Our innovative, interdisciplinary projects bring together creativity, heritage and sustainability to support transformation and inspiration at the heart of community. We are artist-, volunteer- and community-led, committed to supporting the local and regional arts and rural ecology.
Central to our vision as an organisation are the well-documented benefits of open-ended, playful, exploratory creative processes to support resilience and enable a sense of radical transformation. We bring this open-endedness together with heritage arts and crafts activities to provide an innovative, inclusive volunteer, artist and community-led programme that is unique in the local cultural ecology. We aim to focus on and respond to a number of specific challenges and outcomes for the local population, where there is a high proportion of older people experiencing rural isolation and lack of opportunity for young people.
Our aims are based on a vision for a grassroots organisation that is led by local lived experience and opens innovative ways to create a new sense of community and place across different diverse groups who may not otherwise connect. We are, in particular, focussed on responding to rural isolation and working to support new ways to bring all ages together to think about sustainable futures. We aim to engage with all ages through a diverse programming that mixes more accessible and familiar content, including heritage crafts and art, with other more challenging but rewarding activities that introduce new outcomes and unique experiences. We are particularly keen to provide opportunities for intergenerational creativity where, for example, adults can experience the way children create and play. We create opportunities for reflecting on sustainability through a choice of materials or an understanding of the needs of the natural world and the impact of climate change. We are also particularly interested in continuity by providing long-term activities that can help us sustain engagement and really understand the needs and interests of individuals we work with. Through our “Pay What You Can”, taster and free activities we address inclusivity because of economic barriers. We also signpost to community transport providers and subsidise travel costs if needed and possible.
