High Peak Community Arts

Community Arts in 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.

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.

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.

Murderous Circus – brought the house down!

Anyone who has seen a Tall Tales show before will know that the young members of High Peak Community Arts had a whirlwind ready to bring to Buxton, and on 13th August we played two shows of Murderous Circus on 13th August to sold-out and almost-sold-out audiences.

More than 40 young people aged 8 – 16 joined the Summer School, working on the original story and script which has been written since the Easter holidays.  Murderous Circus featured their songs, dance and drama, with pre-filmed clips and animations projected into the Big Top – assembled in the Buxton Community School 6th Form Dance Studio.  Not everyone is born to be on stage, so some worked back stage, specialising in props and costumes – everything made from scratch from the beginning of August.

 

One audience member said “Where do you get the stories from?  It’s kind of chaotic, but in a way that most theatre just isn’t.  It’s brilliant!”

This year’s Tall Tales was part-funded by The People’s Projects which HPCA won in June 2023 in a public vote with ITV.  The young people involved began working with Benn Turton on the theme of ‘Wellbeing & Nature’ in intergenerational workshops in February half term and Easter holidays.  Those holiday workshop generated more than 20 different story ideas and began to weave them into one narrative.  Benn returned to evening sessions in Fairfield and Gamesley to flesh out the script and get feedback from new young people who have joined the project since Easter.  The group also spent evening sessions starting the music and songs with Gareth Carbery and Rizzy Stephenson, learning dance moves with Trixi Bold, making taster animations with Mark Turton and designing the poster with Andrea Joseph.

In the August Summer School they meet members from across the High Peak and put it all together into one stunning show.  If you’ve ever wondered how a cat-dragon is born, or where the source of all life springs, take a look at the pics, and watch this space for video coming soon! 

Another audience member (aged 3 1/2) said “Wow!”

Youth programme manager, Sophie Mackreth said “we love offering a wide range of arts to young people who are at the start of their creative journeys in life – the Summer School is designed to be inclusive of disabilities, neurodiversity and family resources, that’s why all our projects are free at the point of access.  As a result the audience will hear the voice and creativity of the next generation unlike anything they’ve seen before!”

After the show a parent said “Just wanted to say thankyou to all organisers and volunteers, my daughter had a great time and we were so pleased how she spoke like she did!”

Young participant, Jess said “I’ve come because you get to do loads of stuff you haven’t done before”, and Zoe agrees “yes, it’s having new experiences”.  Another participant, Orissa, who has done the project for 3 years says “It’s fun, with my friends and I enjoy the dancing – Everyone should watch because we’ve put hard work into it.  The show is intriguing!  So have a look and find out more!”

 

Sophie says, “We’re so lucky to have long-term funding from Arts Council England and The National Foundation for Youth Music which both support multiple elements of the youth programme.  For the Tall Tales Summer School we also rely on local funder The Bingham Trust and the long term partnership of Buxton Community School whose staff welcome us enthusiastically each year”

 

It certainly was a night to remember!

 

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!

 

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