This, That & the Other

The Imagination Cafe events began last week in Llandudno at the beautiful Mostyn Gallery and a big thanks to Alfredo Cramerotti and his team for making everyone so welcome. These events are a mix of awareness raising and artists development which stems from the Dementia & Imagination research project, and builds on the principles in the Yellow Book. More are planned for London and Edinburgh this year. Personal thanks to Chris Lewis-Jones for facilitating the artists workshops. Looking forward to the next workshops at the Menier Gallery 14 - 19th May. And if you are an emerging artists who would like to take part in the training event at the Menier, please click HERE to book a place.

There are number of exciting events happening across the North West and further afield over the next couple of months and as promised last week, here are just a few of them. Please feel free to send in more from your locality! I’ve listed them in terms of dates. Please send events, opportunities, conferences and work opportunities to artsforhealth@aol.com for inclusion on this blog.

A Life More Ordinary Festival
17 and 18th May
The Dukes - Lancaster
This festival is billed as a unique two day exploration of how the arts are touching the lives of people living with dementia in wonderful and remarkable ways. ‘A Life More Ordinary’ at The Dukes in Lancaster, invites people living with dementia, family  friends, health and care professionals, artists, researchers and, clinical commissioning teams, to share and discover some of the ground-breaking ways that the arts help us understand dementia better and play an invaluable part in how we journey through life together. You can find all the details by clicking on the image above. It looks great, and I'm excited to be speaking at this festival.




‘Loneliness is as damaging to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day’ Holt-Lundstadt - 2015
Building Social Connections Through The Arts
A Live Well, Make Art event, Tuesday 22nd May 2018, 10am - 3pmThe Turnpike, Civic Square, Leigh WN7 1EB
Live Well Make Art (LWMA) is an informal network of arts professionals and activists, health professionals and activists, academics and people who care passionately about the health of Greater Manchester. We have been working together for two years as a social movement. We want a healthier Greater Manchester where all its people can share the benefits of engaging in and enjoying the arts and creative activities with each other, and we want to make our streets, neighbourhoods and communities better places to live. On 22nd May, at the Turnpike Art Gallery in Leigh, we will be holding the first Live Well Make Art event to happen as part of a programme funded through Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s 'Great Places' initiative. It will explore ways in which the arts can address the challenges of social isolation and loneliness through building stronger social connections. Want to come along? Click HERE for details.

Towards a Cultural Democracy
A short and lovely film from the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at Manchester University. 

The National Alliance Of Musicians In Healthcare Conference
The second annual NAMIH conference, will be held at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool on Monday June 4th, 11AM - 6PM. There'll be more on this very soon, but for now you can get details and tickets by clicking HERE.

What's with the Big Anxiety? 
Following on from the personal research project - dis/ordered  for Big Anxiety Festival which I embarked on over 2016/17 resulting in my perforative presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, I’m developing some work exploring suicide. At the moment it’s being scoped out with allies in the UK, Lithuania, Japan and Australia. It's essentially about humanising people who are affected by suicide in some way - and exploring a shared voice - of difference and similarity, and of what it is to be a fragile human being in extremis. 

On that note, I am thrilled to be welcoming Professor Jill Bennett - the director of The Big Anxiety Festival - to Manchester School of Art on the afternoon of the 5th June to share this huge event which saw 75 events across Sydney, with 140,000 visitors and 16 major commissions including large-scale collaborations like Parragirls, a ground-breaking 3D immersive experience created by survivors of institutional abuse at former Parramatta Girls Home. As someone who was fortunate to be commissioned by the festival, I can say it was a profound and exhilarating event to be part of - the most dynamic of its kind. You can read an interview between Jill and myself in the Artlink Journal HERE. On the 5th Jill will be sharing work from that first festival and exploring new research and collaborations, which includes key areas of action such as suicide. She’ll also be sharing her work with a new research lab using immersive technology to investigate experience and empathy in relation to ageing, neurodiversity and mental health. It will be part presentation, part an exploratory workshop - and with limited places - so book HERE now to find out more about our shared thinking and new work and explore The Big Anxiety - festival of arts + science + people. MMU 5th June - 2:00pm - 4:00pm. 

National Lottery Awards for All offers funding from £300 to £10,000 to support what matters to people and communities

National Lottery Awards for All has three funding priorities. Tell us in your application how you meet at least one of them. Our priorities are:

•bringing people together and building strong relationships in and across communities
•improving the places and spaces that matter to communities
•enabling more people to fulfil their potential by working to address issues at the earliest possible stage.

We encourage you to watch this short video as it may be helpful in explaining how to involve your community in the design, development and delivery of the activities you are planning. Click HERE.



Funding for LGBT projects run by young people 
vInspired, the Volunteering Charity, (England only) has announced that its Cashpoint grants scheme is has announced that its Loud and Proud grants programme is open for applications. These grants are accepting applications for LGBT+ projects. The Cashpoint grants scheme offers grants of up to £500 to give young people (aged 14-25) the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. The funding is available to individual young people (or small groups) who have developed a project idea and will run the project themselves. Projects must be run on a volunteer only basis and funded projects must create at least 2 new volunteering opportunities for 14-30 year olds (in addition to the applicant). vInspired cashpoint must be the only funder for the project.
There are no closing dates for applications and grants will be awarded on a continuous basis until all available monies are exhausted. Read more HERE. 

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