[cma-l] Arts and Community Media Organisations Connect for a Positive Future

[Tamar Millen]

Arts and Community Media Organisations Connect for a Positive Future

An ambitious series of joint national initiatives by Arts Council 
England, the Community Media Association and the Voluntary Arts Network 
are supporting an exciting range of collaborative partnerships between 
arts and community media organisations.

Supported with funding from Arts Council England, the initiative has 
enabled a number of community media organisations and arts organisations 
to join forces to create four innovative new projects.

The four projects will feature in a series of roadshows promoting arts 
and community media organisations partnerships.

These free events will include a mixture of presentations and 
discussions that will demonstrate real life examples of arts and 
community media collaboration, programming, productions and partnership.

Two Valleys Radio, which is produced by Kirklees-based community media 
organisation Heads Together and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 
(HCMF) jointly presented a series of online broadcasts during the 2010 
HCMF. This included the live performance of a new piece created by a 
group of young people working with internationally acclaimed composer 
Claudia Molitor, and live online ‘meet the composer’ sessions for 
schools. The broadcasts can be listened to again at 
http://www.twovalleysradio.co.uk/.

Haltwhistle Film Project and Prism Arts are working with a group of 
adults with learning disabilities at the Hensingham Day Centre in 
Whitehaven, Cumbria. Following a series of workshops the group will 
shoot and edit a number of short films about activities at the centre 
and around Whitehaven. The project will also see a new website created 
for the films to be shown on.

The Manchester Literature Festival is commissioning five poets to create 
new work which will recorded and broadcast by local people on ALL FM 
Community Radio as part of a six week radio production training course. 
The volunteers will also record interviews with the poets, and listeners 
will be invited to submit their own poems and read them on air.

Newlyn Arts Gallery and The Exchange is working with Penwith Community 
Radio to create a series of audio features documenting the gallery’s 
programme of work by leading regional, national and international 
contemporary visual artists, including exhibiting artists and curators 
in conversation and recordings of performance pieces.

All four projects are featured on the arts section of the CMA website
www.arts.commedia.org.uk

Helen Featherstone, Relationship Manager, Participation and Engagement, 
Arts Council England, Yorkshire, said: ‘By working together, arts and 
community media organisations can reach new audiences, develop 
excellence in arts practice and develop innovative ways of working with 
new technologies.’

The Community Media Association champions access to making broadcast 
media for people and their communities to achieve lasting positive 
social change. The Voluntary Arts Network aims to promote participation 
in the arts and crafts across the UK and Republic of Ireland.

For information about future roadshows email: arts at commedia.org.uk

Yorkshire Roadshow – 26th January
West Midlands Roadshow 9th February
East Midlands Roadshow 9th March
London regional Roadshow 23rd March
South West Roadshow 6th April
North West Roadshow 11th May
South East Roadshow 18th May

-- 
Tamar Millen
Arts Coordinator
Community Media Association
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 2BX
0114 2795219

www.commedia.org.uk