I’m currently Resident Artist at Community Wellness, a holistic health and wellbeing organisation based around Wrexham.
They offer community centred emotional and mental health support, helping combat loneliness, isolation, stress, and trauma. Set up and run by GPs & Wellness Professionals in collaboration with the community. Its a unique, brilliant, and effective project.
Benefit of an arts residency to the organisation
Creating art is a fantastic expression and processing tool, but for me it’s power is also in encouraging interactions and relationship between humans. It can be a useful way of discovering and sharing insights, and opening up conversations about the core values of an organisation. Using fine art, created in context during a residency allows aspects of projects to be expressed in new, authentic ways, helping organisations reach new audiences. Dare I say ‘Art for marketing’.
Created during the residency
The residency has included creating songs, poems, soundscapes, imagery, photography, participant giveaways, and fostering feedback during the sessions. (Films of some performances can be seen on my Patreon page).
Community connection icebreaker cards
One specific idea I created was an interactive ice breaker used with new participants who came to the weekly Community Connection sessions where they can choose or create their own interlocking cards to explore their values and interests ( eg: inclusion, forgiveness, peace, gardening, family etc).
Participants built their own community ‘stack’, that could overlap with others in the space too. It became a great prompt for conversations and a great way to understand the needs of people.
Sharing what was created
As well as sharing content through their social media channels, I organised a joint fundraising evening to raise funds and awareness. An intimate evening showcasing Community Wellness and their work illustrated with a slide presentation, live songs and poems, ideas, images and graphics. Members of Community Wellness also sharing their creativity and hopes and dreams for the future.
Complimenting traditional marketing methods
Alongside more traditional resources such as social media content and printed publicity materials I’ve begun to weave in some of the more artistic expressions to add a richness to their communications. Plus as a part of my role as a Community Connector I’ve spent time with participants gathering feedback on what is important to them to improve the offer.
Art for marketing
Using fine art, created in context during a residency alongside more traditional marketing content, allows aspects of projects to be expressed in new, authentic ways, helping organisations reach new audiences.
Insights
Part of my time there also includes helping with social media content and management to help improve traffic and engagement. My 3 months at the project has helped bring a larger audience.
