FACTORY Online Meet

To keep our creative communities in Staffordshire connected, FACTORY is organising online meets, where we have the opportunity to come together and chat informally about topics around current challenges for our Creative Communities. In the era of Covid19, we and our creative sectors have specific challenges when wanting to connect with audiences, creatives, customers, networks and each other.

Topic: Socially engaged art – extending your practice to work with the public
Experts: Alice Thatcher and Sarah Fraser
Friday  3 July 10:30am – 12 noon
Sign up for free at https://hopin.to/events/factory-online-meet-3-july-2020

Join BCB Associate artists Alice Thatcher and Sarah Fraser as they unpick motivations and methods for sharing your creative practice with a wider audience. This practical session is aimed at early-career artists and arts professionals who would like to extend their practice to work with people. We will be exploring what socially engaged practice is and why it is important. We will outline practical strategies for working inclusively with people, planning and delivering creative activities (online and in person) and how to develop a socially engaged practice as a career. 

Alice Thatcher Following her graduation from University of Sunderland in 2012, Alice Thatcher returned to Stoke-on-Trent. She is committed to her own role within the cultural and creative growth of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. Thatcher’s practice examines the similarity between “vulnerable” communities and the properties of clay. She is interested in how people can use clay to communicate their identities, learn new cultural, social and creative ideas from one another, and experience the versatility, beauty and heritage of clay and ceramics. 

Sarah Fraser Sarah Fraser studied visual arts at the University of South Africa. After working in further education with adults with learning difficulties and disabilities for over ten years, she has shifted to combining her practice as an artist with studio based community work over the past 3 years. Since 2019, Fraser has worked in Stoke-on-Trent, leading on a community co-production project of Staffordshire flatback figurines; conceptualising and delivering and arts and health projects (on and offline); and collaborating with the Portland Inn Project fellowship project in 2020. 

Photo: Production line space as part of BCB Festival 2019. Credit: Jenny Harper