New arts participation programme for West Cumbria
Lorrainne Smyth, Chief Executive Officer - ACTion with Communities in Cumbria
18th February 2022
A new arts programme is set to be launched celebrating the culture and creativity in west Cumbria.
The West Cumbrian Consortium is to run a Creative, People and Places (CPP) programme across Allerdale and Copeland over the next three years, with £830k of funding secured from the Arts Council.
ACTion with Communities in Cumbria (ACT), which led the bid alongside partners, Allerdale District Council, Florence Arts Centre, West Cumbria Carers, Sellafield Limited, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and others, is developing a programme offering excellent artistic events and activities to encourage people’s creative participation, enjoyment and ambition.
The project is called We Are Here!, and has been created to celebrate, build and sustain culture and creativity in West Cumbria.
The programme will include festivals and events, artist residencies, community led commissions and workshops and allow for development of creative spaces for communities to grow their ideas and enjoy a range of experiences.
The first initiative will include taking a specially designed caravan around West Cumbria, gathering people’s views on what creativity looks like to them, how they would like to be involved and what they want to see and do.
The full programme starts in October building on the travelling caravan’s findings and working in several communities to design and deliver arts experiences for and with emerging creatives, from dancers, poets and potters to crafters, gamers, sculptors and designers. All those, in fact, who want to tell a story about their lives, the landscape, the weather, the heritage or even the future in West Cumbria – its richness and the challenges.
The group hopes to reach the point where communities feel able to commission their own arts works to celebrate their community.
Lorrainne Smyth, the CEO of ACT said: “This programme is all about participation and developing excellent activities for those who do not currently engage. We will work with arts delivery bodies, community groups, village halls and others to build and sustain creative, fun and inspiring activities that express the qualities of West Cumbria and people’s life experiences and aspirations for the future.
We are very grateful to the Arts Council for their investment of £830,000 over three years, that we hope will be locally matched.”
Cllr Tony Markley, Allerdale Borough Council's Executive member with responsibility for Leisure and Tourism, said: “Being creative, on whatever platform, however well (or badly) you do it, is good for you. For most of us, it’s part of what we do when we’re not doing the day job and this programme is about supporting people to be able to do that more, to learn and to develop skills and make friends. So, I’d encourage anyone with an interest in the project to get involved.”
We Are Here! is an action research project which means that it will be evaluated all the way through, allowing the leads to develop and build on the feedback from those taking part, to improve the delivery as it progresses.
The project will build creative communities and bring arts and culture to the areas of least participation cross West Cumbria.
For more information contact – Wearehere@cumbriaaction.org.uk
The Programme commences in October 2022 and starts a required Business Plan development phase in April 2022.