Moorlands gets prestigious art grant
'Arts Council England has awarded a grant of up to £943,000 to a three year project to increase participation in arts and culture across Staffordshire Moorlands'
The Staffordshire Moorlands has been awarded £943,000 to increase participation in arts and culture across the district.
The grant has been awarded by The Arts Council England for a project entitled ‘Outside’.
A report to councillors at the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s, community overview and scrutiny panel by executive director Mark Trillo, said: “The grant is provided through the Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places programme. This focuses on areas of England where involvement in arts and culture is below the national average.
“Arts Council England is investing £38.3 million of National lottery funding into this programme during 2022-25. It will support 39 projects in 56 local authority areas across England. Staffordshire Moorlands is one of 11 areas entirely new to Creative People and Places. It is therefore a prestigious award for the district.
“Arts Council England has awarded a grant of up to £943,000 to a three year project to increase participation in arts and culture across Staffordshire Moorlands. This resulted from a competitive bidding process, with an application successfully submitted by Support Staffordshire on behalf of a consortium which includes Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, Buxton and Leek College, and B arts (a Stoke-on-Trent-based arts organisation).
“The project, called Outside, will commence on 1st April 2022 with a 12-month preparatory period followed with two years of delivery (April 2023 - March 2025).
“Outside will be an empowerment project with a programme of arts and cultural activities that will be led by people in the Staffordshire Moorlands working with professional artists as co-producers. Together they will co-curate an arts programme that takes place in, and is about life in, the rural and isolated landscape and settlements, villages and market towns of the Staffordshire Moorlands.
“It will be a programme which is meaningful, appealing and relevant to local people, and through this approach will aim to engage the non-engaged.”
The project will focus on engaging with:
- People of all ages who are struggling with long-term limiting conditions, including adults and young people facing mental health challenges; those with physical or unseen disability; the frail elderly; and in all cases their families and carers
- The vital elderly including the recently retired; the still active; the recently bereaved; and those who are experiencing significant life milestones and are ready to engage with the arts
- Farming families, often working long hours, and under stress
- Communities with visible and hidden diversity especially Romany Gypsies, both travelling and housed; families and the communities around them with Polish heritage (from 1945 to current)
- Households who face multiple issues including poverty, unemployment, substance misuse and a lack of education attainment, all of which factors combine to put the arts out of reach.
- People of divergent sexuality.
- Young people aged between 12 and 25, whose access to the arts has been severely curtailed by the reduction of creative subjects at school and who have limited physical access to museums, libraries, theatres, concert halls and all that they offer.
The council is working with consortium members to identify ways of utilising the Nicholson Museum and Art Gallery in Leek, Staffordshire to the delivery of the project.
