Marking the Forum's first anniversary

Culture Forum North update, March 2017

At the launch of the Forum in Leeds in May last year, our partnerships were credited by Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of Arts Council England and Prof Andrew Thompson, chief executive of the AHRC, as fundamental to building a resilient cultural sector.

Nearly a year on the Forum has more members, more case studies and acts as a conduit for sharing knowledge, experience and ideas.

We have also embarked, with Arts Council support, on a programme of data-gathering to create a heat map of partnership activity across the North – a repository of experience that will inform new partnerships and future Forum initiatives for the benefit of our sectors.

This update: –

Announces the date and content for the next Culture Forum North symposium in Hull.
Asks that you support the data-gathering process by participating in a half-hour (max) telephone interview before the end of May.
Promotes two freelance contract opportunities to undertake the interviews and a research audit.
Circulates the notes from the 15 December Forum meeting in Rotherham last December.
Shares news from our Partners.

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Culture Forum North symposium 2017

Date for your diary

Thursday 22 June 2017

University of Hull

With topics including….

How the Virtuous Triangle of Arts, Higher Education and Business can make for Prosperous Places

Against the backdrop of Hull City of Culture we will explore the potential for three-way collaboration to strengthen communities and economies.

Launching the Culture Forum North HeatMap

A new, accessible resource showcasing models of partnership working in research, skills development and placemaking. See below.

Developing new ideas and activities

On the themes of skills development, place-making and knowledge creation

Networking and work-shopping

Opportunities to chat informally and participate in group discussions responding to business speakers and the HeatMap.

Further information in early April

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The new Culture Forum North HeatMap

Building on discussions at the Forum workshop in Rotherham last December, the Forum is undertaking three pieces of work with the aim of creating an easily accessible archive of material demonstrating the models and spread of partnership activity across the North on the theme of: –

How the cultural and HE sectors work together to help build a stronger, more skilled and more diverse cultural workforce.

How the expertise of the small-scale sector across multiple artforms can be supported through HE partnership.

How research is providing valuable knowledge on the impact of HE/cultural partnership activity.

To create the archive, we depend on our Partners to provide an insight into their activity on these themes.

Rest assured it will be straight forward and quick, involving one word answers to a small number of questions via email, and potentially a twenty-minute telephone discussion.

There will be some time needed from University Partners to identify one piece of research that would be helpful to cultural partners and ensuring that all permissions for use are in place before publication on the CFN website.

We will be in touch shortly.

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See here for the notes from the Forum meeting in Rotherham on 15 December 2016, and the action plan for the creation of the HeatMap.

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Commissioning the HeatMap audit: two paid opportunities

Culture Forum North has been awarded ACE funding for two pieces of work, to source and collate data to contribute to the HeatMap.

Auditing cultural sector skills development activity delivered in partnership between the cultural and higher education sectors
Identifying and summarising existing research resources on topics relevant to Culture Forum North areas of interest.

See here for the consultancy briefs, application process and deadlines

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Partner News

DARE: Opera North and University of Leeds announced the winner of the first DARE Art Prize for artists and research scientists working together.

The newly launched Philip Barker Centre for Creative Learning (PBBCL) is an outward facing centre, based within the Faculty of Education and Children’s Services at The University of Chester that will advance the use and understanding of creativity, creative learning, pedagogy and creative practice.

A collaboration between researchers at the University of York and award-winning poet, Anna Woodford, has resulted in city buses displaying poems that depict the travel challenges of older and disabled people.

A partnership between The Tetley and Leeds Beckett University is offering a 12-month residency with professional development opportunities for an emerging design graduate.

The University of Liverpool School of Architecture partnered with Merseyside Civic Society to trace architectural excellence across Merseyside.

The University of Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and Architecture have been working with Creative Scene to examine how the work of Creative Scene impacts upon the local cultural ecology.

East Street Arts’ Live/Work scheme is providing good quality space for combined residence and studio work that encourages artists to live in an area and become active citizens in their community.

The power of animation is being used The University of Liverpool working in collaboration with artist Stacy Bias and DaDaFest to communicate the lived experiences of air travel for people who identify as fat.

Nursing students from the University of Leeds experienced a dementia themed learning day comprising theatre performance as well as lectures.