Create Connect Collaborate
CREATE CONNECT COLLABORATE
This 12-month collaborative workshop-based Community Arts and Cultural Development (CACD) project has been developed in response to local needs and interests identified by three partner organisations, Centrecare, Escare and Esperance Senior High School Student Services and by an external organisation (Alzheimer’s WA) that consulted with us in 2022.
Each organisation works with clients who they feel would benefit from participation in ongoing arts-based activities in a supported environment, based on the strong evidence from around the world – and from our own experience – that community arts participation is good for health and wellbeing and for encouraging social connection and building community.
The project team brings together considerable expertise and experience of working with community across diverse settings, cultural contexts, ages and artforms.
Our goal is to provide a series of free, intergenerational community workshops held at Esperance Community Arts Space in the Museum Village, that will create opportunities for community connection and safe, creative collaboration, along with skills development and self-expression. The workshops will be led by highly experienced local artists who can nurture participant-lead decision-making whilst also using their skills and knowledge to help shape successful artistic outcomes and supported by experiences artsworkers. Staff from our partner organisations will ensure that their clients feel safe and supported in the workshop space, provide input to social and mental health outcomes and management of group dynamics.
The workshops will be delivered in two streams (Open and Seniors) and across four blocks of 8-10 sessions each, aligned with the school terms. Participants will work towards a shared outcome at the end of each block (e.g. a banner that can be carried in the Christmas Pageant, a sculpture that can be displayed at the annual wildflower festival, a collage for the Taste of the World multicultural event and a quilt for International Women’s Day, or Seniors Week, or Youth Week). We will work together to ensure that workshop plans are flexible enough to support participant decision-making and ownership wherever possible, but structured enough to support skills development and successful public outcomes at the end of each term
Funding Partner: Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries (DLGSC)
Funding program: Community Participation & Social Inclusion (CPSI)
Project Partners:
– Centrecare – Julie Hawke & Divyan Varghese (musician)
– ESHS Student Services – Allira Henderson (visual artist)
– Escare Incorporated – Jo Aberle and Natalie Symonds
– Artist Facilitators – Naomi Stanitzki & Mylene van Heijster
Arts Workers:
– Jane Mulcock (Project Coordinator)
– Candy Smith (Artist & Trainee Artsworker)
– Thuriyya Ibrahim (Coordinator, Seniors Workshops)
– Kerry Flood & Derrick Howe (Facilitators – Seniors Program)
– Ronnie Young (ECA Board – Advisor)