Develop the Cultural Environment of NK

Car Dyke - Mosaic by Arik Halfon

The Landscape is the Gallery

Instead of centralising provision in a single building, artsNK delivers a high quality arts experience to all of the village communities across the District.  This effectively turns the whole district into an exhibition space, where commissioned artworks and participatory projects provide significant enhancements to the built and natural environment.  Through this approach artsNK has also established a significant offer for cultural tourists who have an interest in visiting or staying in Lincolnshire.  artsNK have also formed strong partnerships to ensure that this offer is well integrated into the District and County's other cultural tourism offers, such as Whisby Natural World, Terry O'Toole Theatre, LPAN, and The Hub.

This ability to generate tourism, and the accompanying secondary spend, means that the arts makes a tangible contribution to the economic development of the District.  In addition to this, the quality of arts led regeneration schemes, public artworks, vibrant arts events and community arts projects, has also made the District of North Kesteven a highly attractive place for residents to live and work and for businesses to locate to.  Initiatives such as the 'Spires & Steeples Arts and Heritage Trail', also help to join up these communities, arts and tourism offers, and the natural landscape, in order to create a holistic vision for the role that the arts can play in changing our environments for the better.

Billinghay - Zoetrope & Mosaic

Arts in Regeneration

The arts can play a significant role in the creation of new cultural and social spaces, and artsNK has worked in partnership with public sector developers to demonstrate this within a variety of regeneration schemes.  artsNK's approach involves using creative methods of community consultation, as well as often involving the community in the design, and sometimes the making, of the public art features within the scheme.

The arts are a highly effective medium for community consultation, as they can be used to encourage creative and constructive dialogues in response to development proposals.  They also allow for a greater and more meaningful involvement in the decision-making processes.

artsNK's approach to managing the public art element of regeneration schemes is also very community focused.  This approach involves providing opportunities for local residents to be supported in determining and/or creating the public art works.  This happens either through the running of participatory workshops, or by engaging the community in a professional commissioning process - where they play a role in determining the artist's brief and in selecting the final works. This involvement helps to ensure that the features will reflect a unique sense of place and community life, as well as providing a source of civic pride. 

Dorrington - Wood Carving by Nick Jones

Case Study: Spires & Steeples Arts and Heritage Trail

Raised expectation of residents and new sources of funding, particularly through the village regeneration schemes, have meant that the arts in North Kesteven are genuinely beginning to contribute to the economic well being of  the District. A number of arts & heritage trails have been developed, each offering visitors a unique experience that sees the village and its distinctive qualities reflected through public artworks of every type, material and form.

Work has begun to link some of these trails between Lincoln and Sleaford and then on to Chapel Hill as part of a long distance arts and heritage footpath named Spires and Steeples. Many of the villages on the route have public art collections and the countryside sections will be enhanced over the next two years with an ambitious programme of commissions, land and sound art features and contemporary installations. 

There are also plans to have a programme of events and activities happening along the route, involving all art forms.  The first of these has already taken place, and involved five professional writers being commissioned by our Words Worker - Lynn Parker - to walk the route, lead writing workshops, and respond to their experiences through either poetry or prose, so as to create a Spires & Steeples literary anthology, which will be published in 2008.

This initiative is designed to make sure that the potential for the artworks can be part of a wider marketing initiative, aimed at drawing together and developing the significant cultural offer of North Kesteven and promoting it to a national audience, so that the District can increasingly be seen as an attractive cultural destination.