As a couple of people who have run community based arts programmes and organisations ourselves, we’re passionate about the difference they can make. So we were excited when Ideas Test commissioned us to lead a consultation process designed to explore the views of its communities, partners and participants: to help it understand better what they think it does as a creative organisation and its plans for the future.
Ideas Test is a Creative People and Places project, a strategy of Arts Council England to develop artistic programmes in areas where people’s ability to take part in them is difficult. One of its key principles is that their communities have agency over what this work is, who creates it and where and how it happens. Ideas Test works across two districts in Kent: Swale and Medway, each diverse in their own ways. Swale – and particularly “the Island” (Sheppey) were one of the places hardest hit by the second wave of Covid, whilst Medway has just launched its bid to be UK City of Culture in 2025. In the last few years, with a very small team, spanning these two large and quite different districts with diverse needs, Ideas Test has already delivered some remarkable creative projects. These include its community choir project, Sea Folk Sing, Take On Me, a piece of immersive theatre (in which audiences at the end literally immersed themselves in a swimming pool) and Morpheus – a game design project with young students at the Will Adams Centre in Medway. They’ve also provided continuing support to both young creative people and isolated older people through lockdown.
Working to a very tight deadline, we were able to talk to nearly 60 people about what Ideas Test does and what they would like it to do next. This felt very timely, not just for the organisation itself, but in considering more widely what our communities need to move forward from the pandemic. We heard how Ideas Test and organisations like it have a key role in rebuilding public confidence, in reconnecting people with each other and their neighbourhoods, and in helping to tackle the issues of wellbeing, isolation and wider inequities that Covid has exposed. Aligning itself more closely with these needs feels like the most important work it could be doing right now. As we hope the experiences of the last year are increasingly behind us, we think there is a need to shout out more about the value and impact that creative work of this kind can deliver.
If you would like to know more about the Ideas Test project and how we designed and delivered it, or about how we could help your organisation too, get in touch with us info@bandgpartners.com
Photo: Take On Me, an Ideas Test commission, produced with Dante or Die and performed at Hoo Sports Centre, Medway.