...IDEAS WORTH FIGHTING FOR

CALL OUT TO NURSES & PERFORMERS
I am interested to hear from nurses and clinical staff who may have worked with artists, performers and actors to explore how they work with patients around the complex daily interactions. Ultimately how communication might be improved through the arts. I have some visitors from a Portuguese nursing/education context coming to the Manchester School of Art around September 8th/9th/10th and want to workshop some ideas with them to explore new possibilities in nursing education. Please email artsforhealth@aol.com if this resonates, or you might like to be involved. As with all North West Arts & Health Networking events, it’s free, so I can’t offer hard cash - but together, we can try to change things.

FAST-FOOD SUICIDE VESTS

Artist Warwick Thornton shares his startling images of Indigenous children in 'fast-food suicide vests' at the Anna Schwartz Gallery. Here’s an extract about the show, The Future is Unforgiving. "An Aboriginal boy named Sterling looks down, clutching his chest, which is bare except for the suicide vest of McDonald’s take-away containers crudely strapped to it."

"His burden is clear; the fast food he consumes has rendered him a ticking time-bomb for disease, and the expression on his face indicates it is a future he believes is inevitable.” In her accompanying text for the exhibition, the chair of Indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, Professor Marcia Langton, discusses how the potential of children has been lost. For children like Sterling, his “socialisation is bereft of traditions such as hunting and bereft of the vast knowledge of his traditional estate, environments, fauna and flora, his rightful patrimony”. See images from this important small show by clicking on either image of Sterling.

MADE in Manchester 
MADE, a multimedia arts exhibition featuring the work of over 60 learning disabled visual artists, which explores the theme of ‘the natural versus the manufactured’, is opening at the People’s History Museum on the 25th July. Over the last 12 months artists with learning disabilities have worked together with the Venture Arts team to produce the work for the MADE exhibition from their studio in Hulme, Manchester. Over 100 pieces of new and vibrant work have been created in preparation for the exhibition using a range of artistic media including drawing, painting, animation, printmaking, art as environment, 3D sculpture, illustration, photography, ceramics and textiles.

The artists involved in the project chose themes of the natural versus the manufactured in order to explore, through their art, the changing environments around them. Amanda Sutton, Venture Arts manager added: “In an ever changing world the views and perspectives of artists with a learning disability are essential to helping us all understand how we look at and live in a modern Manchester. As well as what our role is within the modern Manchester of today." Josh Butt, Curatorial Assistant, People’s History Museum: “Since the industrial revolution there has always been conflict between the rise industry and the protection of nature. MADE will bring both a contemporary and local perspective to this clash, well suited to museum as the home of ‘ideas worth fighting for’.” The ‘MADE’ exhibition can be seen at The Engine Hall, People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3ER. From the 25th July – 18th October 2015. With a special launch event on the 30th July, which will include a live-streamed broadcast over social media. Admission is free.

Grants to Help New, Innovative Visual Arts Projects 
The Elephant Trust has announced that the next deadline for applications is the 19th October 2015. The Trust offers grants to artists and for new, innovative visual arts projects based in the UK. The Trust's aim is to make it possible for artists and those presenting their work to undertake and complete projects when confronted by lack of funds. The Trust supports projects that develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the fine arts. Priority is now being given to artists and small organisations and galleries who should submit well argued, imaginative proposals for making or producing new work or exhibitions. Arts Festivals are not supported. The Trust normally awards grants of up to £2,000, but larger grants may be considered. Click on the tigers eye for more details.

City Health Care Partnership Foundation Small Grants Programme

The City Health Care Partnership Foundation has announced that the next deadline for its small grant programme is the 1st September 2015. The programme provides grants or donations of up to £1,000 to local voluntary and community organisations, schools and/or other not-for-profit organisations to carry out activities, projects or one-off events that contribute towards the health and wellbeing of people throughout the UK. To be eligible, groups and organisations needs to have been in existence for at least one year, have an annual income of less than £30,000 and work for the benefit of the local community in which CHCP CIC operates. http://chcpfoundation.chcpcic.org.uk/pages/small-grants 
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