Placemaking

Cultural festival LEEDS 2023 is bringing locally-based artists together with international collaborators in two new programmes as part of its year-long programme.

The World in Our City, the City in Our World will include work by musicians, DJs, theatre makers and writers from cities including Kuala Lumpur, Karachi and Durban.

A second programme, Tech for the Public Good, will create an online residency with participants from countries including Ghana, Iraq, Lebanon, Nepal, Mexico and the UK.

Both programmes are supported by the British Council.

LEEDS 2023 Executive Producer Emma Beverley said: “This work will see us foster new connections across borders whilst also supporting and developing local talent.”

A Medway theatre is one of three local creative sector projects due to share £14.4m in Levelling Up funding.

The first tranche of grants from the Government scheme was released as part of Wednesday's Budget.

Medway Council says The Brook Theatre will be "comprehensively repaired, refurbished and upgraded". More than 400sqm of creative workspace will be added.

Creative workspaces are also a feature of the other two levelling up projects.

The Docking Station, a former police section house, will be redeveloped to house the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries. Artists, graduates and staff at the University of Kent will have access to studios, performance spaces and an interactive digital gallery.

The Fitted Rigging House will be brought "back into effective use" with 1,939sqm of creative-focussed commercial floorspace.

A citizen's assembly on the role of arts and culture - the first of its kind anywhere in the world - has begun.

A new website launched on Thursday (October 14) for residents of Coventry to share their views on how arts and culture can shape the city's future.

The ideas given online will be debated by 50 paid participants, who have been randomly selected from a representative sample of the population.

That group's recommendations will help form Coventry's long term cultural planning and a series of creative projects in 2022.

“This poll is a way of getting a sense of how the wider city feels about the issues the assembly is debating, and of feeding other views, perspectives and ideas in for the assembly participants to deliberate," said Janet Vaughan, Co-Artistic Director of project lead Talking Birds.

The website remains open for comments until November 5.

Three marble and bronze scupltures of Caribbean produce have become the first public artwork in the UK celebrating the Windrush generation.

Veronica Ryan's work references narratives of migration and movement, drawing on her childhood memories of east London's Ridley Road Market, near where the statues are sited.

"Cultural visibility and representation evident in public spaces is crucial," Ryan said.

"I like the fact that the community in Hackney will see some familiar fruit and vegetables represented in the sculptures, and always enjoy these connections."

The sculptures are part of Hackney Council's 'Black History in the Making', funded by the Freelands Foundation, which will continue throughout autumn

A new website has also been established.

Birmingham 2022 has released details of the six-month festival set to run across the West Midlands as part of the Commonwealth Games.

The £12m festival will showcase art, photography, dance, theatre and digital commissions between March and October next year.

It will open with a new production, Wondrous Stories, performed by Leamington Spa-based dance circus company Motionhouse. The festival's full programme is set to be released in January,

“This spectacular festival will feature over 300 brand new creative works, providing essential funding direct to artists and thousands of participatory moments for audiences,” Birmingham 2022 Chief Creative Office Martin Green said.

Birmingham Council's Creative City Grants will support the festival by offering 150 community groups grants of up to £20,000 to deliver creative projects that “impact positively on their community”.

This latest funding drive follows £100,000 pledged by the Games to create artworks depicting sporting events.