In September 2023, we recruited thirteen Cumbrian-based creatives who wanted to develop a socially engaged practice.
The group was invited to and paid bursaries to complete a four-month programme led by our creative partner, Unfinished Business. By the end, each participant had devised a unique experience, which they were each paid to deliver to a selection of our regular groups. Our local communities were treated to free workshops ranging from nature-focused meditations to creative town design, tea ceremonies, and collaborative mural-making.
Where are they now?
The Kind Futures 2023/24 cohort has all continued to work as artists in and around Whitehaven. They have created a network in which they share ideas and opportunities. Six of the original cohort have continued to work with Rosehill on larger-scale commissions.
Because of this programme, there have also been many impressive collaborations involving Florence Arts Centre, The National Trust, and Everyone Here.
We hope to continue supporting this growing, thriving and diverse community of artists and seeing how much they benefit this area.
Kind Futures Spotlight: Anne Blanksom-Hemans
Anne applied for Kind Futures, not knowing what to expect. An IT professional turned fine artist, Anne was accustomed to working in her studio and teaching the technical side of painting. Now, she was interested in expanding her practice to be more socially engaged and growing her own confidence.
Since completing Kind Futures, Anne has noticed her confidence grow. Although sometimes nervous, she has learned to step out of her comfort zone. She has also had many professional artist opportunities with Rosehill and elsewhere. She is our new artist in residence at Time to Change CIC’s Kells Community Hub and will provide free workshops to users of their service.
Anne reflected on her experiences over the past year: “Whenever I think of Kind Futures and of Rosehill, I think of green shoots... Nothing there has four walls around it, and there’s a level of creativity there that’s boundless.”
Kind Futures 2025
We will be opening recruitment for our next programme in 2025. More details will be announced in April 2025.
KIND Futures is well underway, with our thirteen brilliant creatives starting their work with us and Unfinished Business in November. Since then, they have been engaging in weekly workshops over Zoom that take them out of their creative comfort zones, encouraging them to work in new and exciting ways.
This project is developed as part of Rosehill’s new project, KIND, which will aim to unite communities, support well-being, and help reduce isolation across Whitehaven and surrounding areas. The project will be led by two new Community Producers and a team of dedicated Community Creatives who will initiate, lead, and deliver on projects that blend creative well-being, social prescribing, socially engaged art, and community collaboration by, for and with the people of Whitehaven and beyond.
Unfinished Business
This unique opportunity is devised and delivered by Unfinished Business. Drawing on their experience making Social Art projects, Unfinished Business will structure the programme around three core themes: Dialogue, Ritual, and Participation. Focusing on each of these, you will be invited to explore new ways to harness your creativity to bring people together, empower communities and affect positive change.
Unfinished Business are artist/performance maker Leo Kay and producer Anna Smith. They have been creating work together for over 12 years and have created and presented work across the UK and abroad, in arts centres, theatres, festivals, broken-down hotels, church halls, bedsits, above pubs, and in houses. Since 2019, they have focused on working within community contexts, making Participatory Social Art with groups of people. Their current practice, The Bakery of Slow Ideas, encompasses a range of projects which use the actions and metaphors within sourdough bread baking and vegetable fermentation to counter the societal normalisation of hyper-productivity and extractionism. It offers tools for resistance to the inevitable outcomes of these unsustainable modes, including exhaustion and burnout on a personal, societal, and ecological scale. Creative engagement, dialogue, and ritual become nourishment, rest, reflection, and digestion strategies. UB has developed and presented different elements of this work across England with organisations such as Derby CAN, Heart of Glass, Cambridge Junction, Rosehill Theatre, and in several arts and educational settings in Belgium, Germany, and this year in Italy and Brazil.
www.thisisunfinished.com
