Arts Council England has today announced that a total of £38.3 million will be invested in Creative People and Places projects over the next three years - made possible thanks to National Lottery players - to deliver more grassroots-led cultural experiences in areas across England where involvement in arts and culture is below the national average.

We’d like to invite you to an evening of creative project planning for Dudley in 2022 where we are bringing together creatives, organisations and people who are interested in creating a culture programme across the borough next year - and we’d love your input.

Dudley Creates presents 'Portrait of a Place' poetry workshop with Nafeesa Hamid (on 7th December + 11th January) + animation workshops in January.

Creative Black Country has been working with communities across the region to share creativity, fun and positivity via its Creative Connection Commissions. From small ideas big, inventive projects grew including poetry group Connect Dudley and Instagram photography project Yam Cams who are both featured in this short film.

Art Track: Metro Art Programme is a one-year pilot project to create an expanded programme of designs for public art commissions and public engagement activities for the new Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension which is due to open to passengers in 2024.

Creative Black Country is developing a new initiative to support fundraising for arts and culture in the region for these challenging times.

Join CBC’s Dudley Creates team and help us plan projects across the Borough for 2022. There are some exciting things happening across Dudley town’s and we’d love to spread some creativity to communities.

Over 100 Walsall residents aged 5 - 83 have contributed to a new film celebrating Walsall’s Arboretum. Watch the film here…

Offsite 9 is an ambitious program of work launching January 2022 to coincide with British Art Show 9 which is taking place in Wolverhampton. We are sharing more details of some of the work that Creative Black Country is commissioning over the coming months that will explore the themes from British Art Show and showcase how the touring exhibition is inspiring and informing some of the commissioned works.

Write, Create and Perform—for girls and women. Weekly 2-hour workshop sessions over six weeks led by writer-performer Rupinder Kaur. CBC’s Dudley Creates team is inviting girls and women to take part in a series of weekly online creative workshops with Rupinder Kaur starting Tuesday 2nd November from 6.30pm - 8pm.

Creative Black Country (CBC) are offering small commissions of £500 - £2000 for projects that develop creative activity with and by local communities in the Black Country. We are encouraging creative responses which bring fun, joy and creativity to local people in the Black Country in 2022.

Walsall Arboretum bandstand was open to the public last weekend (11-12 September) to host I Remember Walsall Illuminations – an exhibition of photos and videos about the famous Midlands light show which ran for 57 years in the town’s premier park.

Early September we invited young people to an advocacy event at Newhampton Arts Centre. We were joined by hosts and workshop facilitators Kupid Val Essone and Andre Reid, who lead an evening of creative conversations between young people and friends/stakeholders in the city.

We’re delighted to be able to share a few of the commissioned artists for our upcoming Offsite 9 project. Over 25 artists, creatives and organisations will be producing work from January 2022 onwards that will make up a programme of exciting and diverse projects, events and interventions that will pop-up across the city.

CBC will be hosting 4 sessions at this year’s Black Country Business Festival during October to help you make the most of funding opportunities. All the events will be hosted online via Zoom with a panel of experts, creatives and advisors to help inspire and answer your questions.

In July 2021, CBC ran a temperature test exercise through an online survey to gain insights into how the cultural sector in the Black Country coped with the Covid-19 pandemic over the past year. The information gathered also aimed to identify how the sector is currently responding to the lifting of restrictions…

I Remember Walsall Illuminations: An exhibition of photos and video at Walsall Arboretum Bandstand, 11-12 September.

Imaginative sculptural birdhouses tell stories of migration to Birmingham and the Black Country.

Young people in Wolverhampton are being invited to a music and creative workshop session next Tuesday, 7th September from 5pm at Newhampton Arts Centre to encourage them have a say on the future of their city.

Last week we popped along to the first Meet + Make event in Greenfield Gardens, Stourbridge for a new project organised by Ruth Turnbull which has been commissioned by the Dudley Creates team on behalf of CBC.