Consultation with artists, arts organisations and communities across Powys during April / May 2023
How to have your say?
Background
Powys County Council’s (PCC) Arts Service does not directly deliver any arts activities, but currently contracts services from various independent arts organisations to deliver arts provision across Powys. These arts organisations currently provide theatre, dance, music, visual and digital arts, performing arts festivals and crafts.
There are many more individual artists and arts organisations, throughout the County, that offer a huge range of arts events, activities and projects which PCC do not directly fund; they are most commonly funded by the Arts Council of Wales, in addition to other public and charitable trusts and foundations. Many other arts organisations survive entirely through voluntary contributions or their own commercial activities.
PCC have commissioned Richie Turner Associates to undertake a review of current arts service provision in Powys, and work with PCC staff, Powys venues, the wider arts sector, and their communities to co-develop a new arts strategy and delivery plan. PCC most importantly want this new arts strategy to be led by, and co-produced, with the arts sector in Powys, and which supports and promotes their development plans, demonstrating how these align with and deliver against Powys County Council’s corporate plan which are to create a ‘Stronger, Fairer, Greener” county and with objectives:
● We will improve people’s awareness of services, and how to access them, so that they can make informed choices.
● We will support good quality, sustainable, employment, providing training opportunities, and pursuing real living wage employer accreditation.
● We will work to tackle poverty and inequality to support the well-being of the people of Powys.
We want to hear the views of everyone who lives or works in Powys; whether you work in the arts sector or not?
You can respond to this consultation, on a new arts strategy, in a number of ways:
- Attend one of the consultation meetings:
- Brecon Wednesday 19th April: 2pm – 4pm Artists and Arts Organisations (register here) / 5.30pm – 7.30pm an Open public meeting (register here)
- Newtown Thursday 20th April: 3.30pm – 5.30pm Open to Artists, Arts Organisations and Public (register here)
- Rhyader Friday 21st April: 3pm – 5pm Open to Artists, Arts Organisations and Public (register here)
- Attend our online meetings Saturday 22nd April: 10am-midday Open to Artists, Arts Organisations and Public (register here)
- See our accessibility page for how to respond if you are a D/deaf or disabled person
- Complete the online survey which includes a BSL version (opens in a new window) – we’ve extended the deadline to Midnight 8th May 2023
- Please share this consultation information with colleagues, friends and family members too!
Powys Arts Strategy – A Provocation
We’ve commissioned a couple of creative practitioners to respond to our consultation and to stimulate your thoughts…
Humankind has risen impressively fast to the dominant position on the planet. It’s a story of highs and lows, and it’s not over yet. Of the many attributes that contributed to our rise, Creativity is the most fundamental. Our adaptiveness, tenacity, ingenuity and knowledge is shaped by our creativity. With nothing more than a spirited sense of curiosity we know how rainbows are made and can divine the inner workings of distant stars from nothing more than inspired observation and a great deal of thought.
Creativity is everywhere. In factories, in agriculture, in finance, in engineering, in the home, in social situations. Anywhere you find a solution elegantly cemented to a problem, creativity was the glue. Everyone you revere, everyone who did something, changed something or moved the world on, did so with the application of inventive creativity.
And humans need positive creativity now more than ever. The planet needs it, biodiversity needs it. Creativity in technology, creativity of ideas, creativity in politics. Our incautious greed seeks to upset the delicate balance of the biosphere, and our grandchildren will face problems that we will, in time, be cursed for.
But you don’t teach creativity. It’s not like the times table or knowing where Venezuela is on a map. It is a skill of infinite subtlety introduced to the young mind through play, expression, dance, music and stories; it is a lamp that lights the way in the dark, a radiator that warms those sitting close by. The ideas and concepts you visit in your childhood stay with you for life. A creative and resourceful child is a creative and resourceful adult.
It is a sobering thought that the people who will make a massive difference to our species in thirty years time are very likely still children. The future will soon be in their hands, and they will need to be better than us. We need young minds seeded with creative possibilities at an informative age. The skills you learned when you were writing or doodling or acting or painting or playing are transferable. Creativity has no master – it is equally at home in a gallery as it is in the laboratory or on the floor of a debating chamber.
An arts strategy for Powys has one singular aim: To use creativity to make things better: A better life, a better environment, a better community. Most of all, a better and more sustainable future.
A sound Arts strategy would be not be an addition to commerce and innovation, tacked on the side as an afterthought: It needs to be an equal. If either Art or Commerce or Innovation blossom, then so do they all; if one is allowed to wither, the rest will soon falter. A strong Arts strategy for Powys strengthens the County’s goal of a more prosperous community by fostering a positive cultural mindset in which people, communities and business can flourish.
The Arts are already well established in Primary and Secondary education, and the new Welsh curriculum will further embed creative practice. Secondary pupils already move on not just to science degrees, but to Art Colleges and Drama Schools. Higher and Further Education in Powys have recently been augmented by the establishment of the wildly innovative Black Mountain College, who teach a wide range of traditional skills through the lens of the Arts, sustainability, cultural improvement and a much-needed emphasis on the Climate Emergency.
Recent renovations to Hay Castle have created not only an attractive venue for the arts, but also a valuable hub for cultural tourism. Powys has a well-established links to major cultural events, with the Hay on Wye, Green Man and Mach Comedy Festivals all giving a massive boost to the local economy, while also helping to sustain the vast number of creative freelancers and artists across within Powys and beyond. The recent expansion at the Brecon Museum, library and Art Gallery is of major benefit to community history and engagement, and Galleries are springing up throughout Powys, not only attracting buyers to the area but also showcasing local artists. Many writers and poets now make their homes in Powys, drawn into the Green Heart of Wales to find inspiration.
A robust Arts Strategy and its associated links with the Environmental Movement will attract younger people back to Powys, reversing the trends of recent years. The County will become a more positive and attractive place for young parents to bring up their children, knowing that experiences more usually associated to cities will be available here, too. Children will grow up in a multi-faceted environment of beauty, creative endeavour and innovative thought, nourished by insight and possibility.
Powys needs to be a place where you do not grow up and leave, it needs to be a place where you grow up to stay, and make a difference. A solid and dependable Arts Strategy will foster creativity within the communities and supply young minds with the tools to do what humans do best of all: Innovate, adapt and inspire.
And hopefully, to be better. The planet needs that.