Outdoor Arts Symposium Will Be Hosted by Corn Exchange Newbury

101 Outdoor Arts - National Centre for Arts in Public Space and part of Corn Exchange Newbury hosts Creating Together, a Symposium, presented in association with outdoor arts consortium Without Walls. Creating Together will focus on the role of co-creation, participation and engagement in the arts outdoors and in public space. With individual creativity a central part of Arts Council England’s ten-year strategy Let’s Create, this event explores the many forms that creating work with communities can take.

The Symposium will be hosted by 101 Outdoor Arts, part of Corn Exchange Newbury, which is a unique 20,000sq ft centre on the former USAF Greenham Common airbase, as part of their programme of residency and professional development opportunities for artists working in public space.

Simon Chatterton, Strategic Lead at 101 Outdoor Arts said, This event is a really exciting opportunity to explore an area of practice that has become increasingly central to thinking around the role of the arts. We hope it will be a relevant to those established in the field as well as those who are new to this work.

Speakers include Shanaz Gulzar (Creative Director of Bradford 2025), Orit Azaz (Imagineer, No Fit State), Susan Clarke (Stoke Creates, B-Arts, Outside CPP), Ellen Harrison (Historic England), Phill Haynes (Wye Valley River Festival), Liz Mytton (Theatre in Flow), Liz Pugh (Walk the Plank), Gemma Thomas (Appetite CPP). Facilitated by Chris Rolls (Collective Sense, formerly 64 Million Artists/Coventry City of Culture).

Over decades, artists working outdoors have created imaginative and impactful participatory and socially-engaged work often with a unique ability to develop powerful feelings of collective identity and sense of place. The Symposium aims to interrogate the role of the artist, commissioner and audience, the tricky balance of process and product and what the relationship might be between co-creation, participation and the evolution of new approaches to touring. The event will draw on case studies from Arts Council England’s Creative People & Places scheme, Historic England’s Heritage Action Zones Cultural Programme and other initiatives. Artists working in socially engaged practice will talk about how they work and the unique possibilities and challenges of these approaches. Alongside guest speakers and panel sessions there will also be a chance for participants to pose their own questions, take part in discussions and help to develop new models of practice for the outdoors.

In the following days after the Symposium, 101 Outdoor Arts also hosts the Catalysing Community Lab, a three-day intensive residential lab to explore the topic in more detail through a combination of discussion and practical workshop activities. This will be led by Chris Rolls of public engagement specialists Collective Sense.

Aimed at professional artists, producers or commissioners with an interest in producing co-created outdoor work, the team are particularly keen to receive applications from individuals who are likely to be underrepresented in this area of work.

Further information about the Creating Together Symposium and Catalysing Community Lab can be found here: 101outdoorarts.com/labs/creating-together. 

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