THE ART ORGANISATION NOTTINGHAM 3-21 STATION STREET, NG2 gallery exhibitions galleries 2 and 3 weekly classes workshops sessions studios space artists facilities members residents working practice develop progress exhibit portfolio live events past evenings supplies materials teabar teasales artists crafts recycle reuse volunteer join in! contacts links

The project in Nottingham, on Station Street, now stands independently as a project of
TAO EAST MIDLANDS Community Interest Company
Liam Woodgates and Lynne Russell are current Directors and manage the project.

The company’s activities will provide benefit to…

The general community, locally and within the region of the East Midlands, local artists and artist groups, arts related practitioners, educators of the arts and groups working in the arts. Local business and the neighbourhood environment. Volunteers and community groups. Tourism.

Activities; what the company has been set up to do.

Regenerate and breathe new life into derelict, vacant or abandoned spaces, develop working practices and support environmental concerns, and nurture co-operation within the community.

Offer opportunities and continuing support to volunteers, artists and groups within the project, and provide a point of contact within this network.

Offer affordable and a good standard of studio, workshop and office space.

Accommodate classes and workshops for community participation.

Source resources for use within the project and then outreach into the local community and further afield to raise awareness of the availability of facilities.

Provide a platform to engage with various artistic mediums, music and performance.

How will the activity benefit the community.

This project begins by targeting empty, derelict, often vandalised buildings that stand as an eyesore in the community, and, in their abandoned state, are of little service. The project relates to environmental concerns and encourages recycling and the use of waste materials. The process of regeneration involves volunteers and community service, and involvement offers opportunity for personal development and individual growth, learning and experience, leading to potential employment, an increase in self-esteem and the feel-good factor of helping others.

As a centre in the community, the project offers a point of contact for groups and individuals seeking to access the network of artists working from these spaces and so serves to benefit a wider field than the centre itself, leading to potential employment and socio-economic development.

Creation of private rented space, at affordable rates, made available to the artistic community, offers workshop and office space for artists, arts-related groups, and the creative industries, who in turn outreach their services for the wider benefit of the community through education programmes and working practices.

The general community space made available in the project benefits artist practitioners, who in turn can offer classes and workshops for attendance by the general community, and increases employment, skills and health, wellbeing and confidence to those attendees. The united effort of combining skilled persons together leads to collaboration and support for each other and this project recognises individual prospects and nurtures them within the working environment.

Each project will make available space to house facilities useful in the practice of the different art formats. This will serve to assist artists in the community when their particular skill requires specialist equipment.

Likewise, the facilities provided, services, and larger community space available can serve as a platform for the arts, music and performance and serve to promote live events for the benefit of the public and the performers involved.

If the company makes any Surplus.

The project has a financial ethos comparable to social enterprise, where initial profits are re-invested into the project to ensure its continued development and so leading to sustainability, with further profits securing positions of employment within the project to ensure long term stability. If the project should fail and the company fold, any profits and assets will be donated to a similar community arts project within the region.

2009

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