13 June 2015

On Monday evening, as part of our co|Create programme, we were privileged to host a Creative Conversation by the hugely inspiring and energetic Stella Duffy entitled, Whose Arts (and Science) is it anyway? Stella dynamically engaged us with her vision for Fun Palaces and along the way gave us micro lessons in audience engagement, the history and context of the original Fun Places concept by Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price and how to write a novel by writing 500 words a day! Stella is a theatre maker, novelist and political activist and is the Fun Palaces founder and co-director.  Through Fun Palaces, she leads the campaign to enable greater access for all to arts and sciences, with an annual event every October, locally-led and community-driven. In 2014, 138 locations and venues took part in Fun Palaces across the UK. 3181 people, most of them volunteers, were involved in creating their own Fun Palaces, and 60,000 people attended as participants. Creativity Works will be working alongside Theatre Bath and others to bring Fun Palaces to the area this year. There will be a Fun Palaces workshop happening soon and as we progress with plans will make more information available. Do come and join us and create your own Fun Palace!

Another highlight of our co|Create programme will be our International Residency with Mammalian Diving Reflex on 4^th and 5^th August, exploring their methodology entitled ‘Social Acupuncture’. This is an incredible opportunity to work with one of the leading socially engaged arts organisations working today and I anticipate that places will fill up very quickly so if you are interested do see our website, facebook page or the article in this newsletter and book your place.

Bath Fringe and Fringe Arts Bath came round again and this year we presented a hugely stimulating and adventurous project entitled An Hour A Day. This was a series of one hour workshops, seminars, discussions and debates inspired by creativity, health and wellbeing. Events ranged from an introduction to the 5 Ways to Wellbeing and a film and discussion about Art Therapy and social inclusion, to a workshop on Mindfulness and a talk about the Compassionate Mind. The programme was as diverse as the artwork on the walls that the project accompanied at the Roper Gallery at Bath Artists Studios, all courtesy of our ever-engaging project, Fresh Art@. Fresh Art continues currently in another iteration and we all look forward to seeing the remarkable work produced from this year’s project.

As I write this our Pentagon project deadline has arrived. We have had a huge amount of interest in these public art micro-commissions and I have heard several breath-taking ideas for applications. We are looking forward to some stunning socially engaged public art in B&NES. Check out our website for updates in the coming weeks.