Creative Quarter

A series of case studies exploring the role and effectiveness of the creative arts in supporting positive outcomes for people being supported by social services.

This series also includes Creative Bites (Bite-sized chunks of creativity). We invited 40 people to share their thoughts and ideas to inspire creativity and imagination in the social services.

We are here

Jason has recently completed a participatory public art project in the North East of Scotland fishing town of Peterhead. The project has seen him undertake an exhaustive approach of engagement, collaboration and output over the last two and a half years…

pARTicipate

Angus Council Day Opportunities team provides weekly visual art sessions as part of the service provision for adults with learning disabilities. The groups were established 10 years ago and artists meet and work in a local church hall in Montrose and studio space at the local theatre in Arbroath. The sessions are led by a qualified arts worker and supported by day opportunity and resource centre staff.

Being able to explain art

One of the projects I'm involved with at the moment is focused on end of life care and understanding the skills that people have to offer and the skills that they can learn even as they approach the end of their lives.

Listening to one of the projects I was struck by how little I know or understand about different art forms. In particular, how knowing more about how and why people paint pictures in the way that they do can bring a whole new perspective to visiting an art gallery.

Reconstructing ourselves

This week I started a new project.

Reconstructing Ourselves is an artist in residency project combined with a research strand. It has been funded by Arts Council of Wales. We will be working with women undergoing complex breast reconstruction.

What's the point of theatre?

What’s the point of theatre? Who is it for? What difference does it make? Are theatre buildings museums in 21st century? Do we need acting? Do most people care? These are some of the questions that have underlined Fiona’s approach to creating theatre over the last 30 years.

Fiona Miller – Director, Tricky Hat Productions

Making mistakes

We learn and grow by making mistakes. By listening, observing and trying out things, then reflecting on them, we figure out what works and what doesn’t. Then we use our assumption about why something did or didn’t work and build on that to continue to improve.

‘Failure is not a cataclysmic event. It doesn’t happen overnight. Instead it is a few errors in judgment, repeated, that occur every day.’ Jim Rohn

Living Voices

Living Voices is a national two-year project that is piloting the use of story, poems and song in care home settings across Scotland. It aims to engage and enliven groups of older people through conversation, creative activity and reminiscence.

A Better Life

Includem was founded 14 years ago to support socially excluded young people achieve better lives. Includem’s overarching framework of intervention consists of four parts, one of which is ‘A Better Life’, a core element of practice shared by all Includem services and which is the focus of this case study.

Far Flung Dance

Rhiana Laws, Inside Light, Far Flung Dance explores her unique delivery of Contemporary Dance Performance Projects for young men and women within Scottish prisons looking at professional and artistic practice and what is required to keep forging ahead as dance artists venturing into the prison system. She shares the principals of delivery, the change dance can instigate, how to keep the momentum going and a highlight some particular outcomes.