We are happy to share the good news about recent funding successes that have enabled us to launch four new projects, each with a strong community engagement focus.

Firstly, we are grateful to our friends at the Elmley Foundation for supporting a body of work around the environment, landscape, and art delivered in Pershore this Summer and Autumn. During the summer holidays, we worked with young people from Pershore Riverside Centre Youth Group outdoors on Avon Meadows, and in the landscape at National Trust, Croome. Taking inspiration from a film by Gabriella Hirst called Force Majeure, which was displayed in our recent exhibition Watermark (28 January – 3 June 2023), we organised a Plein Air workshop, led by recent University of Worcester graduate, Lewis Graham. The windy weather conditions were perfect for a comic re-living of Hirsts’ film and the participants enjoyed a fun and inspiring day of landscape painting. This was followed by an outdoor sculpture workshop led by artist Daniel
Pryde-Jarman, working collaboratively with the young people to create a one-day site-specific installation on Avon Meadows.

The Elmley Foundation funding also supported the installation of Hilary Jack’s Deluge at Pershore Abbey (end September to end November 2023) which we will use to engage various groups in the climate crisis debate, supporting the Abbey’s eco-church work. We will work with groups external to the Abbey, with a focus on a collaboration with Pershore High School, whose students will be undertaking a creative writing project, inspired by visual art. Thanks to funding from the Max Reinhardt Charitable Trust, we are one of three recipients of a MaxLiteracy Award for 2023-24, alongside two other arts organisations whose work we admire: Nottingham Contemporary and Take A Part.

Funded by the Max Reinhardt Charitable Trust, MaxLiteracy offers funding for museums, galleries, and visual arts organisations in England to support a dedicated programme of creative writing and literacy work within learning settings through the visual arts. The Awards are run in partnership with Engage, the National Association for Gallery Education, and the National Association for Writers in Education (NAWE).

Writer Juliette Morton will work with students from year 9 to respond to Deluge through the form of creative writing. Collaborating with teachers from both the Art and English department, they will explore the themes of Art as Text and Text as Art, supporting the young people to voice their concerns on the climate emergency through both visual and written language.

A resource will be created as part of the process that will support other educators and arts organisations on how to engage with visual arts through creative writing in non-gallery settings. Taking art outside of traditional spaces is something Meadow Arts have championed since we began in 2001.  

Finally, we have successfully secured funding from Herefordshire Council, via the UKSPF scheme under two different programmes: Cultural Development and Cultural Programming. These will see us working with partners National Trust Herefordshire, at The Weir during 2023-25. We will commission Herefordshire artists to explore the beautiful landscape of The Weir Valley that runs beside the River Wye just outside Hereford. The artists will help to engage more visitors to the site with the National Trust’s ambitious and exciting plans to enhance habitats across the area into a biodiverse haven of wildflower meadows, species-rich grassland, broadleaf woodland, and orchards with much improved public access.

It will also help us to revive a Herefordshire Artists Network, connecting more freelance artists across the county with our work, showcasing their work, and offering free arts drop-in workshops to local people during the Summer of 2024. 

Both the Cultural Programming and Cultural Development Projects have received £5,000 each for activities between Oct 2023-March 2024 with further funding for work in 2024-25 across both projects pending. This is thanks to support from the UK Government Shared Prosperity Fund, which is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. 

The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK by investing in communities and places and supporting local businesses, people, and skills. For more information, visit UK Shared Prosperity Fund.