Creative Scene Webinar: Building Back Better

Digital Deficit and Cultural Democracy: Building Back Better, a post-COVID cultural ecology
Thursday 26 November, 12noon - 1.30pm
To book your free place, please visit: http://bit.ly/CS-Webinars

Join us on Zoom for a conversation with Shadow Minister for Cultural Industries and MP for Batley and Spen Tracy Brabin, Dewsbury artist Stephen Turner and Proper Job’s Director Dr Chloe Whitehead to discuss the future of the arts ecology post-Covid.

During COVID, the resilience of the arts in communities across the UK has been tested: funding has been diverted, libraries, theatres and community centres shut, and artists and freelancers have been left without work.

There have also been energising changes: community organisations and collectives have become more flexible and nimble, leadership structures have become more horizontal and every day we see the value of creativity in boosting wellbeing, bringing communities together and helping shape the identify of a place.

This discussion will draw on the experiences and insight from North Kirklees in West Yorkshire – and is relevant to all towns and cities grappling with what the post-COVID landscape will bring. A sharing of ideas and experiences, this will be an opportunity to discuss what the future may hold and how arts and culture can become more prominent in our local ecologies.

“When power is shared and hierarchies of cultural value and institutions are broken down, what is the glue that will keep this ‘scene’ together? Will the roots local people have put down through the CPP investment be resilient enough to adapt to changes in new political and funding agenda? Will these roots survive and flourish?” – Nancy Barrett, Parking A Poem in a Biscuit Factory

We will also be launching Creative Scene’s first book, Parking A Poem in a Biscuit Factory: unpacking a cultural ecology, with writer and artists Len Grant.

This book looks at what it takes to build a creative ecology in an area of West Yorkshire identified by Arts Council England as being below the national average for participation in the arts, its people often alienated from the prevailing cultural scene.

It shows what motivates local people to get involved, and uncovers the unusual spaces and places which are the setting for artists and performers to create and present to curious new audiences – from cricket stations and rugby grounds, community centres, pubs and social clubs.

For more information visit http://bit.ly/CS-Webinars