This week, OnTheWight will be sharing the visions of four Isle of Wight towns that have entered the competition to become UK Town of Culture 2028. They are among more than 200 towns across the UK vying for the title. The winner will receive £3,000,000 to celebrate their town and help to create a lasting cultural legacy.
OnTheWight is sharing each bid’s vision in the order we received them.
Fourth bid: Ventnor
Ventnor’s bid for UK Town of Culture 2028 grew out of six weeks of conversations with residents, community groups and businesses – and the picture that emerged is of a town that knows both its strengths and its challenges with clear eyes.
The bid, led by the team at Ventnor Exchange, places Ventnor’s famous microclimate and its position on the largest urban landslide in Northern Europe at the heart of its vision – arguing the town is a bellwether for changes communities across the country will need to face.
The case is straightforward: in unpredictable times, culture brings people together, helping them adapt and make sense of forces beyond their control.
Jack from Ventnor Exchange shares below details about the bid (it’s not the exact word-for-word bid).
Ventnor’s UK Town of Culture 2028 vision
Over the past six weeks the team at Ventnor Exchange have been busy talking, engaging and sharing ideas with residents, community groups and business about what makes Ventnor such a unique place.
Our bid reflects the hopes and fears that were shared with us, that this is an isle full of noises; home to the country’s oldest carnivals, world class artists, homegrown creativity and the UK’s fastest growing fringe festival. That we are not an island of strangers, but an island of neighbours, bound together by pride in place, local traditions and shared challenges. We support each other through the good times and the bad.
And what could be more British than talking about the weather? We found that this was a theme returned to again and again, from our history as a health spa to the way the rhythm of life changes from winter to summer. But our microclimate is also a window into the future. At the Botanic Garden there are outdoor citrus groves and cycads which are flowering for the first time on these shores in 60 million years. Our climate is changing.
And of course we don’t shy away from the challenges the town faces, the deprivation and isolation that persists. Most significantly, our towering cliffs are fracturing, the whole town forming the largest urban landslide in Northern Europe. We are a bellwether of the change that is to come.
Through Ventnor’s Town of Culture bid we have shared a vision of pioneering the role of culture in building the resilience needed to adapt to this ever changing canvas, and through our stories and creativity helping communities up and down the country in adapting and preparing for change we cannot always control. In unpredictable times, culture brings us together, helping us to empathise and make sense of something bigger than ourselves.
A Ventnor Town of Culture will be innovative, inclusive and surprising. It will be timely, urgent and radical and most importantly; It will empower our community to face the future with confidence, humility and open hearts.
