working COLLABORATIVELY, CREATIVELY
Over the last few years, I've enjoyed started to use my facilitation skills to support the development of creativity, collaboration and resilience skills in young people and adults.
As a result, I offer a range of workshops that can be tailored to suit different groups and situations.
See below for examples. Please get in touch if you’d like a version of one of these workshops.
Partnership/collaboration agreements
For more than 30 years I’ve been supporting individuals and organisations to work together. In 2021 I was asked to produce some guidance for Arts Council Wales’ Connect and Flourish programme. This is available free to download:
I have also been working with Gaia Redgrave/Rewilding the Artist and Utopias Bach on creating a Culture of Care. See here for resources created from the findings of research, consultation, practice / testing and lived experience, with the aim of supporting the development of a Culture of Care, improved access, and wider equity within the arts.
Newyddion! News!
Archwilio Partneriaethau Traws Sector // Exploring Cross Sector Partnerships.
Thu 11 Apr 2024 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM BST Online, Zoom
Sut mae sefydliadau gwahanol, sef corff statudol, cymdeithas tai a cwmni creadigol wedi datblygu perthynas agored ac ymddiriedaeth wrth gydweithio i bosibiliadau’r dyfodol. Byddwn yn rhannu’r hyn rydym wedi’i ddysgu hyd yma am feithrin perthynas rhwng y tri partner, gan gynnwys ein proses a creu cytundeb cydweithredol am y ffyrdd o weithio.
How have a statutory body, social housing and creative organisations developed a relationship of trust and openness while collaborating on being open to future possibilities? We’ll share what we’ve learnt so far about relationship building between the three partners, including our process, creating a collaborative agreement about the ways of working.
Croeso i bawb ac am ddim - Open to all and free!
More events to come in this series!
Council of All Beings: Flourishing multi-species futures
A session for Ecofuturra Cinema at Studio Made, Bangor (15th April 2023)
“Who and whatever we are, we need to make-with—become-with, compose-with—the earth-bound” - Donna Haraway
In this session for 15 adults and young people, we explored what happens when we embody and give voice and personhood to the more-than-human beings of Denbigh. Guided by the insights from the natural world, we strengthened our courage and commitment to acting together, recognizing what we have lost, and engaging with the possibilities of whole-town multi-species flourishing in the future.
12.30 Refreshments and introductions, sharing stories of connection with nature
1.00 Bond with another species, or river, or rock or mountain! Who will you choose… or will they choose you?
Mask making in collaboration with your more-than-human partner
The Council of all Beings - hearing what the more-than-human world has to say to us
2.20 Break
2.35 Sharing insights from the more-than-human world - what wisdom, what strategies for flourishing do they suggest for Denbigh?
Debrief and next steps
3.30 Close
IMAGINING THE FUTURE
As part of Utopias Bach, I have been working with Rural Futures in two schools (yn y Gymraeg), to map their community and imagine a future they’d want to see. This was the starting point for creating a ‘Story Studio’, engaging the whole community in imagining their future.
The work included working with Ysgol Sion Cwilt over zoom, and for Ysgol y Ffridd, Gwalchmai in ‘real life’ and in y Canolfan Henoed - and an exchange with Malawi.
For more information, images, resources and results see here
Creu Cydweithredol - yn yr ysgol a thu hwnt
Collaborative Creation - in school and beyond
Using real-life examples and hands-on, practical exercises, this participative course (run for EDAU) gave teachers and youth workers the opportunity to:
Explore concepts and ideas around socially engaged art
Think ambitiously about collaborative creation within the school environment, and in collaboration with others (humans and more-than-humans) outside school
Listen to and share examples
Consider next steps and further sources of information and support
CREATIVE SCHOOLS
I am a Creative Practitioner as part of the Arts Council Wales/Welsh Government Lead Creative Schools scheme. I've worked with two schools on student led projects, each over a period of 8 weeks - 60 pupils in year 5 in Ysgol Llandrillo-yn-Rhos primary school (developing creative habits of mind and maths skills) and 30 pupils on their "Robots Project Based Learning" in year 7 in Ysgol Aberconwy (developing collaboration skills). For both these schools, I collaborated with the Creu Cyf team - Janina Holloway, Stuart Bond and Luke Evans.
EXPERIENTIAL PLAY AND LEARNING
As part of Llif, working with Lisa Hudson and Dr Jonathan Malarkey, I have put on 'Creative Laboratories', drop in events (supported by Pontio's Synthesis, Bangor University, Gwyl Afon Ogwen and MSParc) that support experiential play and learning (including dealing with uncertainty and failure) through the building of marble runs. Suitable for all ages, from 2 - 90!
As part of Digging Down, I created "The Curiously Collaborative Museum of Lost, Found and Broken" with Marged Pendrell, supported by National Theatre Wales. The Museum uses found objects to enable people of all ages to explore objects, curation, pattern, story-telling and creative writing, and connection to materialism. We arrive with three suitcases of found objects, so its a quick and easy to set up, and can be visited by successive groups of people, each group building on (or destroying!) the previous group’s curation. Workshop can run from a half day to a week.
BWYSTORI - BESTIARY
Working with Emily Meilleur (artist, poet and biodiversity officer for Cyngor Gwynedd Council), this workshop will engage people of all ages in celebrating and exploring the biodiversity of a particular place. Always with activities that take us outdoors (within a rural or urban environment), it builds observation, literary, drawing, writing, collaboration and performance skills.
“We are only fully human when we act as if the life beyond us matters… The Bestiary celebrates the beauty of being and of beings. Our imagination is stretched to the utmost not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which ARE there.”
Caspar Henderson
CREATIVE / psychological MAPPING
As part of my residency with Culture Action Llandudno, I ran a 'psychological mapping' workshop with Coleg Llandrillo Foundation Art Students. 2017. This workshop can be anything from 2 hours to a day, and engages students with the theory, practice, mark-making and psychogeography of place.
In 2022, I ran a psychological mapping workshop with the Dolgarrog Art Club, contributing to the creation of a Treasure Hunt for Dolgarrog
collaboration for artists
“Collaboration is a way of working closely with others to achieve something, or gain some benefit that you could not achieve by working alone”
Collaboration – with other artists, or with people or organistions from different backgrounds - is fast becoming part of artistic practice, exhibitions, residencies and funding. It can be tremendously rewarding, broadening the scope and reach of your work. It can also be really challenging! Using real life examples and hands on, practical exercises, this participative course will give you the opportunity to:
- Explore different types of collaboration, their drawbacks and benefits
- Consider how you might use/improve collaboration within your artistic practice, including socially-engaged practices
- Identify top tips (including partnership agreements), and further sources of information and support.
This participative one-day training course was commissioned by Helfa Gelf in 2018, and is now available for groups of between 6 and 16 people.
Coaching also available for smaller groups.
This training was further developed into The Why and How of Collaboration Agreements: Training for Arts Council Wales and the Connect and Flourish Fund (March 2021), including a how to guide to partnership working. Two online training sessions each for 50 participants. Each session is an opportunity to find out more about:
what is collaboration
what are collaboration agreements, and how, providing a flexible process to work through, you could use them to help bring a collaboration to life
practical examples of collaboration agreements in practice
CLIMATE CHANGE
As part of EGIN, National Theatre Wales’ two week international Climate Change residency, I worked with 12 artists to host a Climate Change workshop for 60 young people aged 12 - 17 at Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen, exploring the themes of LAND - MONEY - REBELLION - HOPE. 2019.
