Working Parts is an informal steering group of arts organisations in the four Black Country boroughs – Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
The aim of the partnership is to involve more disabled people in the arts and improve their experiences as artists, audiences and participants.
Current steering group members are Black Country Touring, Walsall Council Creative Development Team, the Arena Theatre Wolverhampton and Multistory based in Sandwell.
In the last year, a grant from Arts Council England – West Midlands has enabled the steering group to invite local disability organisations to explore how using the arts can not only be an additional attraction for them, but also an integral part of their daily business, often enabling them to fulfil their aims in very real, tangible ways.
As well as financing taster workshops and artist training, funding supported a freelance post of development worker for Working Parts, and organisations on the steering group allocated staff time to assist in the development and co-ordination of activities.
For more information about previous projects, please see the old version of the Working Parts website.
To tell us what you’re doing, or to make any comments and suggestions about the Working Parts programme contact Max Bailey or Kim Fuller from Walsall Council Creative Development Team on 01922 653114 or fullerk@walsall.gov.uk
Report on 2009, which describes the Working Parts process…
Working Parts was set up as an informal partnership between Multistory, the Arena Theatre, Black Country Touring and Walsall Council’s Creative Development Team. A group of arts organisations based in the Black Country who share common interests and values around their arts work with Deaf and disabled organisations.
The reason we came together was to get more Deaf and disability organisations in the Black Country to use the arts as part of their normal, every day activity and for them to be making the active choice as to what that should be.
We applied to the Arts Council for funding to support the work, which paid for a part time coordinator and some additional time for artists; one of the first things we did was to organise a seminar at the Arena inviting as many Deaf and disability organisations from the four Black Country boroughs as we could.
Our idea was to bring together a wide group of organisations who had an interest in using the arts as part of their work.
At the seminar they were invited to share some of the stumbling blocks that they encountered in the delivery of their work or services and then explore how the arts might be used as a way around or over these stumbling blocks.
Our intention was to place artists with the groups for a day or two days and for the artist to use their skills to find ways in which the arts could be used by the groups as a way of better delivering their work.
So this is how it went:
It began with four arts organisations:
A short time lapse video showing our creative presentation
Multistory, The Arena Theatre, Black Country Touring and Walsall Council’s Creative Development Team
Then came the seminar with 20 groups attending
Out of this seminar a number of groups were identified who had specific stumbling blocks that we felt artists and the arts could help.
For example we worked with a group called Options for Life an organisation working with learning disabled people across Sandwell – who were interested in two things, one was finding opportunities for more interaction between their service users and the wider community and the second was the creation of a piece of public art in their local park.
WORKING pARTS’s helped to find them artists (Planet Art) who, after discussion with Options for Life, led a public consultation with a number of local groups and people – including Options for Life about what that work might look like and how it will be managed. Sandwell Parks also met with Options for Life and welcomed the consultation as they have funding for the park.
A second group was “No Limits” a group of young people with Autism in Dudley.
Act Up video in which they discuss how their primary aim of communicating about the realities of their lives with the wider public.
Kuumba Centre is a Service, provided by Sandwell African Caribbean Mental Health Foundation. They have a group of visual artists with mental health problems who regularly work with an artist. Working parts worked with them to find ways of exhibiting work more widely.
A short video of No Limits in which they talk about their project and how it increased their communication skills and their interactions with each other.
No Limits successfully applied to Awards for All to do more performance work with artists and are running a drama group every Friday in 2010.
The Apna Group in Dudley are a group of learning disabled adults who wanted to find a way telling their own stories to a wider number of people. After discussions with an artist, they are making their own video.
Another group interested in using performance was Act Up; a mental health organisation in Dudley.
The Maltings successfully formed a new group called Expressions and applied to Awards for All to run a series of arts based activity and establish a group of interested people who will decide what projects they will be involved in.
The Maltings a day centre in Wolverhampton for people with physical impairments were losing opportunities for their members to participate in active and stimulating ways
Maltings video which talks about the need for disabled people having fulfilling opportunities and how services for disabled people seem to be disappearing, as councils now seem to assume they have access to more opportunities in the main stream.
An interesting stumbling block identified in the original seminar, was the lack of artists who were working with disabled children. This was touched on by more than one contributor and we felt that it would be a good use of our limited resources to run some preliminary training for artists who wanted to gain some experience in this field. A two day programme was devised. On the first day they worked with experienced artists who shared some of their ways of working and on the second they worked in pairs to devise a workshop for disabled children, with support, which in the afternoon, they delivered to children at Penn Hall School in Wolverhampton.
Video of artist Kirsty Smith who participated in the training.
What is beginning to develop is a network of artists and groups who are creating mutually beneficial opportunities. For example, we were approached by an artist – Heather Wastie – who wanted to run an exploratory sound beam project with a group of learning disabled adults. At the same time we had a group of learning disabled adults from Heantun Housing who were looking for a project to be involved in - and we brought them together.
The network also provides opportunities for people to be able to move around within it and benefit from different opportunities at different times. For example, Saiba attended Art Speaking at Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
Saiba video. Which charts their different contacts with WORKING PARTS members at different times.
So what started out as an informal partnership between four arts companies has spread to become a network of many more organisations which has had an effect on many people. It has fostered autonomy in the organisations it has been working with – they are the ones creating and writing applications to other sources for funding for their arts programmes. The result is more work for artists and hopefully more opportunities for the arts organisations involved – though this is not guaranteed.
As the network develops it will allow the spread of information and opportunities across the Black Country. This allows more people to know about the work that is already happening. It also encourages more people and organisations to explore ways in which they might use the arts. As it establishes itself, we hope the network will become increasingly extensive and self perpetuating.
An important tool in this development will be the website. This is both a contact point and shop window for the network, where people can find out about what is happening, what has happened and where they might get advice about work they want to do.
Working Parts starts to indicate a way of working that can be built on by both us and others. It isn’t a way of creating projects for the arts organisations involved in the short term, but there is every likelihood that by creating this stimulation the appetite for the arts will grow.
We are making partnerships with people who are more likely to trust us in the future – and who will be able to be better informed partners in future work. It is only by this investment in our partners that we will be able to build strong and solid work in the future.
