BasildON Creative People & Places
Journey to New Town Utopia
CLIENT
Arts Council England
In 2018 Basildon was one of the most culturally deprived areas in the UK, having faced decades of underfunding arts and culture.
With 75% of residents not engaging in creative activities, a significant lack of cultural infrastructure and a dire reputation, Basildon had everything to fight for.
Hand in hand with local stakeholders, we took on the challenge of making sure Basildon was no longer overlooked. By 2019 we had successfully secured £1.7 million from Arts Council England and £750,000 from town partners to spark a cultural revolution.
Launching BasildON Creative People and Places, we brought together a consortium of town partners, working on the ground to design and deliver a programme with the ambition of generating radical levels of community involvement in the commissioning, participation and creation of culture.
Over four years, we have worked alongside local people to deliver 342 projects; from the nationally recognised street art programme ‘Our Towns’, to the cultural leadership programme ‘Young Pioneers’. We have reached 1.5 million people, working alongside 22,956 creative participants to prove that culture can truly transform a town.
Our collective efforts have led to the town’s first Cultural and Creative Enterprise Strategy; whilst attracting further investment into Basildon, including a recent award of £4.4 million from the government’s Cultural Investment Fund – one of only 8 successful bids nationally.
In four short years, BasildON Creative People & Places has become more than an arts programme – it’s a model of how creativity can spark genuine transformation from the ground up.
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Enabling the conditions for culture to thrive is paramount to creating great places to live, work, learn and play. Things Made Public are an excellent organisation to work alongside to enable this. From fun and engaging cultural consultations to strategy developments, festivals to place making, I have witnessed their breadth of skills married with an all-important can-do attitude.
– Grant Taylor, Assistant Director for Communities and Health, Basildon Council
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