Creative communities - Villages in Action
Creative communities
Creative Communities is Villages in Action's Participation and Community Development Project. We facilitate community development through the arts, promoting creative activities for people in the heart of rural communities in Devon.
Young Promoters Scheme
A pilot project will encourage young people to learn about how to plan and organise a Villages in Action show in their school. Starting with two performances by Ben Osborne in March, two teams of students will take part in workshops where they will gain skills in all that is involved with organising, promoting and running a show for their local community. Hopefully, this project will be the start of their career as young promoters!
Threads
Working in Mid Devon with older people in our village communities, Threads is an art and health project that builds on the success of the Devon Reach project providing opportunities for older people to share positive images of themselves within their communities. Participants from four villages will work with textile artists to create quilted wall hangings representing lifetime achievements and aspects of their past, present and future lives. The project will provide opportunities for older people to meet and share experiences around a common theme, create high quality collaborative artworks and raise the profile of older people in their community.
Successful Projects in 2012
Deep Time Exhibitions and Workshops
In April 2012 VIA toured an exhibition of Visual Art sharing work from artists Ben Osborne, Matt Harvey, Lal Hitchcock and Sammy Hurden. A rich tapestry of photos, poems, driftwood sculptures and songs were created to share the story of the magnificent Jurassic Coastline, depicting 185 million years of earth history. Exhibitions took place in Farringdon, South Brent and Stockland, culminating in a week-long exhibition in Sidmouth at Kennway House and finally Durleston Castle in Swanage. Artists ran arts workshops at each exhibition which provided opportunities for people to create their own artwork in response to the wonderful Artwork.
Dance in Devon, Compass project
We supported a fantastic project that took place in three communities in the Autumn of 2012. Dance in Devon coordinated a dance project in all four compass points of Devon where a team of dancers from London, headed by choreographer Freddie Opoku-Addaie undertook a week-long residency in four communities culminating in a performance.