High Peak Community Arts

Youth and Community Arts for the High Peak

Space to Explore – how we got here

We have planned and delivered a neurodiversity project led by and for neurodivergent adults, with accessibility built in. We considered how to make it accessible as possible by creating floor plans, the use of colour cards with moods on them, as well as information cards and videos explaining neurodiversity. We did a baseline questionnaire at the beginning of the project to assess what participants’ need in order to access the project, as well as what they wanted to achieve by the end of the project.

We delivered art projects on Tuesdays that express the thoughts and experiences of the participants, helping them to set life goals and improve confidence and wellbeing. The projects ranged from a series of mixed media projects focussing on participants’ special interests, to digital projects like photography and 3D rendering that expressed their experiences of monotropism.  As a result we produced zines, unique stand alone pieces, blog posts, information cards on the key themes, and accompanying videos.

The outcomes so far have been not only the beautiful artwork, but tangible benefits to the participants, and pointers from our steering group about how to make it even better. Participants gave continuous feedback about what they liked about the project, many saying they enjoyed the social aspect, the extra support from the workers, and producing high quality end products:

‘I enjoyed that, I went home and proper chilled after that’
‘Gave me the confidence to continue my creative writing, and make something of it.”
‘Gordon made me feel really listened to… included… genuinely it made me really happy and wanting to come back every week’.
‘I feel all woo…a double paged spread sounds really professional’
‘I enjoy it, it gets me out the house…’

The feedback from the steering group and feedback forms lead to creating subcategories of art projects, and set clear individual goals. This allows us to help participants to achieve personal goals through going to the sessions, and match participants to the artists in the field they want to work in. This has informed what we want from artists applying to deliver sessions in the coming year.

Artist call out for Space to Explore

We are looking for experienced community artists to lead creative activities on the Space to Explore project, possibly linking to the Cabinet of Curiosities theme.
Click here to download the full brief and application instructions.

You will lead a project from inception, deliver the sessions, and see the project develop into high quality art pieces and meaningful experiences. As lead on the project, you will develop your project ideas with us and get support from trained mental health support staff and volunteers when delivering sessions.

You will support neurodivergent adults in their creative abilities, as well as provide a safe space for them to be themselves and work towards their long-term goals.  We are especially interested in people who work and deliver sessions in the artforms detailed in the steering group section listed above. There are also opportunities for developing connections with leading arts organisations, artists, poets and creatives.

Click here for more on the process of the project, from Space to Explore project worker, Elinor.

Deadline for applications: 10th January

Shortlisting 14th January

Interviews, if needed, 21st January

Projects to begin early in 2025, running to at least summer 2026.

 

Send any questions to elinor@highpeakarts.org

SMART

SMART (Serious Makers of ARTs) launched in October half term thanks to a new grant from Northern Rail Community Improvement Fund.
The SMART scheme aims to support young people’s ambitions to enter the arts sector with a creative training scheme for age 13 – 25s, especially aimed at those interested in non-traditional routes into careers.

We began with a Creative Training Camp between 29 th – 31 st October, where participants learned the basics of planning and running a workshop, had one-to-ones with experienced creative professionals and stretched their creativity in Virtual Reality creative apps. Sessions were run by Trixi Bold, a community dance practitioner with 18 years experience of dance teaching and leadership training; Gareth Carbery, multi-intrumentalist and music producer with 25 years experience of collaboration and education; and Joseph Doubtfire, visual artist and specialist in VR applications for 3D sculpting. Trixi said “I always love running leadership training, it’s so important for young people’s development as artists or other creative practitioners”. Progression from these sessions will be supported by HPCA Creative Programme Manager, Sophie Mackreth, with over 20 years experience of producing community and youth arts programmes.

Nine people aged from across the age range signed up in October, and they will get future opportunities to test their skills as a young volunteer on other HPCA projects, access mentoring and apply for paid work on the youth programme. Two members are now joining the Derbyshire Makes steering group – watch this space for more news on that Sophie said “this approach is particularly suited for neurodivergent young people, or anyone who faces a barrier to accessing routes such college and university. These settings and the reliance on unpaid work experience have traditionally excluded many creative people from entering the creative industries.”

Anyone wanting to sign up should go to www.highpeakarts.org/SMART, or contact sophie@highpeakarts.org for more information. Sessions are at Victoria Hall in Glossop, but there is some transport support available.

Sign up for October Half Term – SMART – Creative Training Camp

We are celebrating winning a grant from Northern Rail Community Improvement Fund!

This funding will support young people’s ambitions to enter the arts sector with the launch of SMART (Serious Makers of ARTs) a creative training scheme for age 13 – 25s, especially aimed at those interested in non-traditional routes into careers.

SMART will launch with a Creative Training Camp between 29th – 31st October, where participants will learn the basics of planning and running a workshop, have one-to-ones with experienced creative professionals and stretch their creativity in Virtual Reality creative apps. 

Sign up here:

 

Sessions will be run by Trixi Bold, a community dance practitioner with 18 years experience of dance teaching and leadership training; Gareth Carbery, multi-intrumentalist and music producer with 25 years experience of collaboration and education; and Joseph Doubtfire, visual artist and specialist in VR applications for 3D sculpting.  Trixi said “I always love running leadership training, it’s so important for young people’s development as artists or other creative practitioners”.  Progression from these sessions will be supported by HPCA Creative Programme Manager, Sophie Mackreth, with over 20 years experience of producing community and youth arts programmes.

For those who sign up there will be future opportunities to test their skills as a young volunteer on other HPCA projects, access mentoring and apply for paid work on the youth programme.

Sophie said “this approach is particularly suited for neurodivergent young people, or anyone who faces a barrier to accessing routes such college and university.  These settings and the reliance on unpaid work experience have traditionally excluded many creative people from entering the creative industries.”

Photography

In the Spring, and luckily with sunny days, the Space to Explore group had a series of photography workshops with artist Mark Turton. With ‘attention to detail’ as our theme, participants explored the gardens and surrounds of St. Matthew’s Church and took lots of lovely photographs- including many of the beautiful flowers. Some people then enjoyed editing their photos – others just enjoyed taking photos and then looking at each other’s pictures projected onto the wall, analysing what worked well with the different shots and choosing favourites. Several people created postcard designs from a collection of their images. We are going to use these by writing useful information about different aspects of neurodivergence on the back, and having some sets printed to distribute. Watch this space!

Creative Writing and Shadow Puppets

 

As a way of celebrating and enjoying participants’ special interests – including trains, ships, planes, Berlin, dragons, dogs, otters, octopi, penguins and planets – participants worked with artist Gordon MacClellan to create a splendid array of shadow puppets which we then wove into fun stories in our final session before the summer break.

It’s In our Nature – Save the Date for our Festival Showcase – Sunday 29th September.

This year, the work from Project eARTh and the youth programme, as well as the results from our intergenerational holiday workshops will all feature in our Showcase, as part of New Mills Festival at Spring Bank Arts. Expect to see the building full of felted landscapes, felted and papier maché animals, a flock of doves, local landscapes on the move in the ‘Cranky’, poems inspired by the 61 bus route, collograph prints, ‘Film Cuts Club’ films, projections and live performance.

 

On September 29th we will take over Spring Bank Arts for a Celebratory Showcase of ‘It’s In Our Nature’.  In our final intergenerational workshops in the Easter holidays, we painted a room full of signs to highlight places in the High Peak with artist Andrea Joseph; wrote short poems about every month of the year, to be included in our ‘Journal of the Year’ with poet Genevieve Carver; recorded the ‘Route 61’ poems with Mark Turton, so they can be listened to, as well as read in the book; and created the story for the Summer School Tall Tales with Benn Turton. The story  involves an evil circus, but to find out more you will need to join in creating it (if you are aged 8-18); see the live show in August; or come on Sept 29th to see live highlights and a film at the ‘Its’ In Our Nature Showcase’.  So watch this Space for exact timings and more details – and put it in your diary now.

Space to Explore – we have a zine for you!

We are proud to present our first piece of work from the Space to Explore project, a meeting point for neurodivergent people.  This Zine – “a Safe Space – to free your mind” came from workshops with autistic artist Charlie Collins, with Helen Robson leading on the theme of feeling safe. We want to display the zine around the High Peak and beyond, so if you have ideas for where it could go, get in touch!

 

The first term of the project worked with autistic artist, Charlie Collins who runs Derbyshire Zine Library and co-leads Milestone Studios in New Mills.  The theme, led by Helen, was ‘feeling safe’ and the environments and adjustments people need to feel safe.  There were group mind maps and each person designed a page to go into the group zine, ‘Safe Space – to free your mind’. We also had debates about language – for example some like to use the term ‘neuro-spicey’ and others find it uncomfortable or disrespectful.

Group member, Jessica laid out the back page and designed a spaceman logo from other people’s ideas.  Jessica and Helen, another member, made their own zines as well, using content from their special interest areas. The group zine will be printed to be able to share and display around the High Peak and beyond!

We also collected further ideas on artforms, and we are now working with filmmaker, Mark Turton in photography and digital editing, and booked Gordon McClellan for creative writing from June. We look forward to sharing more of their work!