Support Creative Development

Youth Dance

Supporting Communities

artsNK believes not only in providing people with access to a range of arts activities, but also in the importance of individuals being able to develop their own creative skills, so that they feel empowered to make their own contribution to their local community and environment.  

artsNK's approach to achieving this is through the nurturing of longer term relationships, which provide participants with the opportunity to acquire and develop their skills over time and within a supported environment.  This approach enables participants to go beyond 'trying their hand' at new activities, and is often the catalyst for individuals to develop a real passion for these artforms. For many young people this means getting involved in artsNK's Youth Dance Programme, or helping to prepare for one of the many youth and family-focused arts festivals that artsNK co-ordinates.  For older residents, this long-term relationship is often developed via village-based craft workshops, many of which result in the production of highly ambitious public artworks.

Sleaford - Sail Sculpture - by William Lasdun

Supporting Artists

artsNK is committed to supporting artists and practitioners in their professional development, through training and shadowing schemes, and by providing a variety of employment opportunities. These opportunities can include:
- public and performing art commissions
- planning and leading participatory workshops
- providing artistic direction within regeneration schemes
- helping to engage harder-to-reach members of the community in creative activities.

Often all that artists require is a space to work and to develop their ideas, and to help with this artsNK have regularly provided workshop spaces for visual artists, as well as access to the space at Terry O'Toole Theatre for the development of performance work.

By helping professional practitioners to realise their own projects within North Kesteven, artsNk hopes to continually broaden the arts expereince that is available within the District.  It is hoped that through their involvement, artists may also gain important professional experience, and in doing so increase their specialised skills, as well as their earning potential.

Nocton - Wood Carving Group

Case Study: Sustainable Community Craft Groups

In community-based visual arts projects, artsNK's long term approach has lead to the development of many on-going craft groups.  These independent groups meet regularly to work on sometimes quite ambitious arts projects, in spaces that they have secured within their own communities. 

The groups have mostly grown out of initial programmes of professionally led workshops that artsNK has arranged, in crafts such as wood carving, mosaics, stained glass, and print making. From these workshops, the groups have then generated ideas for appropriate pieces of public art, that can be produced using the skills that they have acquired. These pieces usually reflect the unique qualities of the local setting, and are a great source of pride for local residents, providing a visual symbol of community spirit, as well as helping to preserve and promote the local cultural heritage.

Several of these groups have now become self-sustaining, requiring only certain specialist support from the artsNK team. This blossoming of creative confidence has a further impact upon the District, as many of these groups are then able to share their skills and expertise through new community projects.

Summer School

Case Study: Summer School Shadowing

Every year artsNK and NK School work in partnership to deliver a performing arts summer school for children and young people aged 8 - 14.  The summer school is aimed at those who have little or no experience of the performing arts.  Participants are engaged in music, dance and drama workshops throughout the day and work towards a piece of work to be shared at the end of the week with other participants, parents and friends.

However, artsNK also extends the summer school learning offer, by providing students or emerging artists with the opportunity to shadow more experienced artists, in order to gain experience of working:
. with children and young people of mixed abilities
. in specific art forms within a combined arts project
. within a specific timeframe

Comments from previous students:

"This project interested me because of my keen interest in the performing arts, and my passion for working with young individuals.  It seemed a worthwhile project to be a part of, extending my interests and providing me with more experience before my Post Graduate year beginning in September."

'I would like to say a huge thank you for this wonderful experience, it has been a pleasure to work on this project especially through seeing the development and confidence of the young individuals grow as the week went by.  A very well delivered project which is concluded well with the performance marking the end of the project.'

'I am intending to study music at university, and the chance to work with children to help them take part in music appealed to me.  I hoped I would have chance to investigate and use musical ideas that I haven't seen before, which I was able to do with the medieval and tudor music.'