Working creatively for change since 1985
In this work we create a number of projects that deliver B arts strategic objectives to break down barriers between people and the arts and to build the arts sector in our area.
Our community bakery and arts café, Bread in Common, is a front door and gateway to participation in the arts for diverse and least engaged communities.
RISE offers baking and cooking activities plus support and skills development for adults with complex needs (predominately mental health challenges). Rise creates a space where participants can feel comfortable, are able to work with others and are supported to develop skills.
The Little School of Improbable Cooking is a creative writing project for children and parents focusing on healthy eating and holiday hunger. This project provides cooking and creative play activities for young people and families.
Project activities take place in the Bread in Common bakery and at libraries and community centres throughout Stoke on Trent.
Space to Connect provides a regular offer of food, arts and cultural activities for our neighbourhood of Stoke on Trent.
This is an open, friendly and inviting space where residents and groups are invited to take part and to shape the programming of activities. The project encourages participation and mutual understanding between communities.
Common People, our talent development programme, equips diverse local artists and producers to maximise on artist opportunities and build their skills.
Early career artists have an opportunity to develop their practice working alongside experienced artists and arts professionals in a thriving and diverse artistic programme within our company.
Artcity has been a five-year programme of opening up meanwhile, abandoned and non-arts spaces in Stoke-on-Trent for temporary use by artists.
The project enabled artistic activity in redundant spaces across the city of Stoke-on-Trent, including many empty shops, in an effort to encourage arts graduate retention and urban renewal.
The programme was a response to the beginning of austerity - what could artists do in these challenging times? How could we use our skills and competencies to imagine places as something other than the memory of previous use?
Local artists worked to create new artworks across the city. In September 2019 Artcity commissioned nationally recognised poet and writer Robert Montgomery for installation of site-specific text series ‘Stoke Works’ in each of the six towns of Stoke on Trent.