immersive experiences).