2014 IN PICTURES

In time-honoured fashion we thought we'd wrap up the year with a glance back at some of the highlights. Thanks to everyone who's helped fill 2014 with inspiring creativity and magical moments, and in particular to the artists who've delivered this year's work with huge skill and care - the name-checks come nowhere close to giving you the credit you're due.

January: Arts skills training with staff at Kirkheaton Primary. Back
in class teachers applied their newly acquired techniques and ideas
to the term's Outer Space topic, supported by Fiona Goodwin.



February: Mill Lane Primary's Families project gets into its stride.
For six months, every Wednesday, James Allott and Christina
Holdsworth created a space that hummed with conversations,
laughter, pride, and kids and parents enjoying learning together.

March: The launch of Cornerstones on Poppy Road in St Mary's,
Oldham. Thanks Impossible Theatre for getting things off to an
attention-grabbing and memorable start with LightWeight.

April: East Island detail - part of the 'archipelago' created by Year 4
at Pinders Primary during a project focused on developing team-
work and social skills. North, South, East & West groups designed
their imaginary islands under the expert guidance of Mary Robson.



 



May: Cornerstones workshops on a Maps and Symbols theme got
into full swing. Lucy Bergman's sculptural bookmaking was just one
of many activities with St Mary's residents over the summer.

June: A proud moment for these parents, showing children and staff
their ideas for artworks for the Early Years Unit entrance at Christ
Church Academy. Bronwyn Morris and Jan Yates later turned the
designs into permanent pieces for fencing, walls and windows.



July: Luggage for Life transition projects wrapped up in three
Wakefield primaries.  Supporting 'vulnerable' Year 6 children to
cope well with change is the focus of our Risk and Resilience work
for the Council's Public Health team, led by Mary Robson. 










August: A privilege once again to co-ordinate the Change Project
in Batley, on behalf of Mosaic Community Arts and the Batley &
Birstall Schools Partnership. This year's exhibition definitely the
best yet - as we say every year!

September: A project to support secondary school students who
had recently experienced close bereavement created a safe space
for conversations, ably facilitated by Incy Wood and Sarah Jackson.

October: The Cornerstones finale. Fantastic to bring nine months'
hard work by Adam Strickson, Dan Jones and Lucy Bergman to a
close with an evening of celebration, procession and performance,
and to see the five newly installed carved boulders - beautifully lit
by Impossible Theatre - being appreciated and enjoyed.

 

November: New Social & Emotional Health projects underway in
Wakefield, focused on confidence-building and preparing for
transition. Conversations about Friendship, and other activities to
develop a shared emotional vocabulary, are an important part of 
the ground-laying work in the early sessions.

December: Such concentration and focus! Starting with mark-
making experiments, Year 8 and 9 students at Salendine Nook High
got totally engrossed in developing their self-portraits and achieved
great results in a few short sessions, thanks to careful, caring work
on self-identity and self-esteem done by Incy W and Sarah J.

 

FULL CIRCLE

We're delighted to have another guest post from our travelling associate Lesley Fallais. Last time she wrote about how arts and culture are leading Vardo's regeneration in Norway.  This time it's the quality of creative education in Scandinavian museum/gallery settings that's inspired her - not least because it took her back to where and why her own work started.  Lesley's original post with more photos from Birk Centre Park is here.

Families' artwork at HEART - charcoal, wire and tissue paper   Photo: Lesley Fallais

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of my four-month trip to Scandinavia I can look back on a journey filled with spectacular and inspiring experiences. In particular I will remember the many occasions on which I've been impressed and inspired by the way that culture, community, art and design seem central to public life, especially in Denmark.

 

In the last few days of my trip I visited Birk Centre Park in Herning, Jutland. As the publicity says, “Birk Centre Park is known internationally as a unique area where art, architecture, landscape, education and business interact in an exciting way. In the 60’s the textile industry in the area developed rapidly, key companies founded a new creative way of thinking by merging their industries with art and education. The architecture of the factories inside and outside made art and culture a natural part of the workers' everyday life.”

 

On this campus style site today, Modernist buildings that were once textile factories house students of TEKO, Scandinavia’s biggest Design and Business School for Fashion and Lifestyle. The Innovatorium places entrepreneurs alongside business support teams and this contemporary building is part of a larger, stylish business park. Other key elements in this creative mix are HEART - Herning's museum of contemporary art - and The Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt’s Museum (founder members of the international COBRA art group in 1948). The University of Herning has more than 3000 students on the site studying business and engineering subjects. The site is full of green spaces, it has a sculpture park and the biggest public art sculpture in Northern Europe - the gigantic Elia, designed by award winning Swedish-Danish artist Ingvar Cronhammer.

 

One of the most striking things about the museums and art galleries I've visited in Scandinavia has been that they almost all have really impressive education spaces - creative learning is clearly valued and well provided for, is a core part of the offer, not an add-on. This is nowhere more true than at Birk. Visitors of all ages are involved in creative projects, young people can join ‘COBRA Junior’ and there is free access for children under 18 years of age. HEART museum runs a creative programme involving 20 local schools, each partner recognising that "Art can be a catalyst for learning".

 

I watched a group of parents and children with education staff at HEART and was forcefully reminded how powerful this type of work can be when it is well facilitated and well resourced. The group were looking at the work of Svend Wiig Hansen, a heavy weight of the Scandinavian art world (1922-1997). His work is expressive, abstract and challenging - “innumerable human bodies driven by the forces of nature”. I have no idea what the teacher was saying to the group but they looked transfixed. They eventually disappeared into the education room and re-emerged later for a public viewing of their art work. I was really struck by its quality - what the group had achieved in a short time was simply stunning.

 

It took me back, as my career began in museum education. I believed then, and still do, that art and culture are unique catalysts with the power to deeply engage people of all ages in learning and decision making. In all my work over the 25 years since - which have taken me far away from museum/gallery education into urban regeneration, community engagement, public art and public realm design - I've remained convinced of that 'truth', have sought to always apply it in my projects, and have been an advocate for it at every opportunity. In those few moments at HEART, witnessing the skilfulness with which those parents and children were taken through a creative learning process, the quality of what they produced, their absorption and the pleasure they took from the experience, it was a joy to be reminded of where and why my own work started.



FIVE TIMES, FIVE STONES

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

Photo: Porl Medlock

The work we've been doing for the past eight months in St Mary's, Oldham, has just come to a colourful crescendo (amazingly - it hardly seems a moment since we were poised at the beginning).  Last week five beautifully carved stones arrived on a very big trailer in the middle of a very small housing estate and were carefully craned into position. Placed in an arc they form a 'timeline' depicting five key periods in St Mary's history, and tell the story of how the piece of land they are sited on has evolved from wild, scrubby moorland into a place of new homes and new connections. They are arranged so as to create an area which can be used as a seating and social space. It's been a delight over the last few days to see them being sat on, stood on, played around, closely peered at and excitedly talked about.

On Sunday we celebrated with a magical event and a ceremonial unwrapping, inviting residents and guests to "come on a journey through stories of St Mary's told in a performance, songs, a film and five carved stones" - all components made through our work with and in the local community over the last few months .  The indoor performance and outdoor film screening brought the carvings to life and gave them added depth, ensuring that people will remember the stories told on the stones and will pass them on. By the time we and our many helpers packed up to make our weary way home there was a sense that the passing on is already beginning to happen, and that the stones already belong on Poppy Road.

See Sunday's event in pictures here.

There's still more work to be done and ends to tie up, but it seems a timely moment to say a big thanks to the Cornerstones team (Adam Strickson, Dan Jones, Lucy Bergman) for their fantastic work; to Contour Homes for the opportunity; and to St Mary's residents for welcoming us, working with us and celebrating with us. It's been a delight.

THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director



Invitation to a drop-in session    Boulder design - Dan Jones    Graphic design - Lucy Bergman





 

 

Back in March we were just getting Cornerstones onto the starting blocks in St Mary's, Oldham, with a mixture of anticipation and slight trepidation. The anticipation was about the creative challenges and opportunities lying ahead of us, a multi-disciplinary team of four, as we set out to respond to a community engagement brief requiring carved stone seating, performance and film outputs - a big ask in relation to budget and timescales but exciting stuff to get our teeth into, with loads of potential.  The trepidation was about setting foot as strangers in a community that hadn't invited us to be there (the commissioning organisation had), wouldn't necessarily want to play ball, and didn't have in place most of the structures and resources that you  usually look to plug into when embarking on a new project.

 

How time flies when you're out in the field having fun. We're now cantering towards endings - installation of seating, 'grand finale' event with performance and film, and a sense of a job well done, not always in easy circumstances.  But really, truth be told, we're only now arriving at the beginning - the beginning of what could be, in a community that is just starting to be ready for a project like this.  With relationships established, supporters enlisted, local knowledge gained, connections made, conversations started, stories uncovered, and many activities run that have got people involved across age differences, cultural differences and language barriers (and some that haven't - you live and learn) where we have arrived now is a very good place to start.  

 

Standing here, looking towards the ending, with most of the practical essentials for next month's finale in place and all outputs soon to be ticked off, the excitement and reward come not from knowing what's been done but from the sense of where things could go next, if the seeds we've sown around this green space in the middle of this newly forming community are enabled to sprout and grow.  We're looking forward to getting the beautiful carved boulders installed and so creating a sculptural 'timeline' that depicts the story of the place from its early, green, Wild time (design above) up to its present-day Connection time.  We can't wait to see how people respond to the performance piece that is being made from the material we've gathered about the place they call home, and to the film that will turn Poppy Road for a few minutes into an outdoor cinema and hopefully give residents ideas for future events that could be held in the space. But most of all we're itching to have the conversations about where things can go from here and how people might continue working together - creatively and otherwise - to build on the starting points that are now in place.  You might call them cornerstones, even.

RESTORING VARDO

Our associate Lesley Fallais is off on her travels, topping up her creative batteries and her enthusiasm for culture-led regeneration as she goes. In Scandinavia she's been finding out about Norway's National Tourist Routes - 18 scenic routes designated by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration for their picturesque scenery and tourist-friendly infrastructure and incorporating architecture, design and art.  Many thanks to Lesley for this guest post, based on a post for her own blog about a recent trip on the Varanger Route to Vardo, where she was struck by the way in which a strong investment in art and culture is right at the centre of a town's regeneration, and spotted parallels with her own work. Read Lesley's original post - with more detail on the Steilneset Monument - here.
 

Photo: Lesley Fallais

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On an overcast and gloomy Sunday evening in Norway's easternmost town, Vardo, I arrived at the Steilneset Monument - a stunning and highly atmospheric art and architecture collaboration which commemorates 91 local people who were accused of witchcraft and sentenced to burn at the stake. It was jointly commissioned by the town of Vardo, the Varanger Museum and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, and was developed in association with the National Tourist Routes in Norway programme. 

The Memorial is the work of artist Louise Bourgeois and the architecture atelier of  Peter Zumthor and partners, and comprises two separate buildings. One is an installation by Zumthor, a 125m-long wooden structure framing a fabric cocoon which contains a narrow walkway,1.5m wide, lined with small windows, one for each victim of the witch hunts. The second adjacent structure is a square, black glass room containing the work of Louise Bourgeois who died in 2010 (the project was commissioned in 2006 and opened in 2011 so, The Damned, The Possessed and The Beloved was her last major installation). As described on Wikipedia “This room contains a central chair on which an eternal flame burns, the fire is reflected in seven large oval mirrors, placed on metal columns in a ring around the seat, like judges circling the condemned”.

 

The site, on the edge of the ocean, was striking on a cold and grey evening. The wind was blowing and intensified the sound of the burning flame, certainly theatrical. The scale and robust feel of the black glass room is impressive, the central fire reflected around the walls through which you can see the Barents Sea. The adjacent timber and canvas corridor (reminiscent of nearby fish drying racks) is a total emotional surprise. You enter via a ramp to face a black wall, your eyes adjusting to the dark interior, then turn to face the narrow walkway where 91 dim light bulbs hang beside 91 small square windows. Next to each window hangs a text-filled banner, one for each victim of the witch hunts which took place in Vardo in the 1620s - towards the end of the period that saw persecution of ‘witches’ all over Europe - in which 135 ‘witches’ were accused and 91 burned alive at the stake.

“The Steilneset Monument emphasises what is individual for every person who was executed. Each woman and man is named and correct historical information about these persons was made available to the project team.”(Varanger Museum Guidebook – Memorial to the Witches burned in Finnmark).

Since visiting Vardo I have done a bit of research to find out more about the town's regeneration project and its arts and cultural element. As this is my ‘line of work’, I could see that successful things were happening and I also spotted parallels with one of my more recent commissions in Fleetwood (Wyre MBC), where Sea Change funding partly enabled the building of The Rossall Point Marine Observatory (Studio Three Architects, Liverpool) and the partial restoration of Marine Hall Gardens (BCA Landscape, Liverpool).

During the 1980’s the collapse of the fishing industry and the downsizing of the public sector led to Vardo's decline. In the period 1980 – 2000 its population halved due to unemployment and there was a general exodus due to pessimism, leading to the decay of buildings and infrastructure. Morale was low and the town had a poor reputation. The regeneration of the town is ongoing through a partnership which includes local people, Vardo Restored and the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Fund. The Vardo Restored website gives loads of interesting detail on the initiative and shows examples of completed and future projects. 

Community involvement, heritage, art, architecture and culture are at the centre of what is happening. Many buildings in Vardo have been restored, including key historic buildings whose restoration has been enabled by financial support from the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Fund. Those awaiting repair have become sites for temporary artworks (in 2012, Vardo hosted the Komafest urban art event, where over a three-week period twelve international artists painted tens of abandoned houses). Cultural life is currently flourishing, there is a reported feeling of optimism and well being. Tourism is increasing, there are new jobs and new infrastructure (school, leisure and cultural centres). Vardo has a development strategy and early restoration and regeneration successes have inspired local people. As a result, civic and community pride are being rejuvenated.

Reflecting on my findings, the significance of art and culture being a major part of the whole regeneration package really struck me. Funding for art and cultural heritage initiatives is stimulating the reclamation and restoration of neglected properties and that is generating pride and optimism, creating relationships and momentum. Big art projects such as the Steilneset Monument bring attention, create landmarks, and I guess inspire a feeling locally that the place is really worth something, nationally and internationally. Visible signs of government investing in new infrastructure - a new leisure centre, repairs to the dock, for example - are fuelling the optimism further. At the heart of it is local people talking to each other, sharing capacity and making grass roots things happen, celebrating their history and culture.

I’m very pleased that some random elements brought me here to this remote peninsula, and was delighted to get a reply to my blog post from Vardo Restored inviting me to come back for food, chat and a tour around the town. And I'm very much looking forward to exploring some of the other projects on the National Tourist Routes.

A STORY WORTH TELLING

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind this collage of colourful images lies a simple but powerful tale. It's a tale so often repeated from community arts projects over the decades that it hardly bears recounting. And yet it deserves to be, for in its own context, for the people involved, it is unique and very significant.

The tale starts with a school (could be any school, or any community centre or Children's Centre for that matter) that wants to strengthen its relationships with parents and encourage them to feel more involved - because if they feel involved and more confident about coming through the door, their children will benefit. This school is big on creative learning, has corridors adorned with children's artwork and feels vibrant and welcoming, with the exception of the Early Years Unit whose exterior - drab, tired, uninviting - belies the colour and warmth within. Maybe parents could help to transform it? Cue creative engagement project.

For us and the school those were the starting points for a very nice project. A successful funding bid and the appointment of two artists with long-standing backgrounds in public art design/production, community arts and adult education gave us the substance.

Enter the parents - all quite young, "nervous", "worried", "scared", not used to joining in with group activities, not regular participants in school, not really acquainted with each other, definitely not seeing themselves as 'arty'.

Skip forward to session 10 (after which the project will pause for the summer). By now, the parents have worked with natural materials collected on a woodland walk, 3D modelling, rubbings, paper cuts, fabric transfer, printing, drawing, collage, papier-mâché, stitch, laminating, clay, and watercolour. They have made small-scale 3D and textile pieces to take home; looked at examples of public art and discussed pros and cons in the context of the Early Years Unit; produced large-scale, temporary pieces and tried placing them on fencing, walls and windows to see what will work; jointly made decisions about the style, colour and location of the permanent pieces that are to be produced and installed in the autumn; and collectively designed a large textile artwork for the entrance lobby. In session 10 they stand up in assembly before the whole school to talk about and show what they have been doing - not hesitantly or nervously, but eager to the point of galloping down the corridor to get there, proudly clutching their display boards. There's a shiver down their spines then a warm glow as the hall lets out a collective 'Ahhh' when the boards are revealed, and a tear or two is shed when (surprise!) their own children walk in wearing T-shirts each decorated with a piece of mum's artwork. Priceless.

Priceless, yet not exceptional nor even unusual - certainly not if you're used to seeing projects delivered by artists who are skilled in facilitating group processes, taking people on a learning journey, enabling individual creativity and getting stunning results. Such projects are as old as the hills, and the stories of what they mean to the people involved are maybe so familiar that there seems almost no point re-telling them. But step back from the familiar, look with fresh eyes at what's happened here in this room week by week, experience the project as if you were one of those parents - one who started out anxious and ended up galloping. Imagine that this particular story is yours and that what you have just achieved on ten Tuesday afternoons is immense for you - life-changing even. Then there is a point.

When you've never done 'this kind of thing' at school or as an adult, and if you think of yourself as not having an artistic bone in your body (or as someone who can't use a pair of scissors, or sew), the chance to 'play' with creative materials and processes can give you a thrill that you maybe never associated with learning - and suddenly, learning becomes fun. When you realise that you've moved from 'I don't know how' to making your own design choices and producing really beautiful work, the thrill is even bigger - and perhaps you have a sense of some new possibilities, or begin to see yourself differently. When your child excitedly calls their classmates over to see your artwork, then you know s/he is proud of you and is seeing you through new eyes too. When you're so chuffed with what you've made that you want to photograph it on your phone to take home, put it on Facebook and show it off in assembly, and when your friends and family compliment your amazing work, that's a sense of achievement that you may not have felt in a long time. When you're full of new ideas for creative things to do with the kids at home, that's a new dimension in your relationship with them, and in theirs with you. When other parents tell you you're sad for 'going in there' and you can respond with 'You're the sad one, sitting on your bum at home all day', that's you being strong and giving them something to think about. When you have new friendships, supportive conversations, laughter and a weekly highlight to look forward to, it gives you a bit of bounce. And when, over the next few years as your child moves up through the school, you see your artwork making the Early Years entrance look much, much nicer and being appreciated by other parents and little ones - well, just imagine how good it will feel to know that you did something you never thought you could do and contributed something lasting and really worthwhile.

When you're used to having those kinds of positives in your life and take them as read, ten sessions on an arts project maybe don't add up to much. When you aren't, ten sessions can be a game-changer - and if that's your story, it's definitely one worth telling.

NOW WE ARE TWO

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

 

This week we turn the corner into our third year - a good moment to pause, reflect on two years' work and enjoy looking back at the highlights. To everyone who has played a part in the work and helped Loca Creatives grow wings and fly over the past twenty-four months, a huge Thank You.  Thanks too to all those who have taken the time to get to know us, explore ideas for working together and plant seeds for the future - it feels full of possibility. If you've not connected with us yet but like the look of what we do and think there might be opportunities to use our specialist skills, we do of course welcome speculative enquiries and exploratory conversations!

 

Some things well worth celebrating

• Teaming up with Contour Homes, devising and getting underway with Cornerstones, getting to know St Mary's, the chance to play a part in a newly forming community, working towards a new shared space, making great contacts in Oldham - we love being there.

• Making a difference for children and young people who are struggling with difficult circumstances and feelings, through expertly facilitated work which we know has helped them turn corners and find better ways of coping - we know because of the evaluation we do, and because children and school staff tell us so.

• Helping young people face the move to high school with optimism and confidence, and deal positively with change, through targeted group projects that have also helped primary and secondary schools make stronger links with each other around transition.

• Fantastic family projects - enabling parents and kids to discover the joy of spending creative, playful time and learning new skills together; and offering schools a way of strengthening their own relationships with parents.

• Passing on skills and equipping people with creative tools and ideas to use in their own work, through tailor-made training sessions - for teachers, school support staff and community development workers.

• Contributing to Wakefield Public Health team's work around Risk and Resilience, by doing demonstration projects with groups of 'vulnerable' children and designing a suite of on-line resources for teachers and children's workers.

• The Change Project - a privilege and pleasure to work with community arts organisation Mosaic and BBEST (Batley & Birstall Excellence in Schools Together) to make this amazing project happen - twice!  Several other arts-in-schools projects too.

• Fundraising results - numerous successes with developing funding proposals and bids, creating win-win opportunities to collaborate on actual projects with other organisations.

• Brilliant artists - our Core Team, our Creative Associates, and numerous others with whom we've had the pleasure to work on 28 projects - and without whom none of it would have been possible.

• Some great guest blog posts - take a look (and if you feel inspired to offer one yourself please do get in touch)

• Connections - virtual, real, old, new, enduring, fleeting - they make our world go round and give us reasons to celebrate every day.

A RETURN TO OLDHAM

At the time of the last post we were poised for the launch of our Cornerstones project in St Mary's.  From that event, bathed in the glow from magical lanterns and Impossible Theatre's wonderful LightWeight installation, we set off on a path involving symbols, maps and stories that will continue through to the autumn.  Project team member Adam Strickson picks up the thread, with some fond Oldham memories of his own.

Photo: Justin Garner

 

I think I know Oldham. I've been working there on and off for years, though a lot more off than on in recent times. I realised my understanding of the place had some gaps when I turned up for a friendly cup of char at a Bangladeshi friend's house in Westwood in the second week of June 2001. He said, 'What are you doing here? We haven't seen a white man round here except for the police for over a fortnight.' I'm not sure 'police' was the word he used. It just never occurred to me, living in the stone villages just the other side of the Pennine ridge, that I couldn't go and visit my friends on those redbrick streets, despite all the smoke, hate and fire of the now notorious 'Oldham riots' on the TV.

That summer trouble erupted in Bradford, Leeds and Burnley, all in areas where I'd been working on modest community arts projects to help intercultural understanding. Clearly, I was ineffectually scratching the surface of things but – surprise, surprise – there was a lot more money available for ambitious work to 'break down barriers' in the four years after the petrol bombs. In 2002, I was able to write a full length multi-lingual musical play for the Coliseum and Peshkar Arts in Oldham , 'The Beautiful Violin' ('Bhelua Shundori' in Bangla), with a multi-talented, multi-racial cast. That kicked off a series of ambitious projects in the 'riot towns', finishing with a play with a huge cast written to celebrate the opening of the new Burnley Youth Theatre building in summer 2005, the first purpose-built youth theatre in the UK. And then the money began to peter out... and the type of projects I was offered were smaller, less risky and a lot less ambitious. And then there was the recession.

But throughout the past nine years, I've continued to visit Oldham for pleasure rather than work. I've enjoyed home-cooked meals of special fish dishes, reminding the older Bengalis of the rivers 'back home'. I've been a special guest who never has to pay anything in smart restaurants. I've been there when British Bengali councillors have been voted in and I've sampled piri-piri chicken in the new kind of café some of my younger Bengali friends are running. And I've had a few cups of milky coffee and egg sarnies in Tommyfield Market too, right in the heart of Oldham.

 

Now I've just started working with Loca Creatives on St Mary's Estate, once famous for deprivation and near total unemployment. Though it's on 'my' side of Oldham, close to the A62 from Huddersfield, I've never visited before, confirming my experience of the town as a series of villages, mostly defined by ethnicity or social class, with few border-crossings. But the new piece of St Mary's, around Poppy Road and Bluebell Walk, where the streets have been named by the local children, is a different spicy casserole of fish, with smart eco-houses built by Contour Homes populated with a deliberate mixture of people – lots of my friendly British Bangladeshis but also British Pakistanis, white Oldhamers and a scattering of British Chinese and Irish, with Kurds and people who have arrived in recent years from West Africa and Eastern Europe living in nearby streets.

 

At the end of March, Loca Creatives put together an opening event on the landscaped green area in the centre of the new houses that included outdoor making workshops, a small lantern sculpture, LightWeight – Impossible Arts' spectacular globe of projections – and some wandering music that mixed up English folk with Bengali flute. The first thing we found out is that the land is a wind tunnel and that anything we do outdoors will draw hordes of excitable children without accompanying parents. The second thing we found is that there are some great people living in the new houses who really want to make friends and to work with us. Then it got darker and the youth emerged from the other parts of the estate, so the third thing we found is that working in Oldham continues to be a bracing challenge as well as a pleasure... and we'll be steadily working towards the celebration of a new beginning with the people of Poppy Road, Bluebell Walk, Rose Way and the neighbouring streets for the end of October.

STARTING BLOCKS AND CORNERSTONES

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

The stage is set - invitations out by the hundreds, word of mouth travelling, lanterns ready for ceremonial lighting... As is always the way with outdoor events, all we need now is a decent turn-out and the weather on our side. Gusting winds and heavy downpours would not be conducive to family fun with pebble decorating and site surveying in the afternoon, nor to conjuring up night-time magic with atmospheric projections and ambient soundtracks and leaving residents enthused about the project that is starting right on their doorsteps.

This Saturday sees the launch of Cornerstones, a project commissioned by Contour Homes in and around a brand new housing development in St Mary's, Oldham. Or it's the public launch at least - from a project management point of view and for the artistic team (Adam Strickson, Lucy Bergman, Dan Jones) the project is already many weeks in. We've been doing what you do when setting foot in a new neighbourhood with a new project to offer, local knowledge to gather and relationships to build - talking to local organisations about how they could oil the project's wheels, link in with it and help you make connections; chatting to people about their lives and the place on doorsteps, round kitchen tables and in the street; making a nuisance of yourself with schools who'd love to have you but struggle to find time for planning and scheduling. Not to mention figuring out how the streets connect up, who lives where, where people go, what their perceptions of each other and the area are, and who's responsible for clearing up the dog poo on the land you're about to hold your event on.

But we're on the starting blocks. The project that felt so nebulous a few weeks ago now has an identity which seems to be catching on (why is finding the right name always the hardest bit?). The reception has been warm and the offers of help many. Adam's long-term connections in Oldham have given us some head starts, and the kindness of people who've never met us before and as yet have no reason to trust in what we're doing has already been felt several times over.

On Saturday we'll be diving right in and hoping that the community around our Poppy Road site will take a leap of faith or at least be curious enough to dive in with us. We're promising a seating area that creates a loved, shared, and well used space; explorations of maps, symbols, stories, heritage and journeys that will translate into designs, performance and film; fun activities; and the chance to learn new skills. More than that, we're offering opportunities to meet near neighbours, come together in new groupings and have exchanges with strangers, in ways that we hope will forge connections between newly arrived residents and long-standing ones. Saturday marks the official start of the Cornerstones project journey, but in a bigger sense it heralds the next leg of an ongoing journey that is about the transition of an old community into a new one. To be a small part of that is a huge privilege - thank you for having us, St Mary's, we hope you enjoy walking along with us during Cornerstones' few months in your midst as much as we're going to enjoy walking with you.

Follow the story here.

CAN YOU RIDE T'TANDEM?

Phil Wood describes himself as an urban therapist; a researcher, analyst, writer and deviser; an observer, motivator, connector and networker; a provocateur, catalyst and change agent. We also know him as inspirer, curious questioner and critical friend, and there's a fair few folk out there who can trace their successful project, initiative or even organisation back to seeds that were planted by and with Phil. What a treat, then, to have an 'exclusive' from him here about a recent transnational get-together of community artists, where the conversations and provocations dug deep into some of the very stuff that our own work is rooted in.

If there’s one thing that characterises good community artists the world over, it’s that they’ll be completely immersed in and devoted to the community they are working with. Usually teetering just the right side of burn-out, they’ll be multi-tasking on a myriad things, from sourcing those special materials for next week’s event, sweet-talking the funding body rep who keeps promising to show up but never does, worrying whether Kayleigh has really dropped out of the project because she can’t get a babysitter – or if it’s something more sinister, negotiating with the Zumba group to end their class 15 minutes early so the space will be free, and fretting about why Councillor Ackroyd keeps going off on one about “art is summat for the likes of them in the posh houses on the hill”.

And that’s as it should be, I guess, except that it doesn’t leave much time for anything else. Like a life for example. Or for thinking about the possibility of what other community artists are doing – in the next town, the next county or even… in another country. Which is why TANDEM Community & Participation was born.

TANDEM is a well-established idea created jointly by the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam and MitOst in Berlin. Up to now it has concentrated on putting together duets of artists from different countries across chasms of distance and culture, particularly connecting western Europeans with counterparts in Ukraine, Turkey, Moldova and the Arab world. The project allows them to visit each others’ worlds and to collaborate on a creative project. But for the first time TANDEM has turned away from the contemporary art world and opened up to those working in community and participative practice. They also invited me along for the ride, to inject some thinking on what we mean by community arts and on the similarities and differences between various national approaches, and to mentor participants.

A call went out to arts groups in Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Britain and there was a reasonable response, including eight from the UK. Eventually, a prospective group of 18 were invited along to a four-day session in Rotterdam last October. Described as a ‘partner forum’ it was in effect an exercise in speed-dating. The challenge was for everyone in the room to spend the next few days finding a partner with whom they would like to spend the next twelve month collaborating on a joint project.

I know, you’re already saying to yourself “I think I’ll stick with Kayleigh and Cllr Ackroyd – I don’t need any more pressure, thank you very much”. I grant you, it’s not an easy thing having to walk into a room of total strangers and to come out ‘hitched’, and it brings out all kinds of behaviours. Some throw themselves into the thick of it whilst others hang back and observe. Some have come with a shopping list of the attributes and artform-speciality of their ideal suitor, and will brook no alternative – they’re in for a shock. Some (amongst the more ‘mature’ of the group) have well-formed ideas of what does (and does not) constitute community arts, and eye some of the younger, flightier participants with circumspection.

To add to the mix I threw in some of my own theories about the different origins and lineages of community and socially-engaged art. I enjoyed myself researching this, digging backwards all the way to Marx and Engels, Ruskin, William Morris and Margaret Mead. I trawled through Boal and Friere, Beuys and Breton travelling from Welfare State to El Sistema, and all the time asking myself whether different traditions could be found between the four countries taking part. I enjoyed discovering the Belgian Pascal Gielen who, amongst other things, has evolved a nice way of positioning different kinds of community art, according to two axes which lie between the extremities of ‘art as subversion’ and ‘art as integration’; and between ‘art which serves the artist first’, and ‘art in which the artist disappears’.

Gielen, in his book Community Art: the Politics of Trespassing also poses the challenging question:

Does the new generation of committed artists really possess the same sincerity and naivety as the previous ones or are we now dealing with a smarter, more strategic but perhaps more opportunistic specimen?

which was much debated during the gathering.

In the end some people found a partner, some found none and, in a laudable bit of rule-bending, some found two to form ‘trandems’. You can find out more about the teams and what they are planning to do together here. But, in a nutshell, we have an old punk/new punk Anglo-Dutch pairing; a threesome working in youth theatre; another trio looking to develop a digital ‘memory box’ of people’s recollections in three deprived communities; and a pairing of a tiny town in Belgium with a rough-tough suburb of Amsterdam.

In December we moved on to Oberhausen in Germany to consummate the relationships with high-flying ideation and some nitty-gritty project-planning, all with a spot of indoor camping and group cooking in a converted industrial water tower.

Having interviewed the participants individually I know this is a big step for them all, both risky but tremendously exciting. Some of them have to justify to their colleagues back home that they’re not just on a jolly, but will bring back something nourishing and lasting to their locality. Others see it as a potential game-changer in the course of their practice and career. I’m particularly pleased to see the Brits so enthusiastically buying into this cross-Channel adventure given the current climate of little-Englanderism that pervades our scepter’d isle.

It all comes to fruition in the summer, and will hopefully be considered enough of a success to enable this pilot to be translated into an ongoing programme – so watch out for further calls to participate.

More information at http://tandemexchange.eu/

SUMMIT GOING ON

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director


Photo: Dawn Robinson Photography, courtesy of Kirklees Communities and Leisure

 

What better way to kick the new year into top gear than an afternoon taking "an international, national and local view of how creative thinking, activity and problem solving have found innovative solutions to regeneration, community development and economic growth"? Well done Kirklees Communities and Leisure, for putting on a Creative Summit that offered "world renowned keynote speakers" and brought together dozens from the local creative sector. Those kinds of energising opportunities come round all too rarely.

So with "creativity is the cornerstone of innovation" as the hook for the afternoon, what spurs did we get to go forth, be creative and innovate?

We got some juicy facts and figures. Compelling figures - taken from recently published DCMS Creative Industries estimates - of the kind that make you feel grateful to be working in a booming sector rather than an ailing one (the 2.5 million people employed in the UK's creative economy account for one in twelve of all jobs; the creative workforce has been growing faster than other sectors; creative businesses' GVA accounts for 5.2% of the UK economy). And thought-provoking facts of the kind that make you wonder if current education policy isn't missing a trick - according to Wayne Hemingway's sources, truancy rates at Key Stage 4 are lower in Design than in all other school subjects, and highest in the STEM subjects (on which note you might like to take a look at STEM to STEAM).

We got music.  The Charlie Winston 'Boxes' song that Dr Rita Klapper used to get us thinking about breaking out of habitual thinking and behaviours was pure cheese, but as a device it seemed to work. Contributions from the floor suggested that plenty of people connected with the idea that we too easily get boxed into constraining roles and socially imposed identities when in fact we all have the possibility of being "a thousand me's" - doubtless a reassuring notion for anyone trying to jigsaw together a viable living from 'portfolio working'. The passing round of actual boxes into which unsuspecting audience members were invited to fit themselves perhaps laboured the point a little, but their solutions were all nicely creative and it provided some ice-breaking entertainment for the rest of us. Tellingly, no one came up with the response that Dr Rita was really looking for - refusing to even try.

David Parrish gave us a salutary reminder that creativity is not the sole domain of those who work in the arts sector but is in and around us all; and that Creativity + Innovation won't make a successful business unless you do the hard bit and get your business formula right too. He had wise things to say about the importance of knowing yourself and keeping a sharp eye on your competitive environment, the benefits of co-opetition, the marketing power of the freebie, protecting your creative and intellectual property, and the choices to be made between being a creative labourer and a creative entrepreneur (one makes you money while you sleep, the other doesn't). All good stuff, and all freely available to be dug into more deeply in the eminently readable T-Shirts and Suits - useful back-up for anyone present whose concentration was distracted by the whoooosh on every slide change.

From Wayne Hemingway we got great stories - ones that I imagine he's dined out on quite a bit over the years (while privately wishing he were at home with a bowl of cereal?) but they stand up to the re-telling. His own business start-up story, alongside partner Gerardine (now she sounds like a woman who refuses to be boxed in by fear of the unknown) is an inspirational tale of can-do entrepreneurship for which the phrase 'nothing ventured nothing gained' might have been coined. Fast forward 20 years to the Hemingways' collaboration with Wimpey Homes (Gerardine - "just because we've never designed houses before doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a go") and the start of their award-winning involvement in social housing design. This being an area of particular personal interest, and a direct link to the "bringing innovative solutions to regeneration and community development" bit of the Summit publicity which I'd found so enticing, I was sorry not to get more on this - but Mr H was respectful enough to recognise that more from him would cut the next speaker short. Would it have made a difference if he'd known she wasn't actually going to speak? Anyway, happy to do cereal at mine any time you fancy a further chat, Wayne.

More music - and more cheese, this time of the disco variety - from art lecturer, performer and self-confessed music and social media obsessive, Dr Rebekka Kill. It was late afternoon, the sugar surge from the cake-and-networking break had worn off and we'd been listening to speakers for 3+ hours - but suddenly a room full of heads nodding to the beats, hips shimmying gently in seats. Dr Kill rocked. History will probably never relate whether it was actually white wine in the bottle that she necked her way through, but it introduced an element of edginess into the proceedings. Glugging wine straight from the bottle?!  Before six  o'clock, on a Wednesday?!
 

This wasn't necessarily innovation (it seems djtheduchess has done this gig several times before) but it was a refreshingly novel twist - a whole keynote speaker slot completed with not a word spoken, not even a Q&A. The format meant that the concepts behind the 7" vinyl - conveyed in snappy one-liners via PowerPoint - were condensed almost to the point of oversimplification, but it made for a nicely pithy presentation with certainly enough content to be thought-provoking. Look - it is possible to be a successful hybrid of your various selves, rather than living out your academic days and your disc-spinning nights in different boxes. What will the new forms of social media look like - disco-esque Facebook, punky Twitter, the best bits of both, or neither of the above? I'm not sure that the overriding objective of the event was to leave the audience pondering the question 'So am I Disco or am I Punk?', but it was a great note to end on.

So, we got examples of creative thinking and good advice on being creatively entrepreneurial, in abundance. Did we get innovation, and the impetus to make more of it happen? We did each receive a dinky take-away sample of the hottest in printing technology, courtesy of the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (check out the A Primer on 3D Printing TED Talk for an eye-opening introduction). But a skip round TED's Innovation category, Nesta's catalogue or Culture Label's publications on creative entrepreneurship (to name but three) might suggest that, at that particular moment in Huddersfield, we were some way away from the cutting edge.  And yet it's all relative, isn't it? I imagine every one of us will have taken away a lightbulb moment, some stimulus, a conversation, a concept or a connection that will prompt us to try something we've not tried before, take a leap in our business, form a new alliance, devise a new project or shake up a habitual way of doing something.

Innovations and creative sparks will emerge from the Summit on our terms and in our own contexts, then. Some will be small and some more significant, game-changing even. How about sharing yours with the rest of us in some way - disco, punk, or whatever works for you?