Dudley Creates - the projects so far
Images courtesy of Black Country Collage Club
We’ve tentatively started to support a lovely range of projects in Dudley this year. We use the word ‘tentatively’ due to the situation we’ve all found ourselves in during the pandemic. The CBC team and associate producers, Kerry + Laura, have thought a lot about how to approach community-based work that is safe, socially distanced and that adheres to government guidelines.
Our aim is always to make work as inclusive and as accessible as possible while still offering a quality experience for all of those involved - this of course has proved challenging. Some of us are shielding, others are yet to have been offered the vaccine, some people are justifiably nervous and many of us are sometimes a little confused about what the guidelines mean we can or can’t do.
However we’re a creative organisation after all and the desire to continue to produce projects has been overwhelming to us all, so while the start has been careful, considered and slow we’ve been enjoying seeing the results.
TO START THE YEAR
We started 2021 by making plans, mapping projects happening across Dudley Borough and reaching out to creatives and communities.
DUDLEY CREATIVE COMMUNITY GROUPS
As part of our Creative Communities strand of work (Laura is also the CBC Creative Advisor for Dudley) we’d already started supporting several projects including Wild About Stourbridge (an outdoor community sound project), Ruskin Mill Trust (who are producing a new adaptation of of a King Arthur play) and Sgtpeppers Friends (a friendship group who are producing story podcasts about people’s lives).
Laura has also been hosting ‘Creative Confidence’ sessions with Stourbridge Job Centre to help offer advice, support and knowledge to young people who have left school / college and are looking for next-step guidance. We’re looking to continue our work with the team on how we can make this support more tailored and inspiring - giving them additional skills and offering talks with creatives who are currently working on projects.
DUDLEY CREATIVE CONNECTION COMMISSIONS (supported by Black Country Living Museum and Paycare)
We were delighted to see 5 projects from the borough commissioned via our Creative Connections strand of work, this included: Instagram photography project Yam Cams, Positive Postcards by the Holly Grove Art Club, Life from our doorstep by Wordsley Together and Sion Bree, pottery project The Future Beneath My Feet by Woodsetton Art Pottery and sound and podcast project Walking Through Waterways History: Netherton Tunnel to Hawne basin on the Dudley No 2 Canal by Alarum Productions.
Next steps - we’ll be working with our Creative Community Groups and Creative Connection Commissions to harness their good work and see if there are further opportunities to build on the projects and grow them. This can include a mix of further support (from sharing ideas or being a sounding board to pointing groups in the direction of further funding support or help from our partners at Dudley CVS to formalise community groups), connecting groups to other resources or to each other, or commissioning them to produce a larger-scale project.
DUDLEY CREATES COMMISSIONS + SUPPORT
Meanwhile we’ve been supporting other emerging projects including: Brierley Hill Culture Consortium (supporting their successful application to Heritage Lottery with an offer to assist community groups by adding value to project proposals over the next 2 years); Dudley Time Rebels - a project with CoLab Dudley that looks at reimagine the High Street of the future; Black Country Collage Club - a group of people that work with collage as a creative form using archive images from the town and residents; and Crafting Dudley - a quilting and embroidery project using imagery from the Dudley People’s Archive.
Next steps - throughout 2021 we’ll be working with all of these projects and adding more to the list. This includes an outdoor crafting project in Greenfield Gardens, Stourbridge and helping to discover a ‘More Than Human High Street’ with Good Life CIC in Dudley Town. We’re also developing commission opportunities for creatives to work across the Borough capturing 21st century life.
GETTING PEOPLE CREATING ONLINE
During May we also hosted a week of workshops to kick-start our Dudley Creates activity. Photographer and weaver Nilupa Yasmin, photographer Andrew Jackson, poet Rupinder Kaur, artist and illustrator Sarah Taylor Silverwood and textile and collage artist Karen Garland all hosted online workshops via Zoom while multi-disciplinary artist Gavin Rodgers hosted an in-person workshop to teenagers within a school setting.
The key reason for this week of creative offering was to:
Assess and temperature check what people might be interested in - both attendees and artists.
To build relationships and find out more about working with visual artists and crafters in the digital realm.
Encouraging gentle creative activity and engagement in Dudley during a turbulent year.
To soft launch our a year-long programme.
We wanted to offer a diverse range of artists and artforms to open the workshops to a wider audience but also wanted it to inform our next steps.
FEEDBACK
Workshop 01 - Paper Weaving with Nilupa
“Loved it! The artist was very passionate about her demonstration and really invested in discussing theory of weaving and showed samples of her work which left me in awe. I loved her energy and her story. I learned a great deal”.
“I loved it. It was great to make art, chat and learn a new skill. I felt I had accomplished something “
Next steps: Nilupa’s session was very relaxed and calming offering up a great space to chat in a serene atmosphere. While paper weaving is an accessible art form Nilupa brings a twist by using photography and storytelling techniques to the work. The workshops lend themselves to both online and offline formats and we’ve asked Nilupa to think about working with migrant communities and intergenerational groups in Dudley.
Workshop 02 - Telling Your Story using Photography with Andrew
“A thought provoking and inspiring session. I am looking forward to the post workshop activity.”.
“I would have liked time to demo my Photography attempts as well”
“What an inspiring event! I really liked that it was a smaller group which felt intimate, comfortable, safe and friendly. Andrew was inspiring and I came off really thinking about what I want to take and how I want to take it. Some of his comments about positionality have really made me think. Laura and Kerry great hosts. A brilliant way to spend a Monday evening!”
“Thoroughly enjoyed. I’m not a photographer myself but feel inspired to have a go and create my own 6 images to tell my story. Fascinating to here the photographers own family and photography experience”.
Next steps: Andrew shared some of his work and practice while asking questions around positionality and who gets to tell a story. It was a fascinating discussion that helped attendees to think about questions to ask when taking photographs and the complexities of telling other people’s stories, and even their own when family is involved. Andrew spends most of his time in Canada (he is from Dudley and was in the Black Country when he hosted this talk) where he now lives and we have been talking to him about a ‘twinned’ project with communities near his Canadian home and Dudley.
Workshop 03 - poetry with Rupinder
“It was an enjoyable session that was well led. The hosts were very friendly and welcoming and introduced the project. It was a great opportunity to be productive and connect with new people and creative opportunities”.
“Perfect got to first starting poetry will be writing again“
“Brilliant!”.
“Great - loved the variety and the sharing of work - very inspirational in such a short session - well done Rupinder”
“lovely event, great prompts, relaxed atmosphere”
“It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. I would love it to be 75 minutes in length”.
Next Steps: Rupinder introduced ‘confessional’ poetry to the group and asked them to look at the work of Kim Addonizio. She then gave space and time for the workshop attendees to write poems and share them. She used several simple prompts to help get people started.
We’ve asked Rupinder to think about how we might use poetry in a broader setting with ideas to tell stories about life in Dudley.
Workshop 04 - Ads for Dudley with Sarah
"It was great, something a bit different but with fairly local like minded people”
"Absolutely loved it. Please do more!”
"Great event, well organised and a lot of fun!”
"Explanation supported by examples. Supportive. Positive. Fun. Inclusive. Friendly”.
Next steps: Illustrator and visual artist Sarah hosted a fun evening that helped us think about the fun assets and places across the Borough which encouraged funny stories and humorous anecdotes to turn in to an ‘Ads for Dudley’ poster.
Sarah is working with us to develop ideas around a project later in the year.
Workshop 05 - Digital collage with Karen
“Excellent - really enjoyed the event”
“I absolutely loved this event, energising and stimulating, loved meeting Karen Garland, and it was the most interesting workshop I have done all year. Would like to do another longer one perhaps with Karen, but she put a lot into just one hour and it was all very easy to recreate at home as well. Thank you to Dudley Creative for organising all this”.
“Loved it, absolutely loved it completely inspiring and awesome. Would ve liked time to create something in the workshop”
“Really inspiring. I feel like you have open-end a whole new world to me in that session Karen - it was brilliant. Thank you”.
“Really professional and informative And inspiring. Came away with so so so many ideas and raring to go!! Really excited and proud that the Black Country has this going on for them, good to know in case I move home!“
“I really enjoyed the session and felt so inspired to create something. I was creating something whilst the Artist was talking. I had a lot of fun and would love to do further workshops”.
“Brilliant, really accessible and entertaining. Loved it!”
“Great fun and discovered how easy the apps are to use”
What next: We completed our online workshops with textile artist and illustrator Karen Garland who presented a popular workshop on digital collage. Since the workshop several attendees have continued with what they have learnt setting up their own Instagram accounts.
Karen is meeting us to discuss how we might continue the popularity of the session and turn in to to something bigger scale.
So what now? We looked at what we should start, stop, or continue doing?
Start: a more hybrid approach next time (online/physical) when restrictions ease to open up the opportunities to more people.
Start: plan earlier so artists have time to confirm arrangements and information can be sent out altogether.
Continue: Make the ‘digital space’ as comfortable as possible for people as some participants kept their camera off even though some activity was participatory.
Continue: Trying different times of the day for future activities.
Continue: A Human Centred Design approach to liaising with artists.
We’ll be hosting another series of workshops in the Autumn - they will likely be a mix of online and in person so that we offer support to those that can get out and those that can’t. We know that 2021 will still be a difficult year but we’re excited to be supporting creativity - whatever its form.
If you’d like to get in touch about a project idea in Dudley that includes communities then we’d love to hear from you. kerry@creativeblackcountry.co.uk / Laura@creativeblackcountry.co.uk