The nuts and bolts of making work with and for our communities during COVID.

11 AUGUST 2020 2-3.30pm

We know that there is immense value to the sharing of intimate, small scale, creative moments with participants, communities and audiences. This online discussion event will consider and give practical examples of how artists and arts organisations are adapting programmes to work safely with the public – discovering exciting new ways of working as well as sharing the challenges.

How will we continue to share a feeling of intimacy and be part of a close community when scientific advice sees personal proximity as inherently dangerous?

Online festivals and creative content have the potential to reach wider, diverse audiences. But how can we also co-create events with off-line communities and where do the two cross -over?

Presented by b-side and chaired by Lorna Rees (Artistic Director of Gobbledegook Theatre and Outdoor Arts UK Board member) we hope to explore different approaches to these questions and open up a helpful discussion amongst speakers and attendees.

This is a free event but booking is essential. Link to Zoom will only be sent to a ticket holder

Invited speakers:

Lorna Rees – Artistic Director Gobbledegook Theatre and Outdoor Arts Uk Board member)

Lorna Rees is an artist, director and performer. She is the Artistic Director of Gobbledegook Theatre who create innovative, cross art form outdoor work, which tours nationally and internationally. Her work is often inspired by Earth Sciences and Landscapes. Lorna is also an activist, creating projects under the banner of ‘Disruption and Joy’.

Andrea Francis – Festival Director Bournemouth Arts By The Sea

Andrea is Cultural Development Manager for BCP Council. Her role includes elements of strategy and policymaking, handling funding bids and grant distribution, partnership management, placemaking projects, public realm art and enabling community participation in the arts. In her role she also acts as Festival Director of the Bournemouth Arts by the Sea festival – an outdoor, combined-arts festival and the conurbation’s annual celebration of culture and outdoor arts. Andrea is originally from Kent, studied Reading University, worked in London for several years and found her way into the creative industries as Business Manager at the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone. She moved to Bournemouth in 2016.

“Due to the impact of Covid 19 we’ve created a completely new and restructured programme for Arts by the Sea 2020 with public safety in mind. We’re closely following the latest government guidelines for outdoor events and will be hosting a limited number of live experiences which will be capacity controlled, ticketed and designed to allow social-distancing. Ticketed events are all in an installation format which allow the audience to flow around or through with one-way entry. We’ll also be hosting an exciting combination of digital activities, workshops and online streams. Arts by the Sea is a BCP Council run event which means we work closely with colleagues in other departments including Events, Parks and Tourism to manage public spaces in a safe way.”

Tom Green – Producer Refugee Week and Platforma Festival, Counterpoints Arts

Tom Green is a producer at Counterpoints Arts, a a leading national organisation in the field of arts, migration and cultural change. He works in particular to support artists and organisations through the Platforma and Refugee Week networks, and is also producing the No Direction Home stand-up comedy project which is currently running online.

Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees. It is an open platform, co-ordinated by Counterpoints Arts, taking place in June each year. For 2020 we ran it as a virtual festival, offering support, advice and resources for organisations, schools and individual artists to share online performances, discussions, screenings, workshops and art works. At Counterpoints we also produced our own online programme which ran alongside around 350 other online events across the UK and internationally.

Kim Wide Executive Director Take A Part CIC

Kim Wide is a curator/producer of projects that engage diverse audiences, increasing access to arts and culture, build organisations, develop social enterprises and community led regeneration processes. Hailing from Canada, her background is in heritage.    In 2009, Kim founded Take A Part CIC with its innovative and award winning co-commissioning curatorial process developed and managed by communities – the Arts Action Group model. Kim built Take A Part from a pilot project in 2006 to become an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in 2018. She has also established Take A Part Carlow (ROI) and We Create (Cheltenham) based on the Arts Action Group model of working. Recently, Kim initiated the South West branch of the Social Art Network.

She is also the founder of Social Making – the UK’s only biennial symposium on socially engaged practice (Presenters have included Assemble, Mammalian Diving Reflex, HomeBaked, Helen Cammock, Heart of Glass, Bank Job, Tom Marshman – http://www.effordtakeapart.org.uk/social-making/).
Take A Part this year has been focussing its work on the Coxside area of Plymouth and since the COVID crisis, has been responding on the ground in communities where people live with projects such as Creative Packs, Community Zines, Socially Distanced Carnivals and lots of time and development to best understand where people are, what they need and how to best support on the ground right now.

Zoom