Kicking off 2025 - sharing what we’ve been up to so far
We’ve certainly had an impactful and fun start to 2025, marking our 10th anniversary, kicking off two major new projects, continuing with our Creative Communities strand of support and sharing our latest series of short films.
The Creative Black Country team and our consortium prepare for a night of celebration. Image by Lee Allen.
Celebrating a Decade of Creativity
In March, we commemorated our 10-year milestone with a dynamic event at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. The celebration featured panel discussions, hands-on workshops, and performances, bringing together artists, community leaders, and residents to reflect on a decade of creative engagement and envision the future of arts in the region. Find out more about how we have been celebrating our 10 year birthday here.
We love project ideas that inspire the whole community - all ages and all kinds of interests are welcome
Empowering Creative Communities
Our Creative Communities programme continues to support grassroots initiatives by providing up to £1,000 in creative commissions. Project proposals this year have included a range of goals and sees with groups getting out of their local neighbourhoods to head to galleries and events around the region and even the capital.
Phil from Juneau Projects facilitates the workshop at whg Walsall. Image by Laura Dicken.
Walsall Makes: Celebrating Local Creativity
The ‘Walsall Makes’ programme has continued highlighting the borough’s creative talents through a series of artist-in-residence workshops with Juneau Projects. As well as the impending launch of heritage programme Making Our Mark.
Creative Director Parminder chats to Michael Portiolo about the Desi Pubs project at the Red Lion in West Bromwich
As seen on TV
The ‘Desi Pubs’ project gained national attention (again) by featuring on BBC’s ‘Great British Railway Journeys,’ celebrating the fusion of British pub culture with South Asian heritage.
The National Gallery Art Road Trip team heads to the whg property in Wolverhampton for a week of workshops
Taking the road well-travelled
We teamed up with the National Gallery as they venture up and down the country with their bus for their Art Road Trip, which took in spaces across our partner whg’s network of homes, including Walsall and Wolverhampton. The 2-week event gave local local, school children and whg residents the opportunity to take part in a number of brilliantly facilitated workshops.
The new branding on goody bags prepared for guests at the the 10 Year anniversary event. Image by Dee Patel.
A colourful refresh
The start of the year gave us the opportunity to share our brand refresh thanks to the super work of the talented Sister Minor, who has helped bring our new ‘threading’ vision to life. As our work has been gently growing and nurturing community connectivity and confidence through a number of projects, we wanted to share how we ‘thread creativity through the Black Country’ and wanted the new brand to reflect our 10-year milestone. You can see more here.
Be inspired - A new series of films are now available to watch
Getting a glimpse behind the scenes
One of the things we are very proud of at Creative Black Country is helping projects come to life. When communities get in touch, we never know where ideas might lead. This is where the team get excited - when we get the opportunity to help groups develop their ideas, offer support and inspiration, put them in touch with talented artists or support external funding applications, it’s amazing to see what happens. So we asked Amy of Koru Films to help us capture some of the brilliant projects and the people behind them. You can watch all of the films online now here.
Look out for MAKING OUR MARK - launching 22nd May 2025
Looking Ahead
As we move into the latter half of 2025, we’ve got some great new projects and programmes to share with you. We have a new cohort for Black Country Digital Firsts, our partner project with The Space, which will be supporting a group of creatives to produce new digital works. We will also be rolling out the Making Our Mark heritage programme across Walsall, which is supported via The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The Creative Communities seed money will still be available to apply for, so if you are a community group that wants to test an idea for a new project or wants to head out to be inspired and see something creative, make sure you get in touch.
There’s more coming later in the year, which we’ll be sharing. In the meantime, keep up to date with our newsletter and find out first what is happening in your part of the Black Country.