Heart of Glass

At yesterday's gathering - With For About: When words fail - we heard the complex reasons why socially engaged co-created projects might need to veer off track, pivot, or even end abruptly! It can make fundraising and advocating for this field of practice a challenge. In our fourth article with Arts Professional, our Head of Communications Lucie Davies and fundraising consultant Alex Mayer reflect on the profound value in art projects that prioritise process over predefined outcomes. Read a snippet on our website, or head to Arts Professional for the full story 📖 https://lnkd.in/eFRmgYMC

For With For About (WFA), we have invited Uma Breakdown and Radha Patel to be ‘in residence’. We hope that experimenting with collaborators during the development, delivery and reflection of the day will bring and test different ways of ‘researching in public’: As listener-in-residence, Uma will create a piece of critical writing reflecting on their experience of the day, focusing on embodiment. As reader-in-residence, Radha will guide participants on the day through a creative activity to generate contributions to add to Etsolstera; a growing, speculative language exploring life without racism. Radha will also share some of their speculative writing and work around folklore to help us dream of a different reality. More information about our collaborators can be found in the WFA Welcome Pack, being sent to delegates today! Last chance tickets: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

Here’s Rialto Youth Project’s Danni Mc Kenna and artist Taey Iohe in the Cockpit at Shakespeare North Playhouse where we’ll be welcoming collaborators and audiences for With For About next week! Danni will be facilitating a workshop about Confrontation and non-violent methods of communication: Power and Youth Work, as well as speaking as part of a panel on this very stage with Taey, hosted by Susanne Bosch. Final tickets available: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

During With For About: When words fail, Áine Crowley (Create) and artist Kate O' Shea will invite attendees to consider the potential of safe and brave spaces. The workshop, Peeling Back Our Practices; Safe and Brave Spaces - What Do They Feel Like? will use the story of their own radical friendship and how this has led them to create spaces for peer-support and collective resistance. Kate O'Shea will also be sharing more about their socially engaged practice and how she arrived at the concept of Socially Engaged Art Heartbreak i a separate session on the day. Tickets for the event, taking place 10th October: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

Joining an already impressive line up of speakers and facilitators at With For About: When words fail on 10th October, are: Feminist scholar, Ailbhe Smyth, and Creative Practitioner Dr Chrissie Tiller, who will discuss the challenges and potentials of creating spaces for dialogue in increasingly polarised contexts. Find out more about them, and the event, on the Heart of Glass website: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

As part of With For About: When words fail, Susanne Bosch will explore the impact of direct and indirect communication through embodied artistic exercises and reflection, analysing space and the social body. Equipped with the understanding that humans communicate not only through words, but through gestures, mimicry, ways of breathing and body language, this workshop will sharpen our consciousness around how and what we give away to the people around us. Find out more about our gathering for socially-engaged practitioners, and book your place: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

We’re excited to welcome art historian, producer and educator Sophie Mak-Schram to Prescot for our one-day event With For About: When words fail. Inspired by her “Vest of Tools” - the strategies, instructions, objects and ideas gathered for community development and organising - we will imagine and create our own ‘tools’ during a creative workshop. A set of ideas for bringing people together, enabling conversations and helping ensure our work is equitable and lasting. Sophie’s Vest of tools: Unfixing Tools workshop is one of five options you are invited to choose from at the event on Thursday 10th October. Tickets are available now: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

Thanks to Darren Henley CBE and Jennifer Cleary from Arts Council England for paying us a visit yesterday - fantastic to have the opportunity to introduce amazing artist Cherie Grist along with some of the Stockbridge community members who created public artwork Home (images 1 and 2 by Jazamin Sinclair) A big thanks also to Annie MacLean from ForHousing and the Stockbridge Library team for hosting us. In the afternoon we were joined by our new (Stockbridge born!) Knowsley MP Anneliese Midgley at Make CIC; a chance to advocate for the borough and creativity in the borough, and to share the story of Jo Peel's Welcome Home mural (our recent collaboration with Knowsley Council).

We're excited to welcome back Taey Iohe for With For About: When words fail, our day-long gathering on Thursday 10th October exploring how we can come together when words are not enough. Taey will be facilitating a workshop entitled Transboundary Water: Mapping leaks, resistance and bodily nature. Taey will facilitate a gentle creative meditative workshop exploring the interconnectedness of human and ecological systems. Through a mix of guided listening, pair work, and artistic expression, we will investigate how environmental degradation, sociopolitical fractures, and personal crises intersect. Using the idea of “leaks” as a sign of resistance, fragility, and hope, we will meditate on how the slow processes of ecological and social change can inform pathways to healing and transformation. This is one of five workshops happening on the day, as well as a number of discussions and led by practitioners of socially engaged arts, youth work, feminist organising, and climate justice. This is one of five workshops happening on the day, as well as a number of discussions and led by practitioners of socially engaged arts, youth work, feminist organising, and climate justice. Tickets available now: https://lnkd.in/ghUCGH6T

We are thrilled to share the news that Tracy Gentles will be joining us as the new Chair of our Board of Trustees later this year. Tracy takes over from Joanna Rowlands (Director of Marketing at ACC Liverpool) who has brought leadership, calm, care and compassion to her role over the past nine years both as a Trustee and then as Chair. Joanna will be sorely missed by the staff and board, but we know we are going to be in safe hands with Tracy. Artistic Director and CEO of SICK! Festival, a leading arts and health-focused organisation based in Manchester, Tracy brings tons of experience and knowledge supporting artists and communities, as well a huge commitment to inclusion and social justice informed by her lived experience as a working class woman of colour. Tracy Gentles’ extensive experience includes founding Something To Aim For, chairing the Advisory Board at HighRise Entertainment and being an appointed member of Manchester City Council’s Cultural Consortium Steering Group. We are positive she will be an incredible asset to the organisation as we embark on our next decade of development, and we’re excited for the adventures that lie ahead! https://lnkd.in/e3jxYcG7