A £4,000 commission is being offered for artists/performers to work with young people in Ventnor to create a youth-friendly creative space in the town during February and March this year.
The project, aimed at 13-25-year-olds, will be supported by Ventnor Exchange through its Brave Island network and aims to empower young people to make a difference to their town through creativity, and have their voices heard.
The aim is to hand over an empty space in Ventnor to a group of young people and ask them to work with professional creatives to transform it into somewhere that encourages young people to get outside, engage with the IW Biosphere and get more physically active.
Rainford: The young people will shortlist the creatives
Peta Rainford, programme manager at arts for wellbeing charity Independent Arts, says,
“We have no preconceptions about the types of creativity that the space might be used for – it could be performance, digital, visual, or none, or all, of these.
“The key thing is that the project will be co-produced with the young people, who will shortlist the creatives and then make a final selection about who they want to work with at a Dragon’s Den-style selection process at the end of January.”
Third place-changing commission
The Ventnor project will be the third exciting, place-changing commission to be launched on the Isle of Wight as part of the Artswork-funded Supporting Young Minds programme.
The Sandown and Lake Youth Forum, supported by Community Action Isle of Wight, is working with filmmaker Bruce Webb to create a film about the challenges and benefits of living in the Bay area as a young person. The film is due to premiere at Sandown Library on 3rd February.
Look out for monochrome artwork in Newport
Meanwhile, the Newport Youth Forum, based at Independent Arts, is busy creating an art trail around Newport, working with artist Laura Hathaway.
You may have seen them working in the windows of the former Top Shop building in St James’ Square (now named P1 Wadhams). Look out for more of their monochrome artwork around the town in the next few weeks!
Apply today
Creatives interested in the Ventnor commission should email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.
Applications must be received by midday on Thursday 26th January.
Sign up to be involved
If you are a young person aged 13-25 who lives, works or goes to school in the Ventnor area and would like to be part of the project, please visit the Brave Island Website to sign up or find out more, or contact [email protected].
Supporting Young Minds
Supporting Young Minds is managed by Isle of Wight arts for wellbeing charity Independent Arts, on behalf of The Island Collection and the Isle of Wight CEP, in collaboration with Artswork (Southampton).
It is part of a larger region-wide programme supporting young people’s mental health through creativity.
News shared by Peta on behalf of Supporting Young Minds. Ed
Image: Khara Woods under CC BY 2.0
