Yam Cams is a new photography project, that launched this month, which aims to inspire people to photograph everyday life in the four Black Country boroughs: Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Grab a free 15 minute one-to-one telephone performance by poet ADRIAN B. EARLE, storyteller PETER CHAND, or musicians SAM FRANKIE FOX and RICARDO SANTOS ROCHA as part of F WORDS.

The team at Paycare, a Health Cash Plan and Wellbeing Training provider based in the heart of Wolverhampton, has donated £20,000 to Creative Black Country to help us to support 17 projects as part of ‘Creative Connections’ - our strand of work aimed at bringing joy to communities during the pandemic.

The Life From My Doorstep project team are inviting people living across Wordsley, Kingswinford and Stourbridge to share with them what has kept you going during lockdown with photographs that capture the joy and beauty to be found on our doorsteps.

The aim of Walking Through Waterways History, is to involve the local community in gathering material for an audio trail celebrating the Dudley No 2 Canal between Windmill End Junction and Hawne Basin, an area once lined with industry, including the once huge Stewarts & Lloyds where over 2000 people worked. Can you help?

Connect Dudley Online Exhibition Launch, 7.30pm on Wed 24 February. An evening of poetry responding to letters written in lockdown by local people. An invitation from local poet and CoLab Dudley Time Rebel, Rick Sanders.

During 2020 CBC’s Creative Advisor for Sandwell, Richard, worked with Bally from the Sandwell Asian Mental Health Group to put together a calendar of positivity. With a tough year getting used to lockdowns and social distancing the members of the group worked in new ways online and via the phone to design and produce these positive messages to take us through the year ahead.

Over the next 24 months Creative Black Country will be working with 6 other dynamic organisations across the region on a new participatory performing arts project, which will aim to build bridges between D/deaf, disabled and non-disabled people using theatre and mime to tell stories of people around the Commonwealth.

We’re kicking off 2021 by sharing some Bostin News - quite literally. We have copies of the Newspaper that collates some of the lovely work you might of seen already on here but also some special pieces of content that we have also saved JUST for the newspaper. Would you like a copy?

In December, for the Winter Solstice on the 21st, Culture Central asked artists and organisations from across the West Midlands to produce and commission pieces of work that could be shared across social media platforms, lasting no more than 60 seconds each.

During 2020 artist Laura Dicken spoke to 4 creatives for her Creative Connections Commissioned project Turning Points to find out more about creativity in the Black Country and how people view the places they live and the opportunities that are around them. We’ve chosen a few extracts from the conversations to share below.

Free online Minecraft and Music production courses for young people in Sandwell.

We know 2020 has been a tough and challenging year but it has also been a time of intense creativity for many. CBC’s Marketing & Content Manager, Kerry, asked the team to share their favourite projects that they worked on during the pandemic and here is what they said…

With support from Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy CBC has been able to set up and explore possibilities for a free funding network for arts and culture across the Black Country. In these challenging times the network can connect those fundraising across the region and provide support.

Bostin News: Meet Content Editor Anneka French

Bostin News: Meet Content Editor Louise Bloomfield

Bostin News: Meet Content Editor Tim Brinkhurst

Bostin News: Meet Content Editor HEATHER WASTIE

Bostin News: Meet Editorial Assistant Eve Orford

When we started to follow @busybee_amy (or Amy Holland as we now know) on Instagram we were instantly taken by her illustrations. From beautiful plants to detailed drawings of imaginary characters in busy rooms - we loved her style. So when we wanted some illustrations of our content editors we knew who we had to ask.