In 2020, we were commissioned by The Turnpike CIC in Leigh to produce a two-year project titled Making of Us. Funded by Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s Culture Fund, the programme was delivered by a dedicated project team in partnership with Wigan Targeted Youth Support Services, True Colours CIC and The Together Trust.
Supporting 16 early to mid-career socially engaged artists, Making of Us was designed to address the lack of professional development opportunities for those freelance artists delivering socially engaged work in Greater Manchester, and to trial a professional development pathway for artists that would make a significant and lasting impact on the lives of young people with complex needs. Uniquely this programme included the opportunity for artists to put their developing skills into practice through a series of community projects in Wigan, North Manchester, Tameside and Stockport.
The programme was delivered in two phases. During each phase, an artist cohort was invited to participate in a series of development workshops and mentoring sessions facilitated by sector professionals through a combination of online and face-to-face delivery. Following implementation of Covid restrictions in March 2020, the CPD programme was reworked to include an exploration of socially engaged practice in light of emerging digital and socially distanced approaches.
Alongside development workshops, the artists were placed into pairs and allocated a community partner with whom to collaborate. This gave them the opportunity to put the learnings from the CPD programme into practice by working closely with another artist to co-design and co-create a creative project with a group of young people from one of the project’s five partner settings over a period of approximately 8 – 10 weeks. All 8 projects were documented by a filmmaker who created a series of micro-films.
An external evaluator was recruited as part of the Making of Us Project Team to embed continuous reflective practice from the outset. This enabled the programme to be extremely agile and respond to feedback almost immediately, a methodology that helped to foster a culture of care and inclusivity within the artist cohort; increasing self-awareness, developing creative thinking skills and encouraging active engagement in work processes.
In May 2022 following the success of Making of Us, FS Creative were commissioned by Wigan Council to deliver A New Exchange, a consecutive learning and development programme for early to mid-career socially engaged artists living and working in Greater Manchester.
Again funded by Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the six month programme built on the foundation, success and legacy of Making of Us, with a continued focus on artist development, co-creation, collaboration and community engagement. It was underpinned by a number of key principles that shaped the success of Making of Us, notably reflective practice, care, diversity, access and inclusion.
A key point of difference to Making of Us was that we invited back 3 artists from the original programme to work alongside 3 newly recruited early-career artists, who were interested in developing skills and knowledge in socially engaged practice, with a particular focus on working with vulnerable young people.
Building on learnings from the Making of Us the collaborative projects took place over a slightly longer time period and the CPD programme was based on a combination of facilitated workshops, mentoring, and peer-to-peer skills/experience sharing led by the 3 Making of Us artists. These artists further expanded their experience of socially engaged practice co-creating projects with programme partners they hadn’t engaged with previously, and shared their experiences and learnings from the original programme with a new cohort of artists, developing skills in peer-to-peer mentoring, knowledge exchange and professional development.
The programme was delivered through our successful long-term partnerships with Wigan Targeted Youth Support Services, True Colours CIC and The Together Trust. Click HERE to access the evaluation reports.
Following on from the success of Making of Us and A New Exchange, FS Creative are currently looking for funders and commissioning partners to support and develop the next phase of this fully inclusive learning and development programme for socially engaged artists working with young people across the North West. If this is something that might be of interest to you, please contact FS Creative HERE
Film: Carl Davies, 2021 & 2022
Images: Making of Us, The Turnpike CIC, 2021 & A New Exchange, The Turnpike Gallery, 2023
FS Creative 