Near the end of last year, creative practitioners on the Isle of Wight gathered for the first Island Collection Cultural Conference, hosted by the inspiring team at Hullabaloo.
The one-day conference celebrated culture, creativity, inspiration and prosperity on the Isle of Wight and was a chance for those interested in community aspiration and regeneration to hear more about current and future projects.
Simon Eden from the Southern Policy Centre
We were lucky enough to grab some time to talk with Simon Eden from the Southern Policy Centre, who’d travelled over to the Island to open and close the conference.
Speaking to News OnTheWight at the end of the day, Simon said,
“The thing that struck me the most is the huge amount of stuff that’s going on around the Island. There are some really creative, imaginative people on the Island who are doing some fantastic things all driven by the local community.
“It’s all about a bottom up, what can culture do for local people.
“It’s not showcasing culture or grandstanding culture or trying to pretend that the Island is an international centre for X, Y and Z. It’s about what works for us and what’s good for us and what do we enjoy doing on the Island.”
Building a bigger more complex, more engaged cultural offer
Simon explained why this approach is important to ensure growth of the sector,
“That gives you a really strong base on which you can then build a bigger more complex, more engaged cultural offer, something which really starts to see how culture in all its many forms, whether it’s drama, theatre, performance, film, visual arts, how that can help with all the other things that the Island wants to do and some of the challenges the Island faces.”
Listen to the podcast
Click on the play button to listen to the six-minute podcast.
The Southern Policy Centre (which has been running since 2014) is the only independent think tank and policy forum for the central South. A not-for-profit organisation, it offers a non-partisan and neutral space for challenging debate.
Find out more about the Southern Policy Centre by visiting their Website.
More in the series
Listen to our podcast from the event with Sarah Dance of Creative Estuary.
Look out for more podcasts from the Island Collection Cultural Conference, coming soon.
