Culture Camp
Culture Camp is an innovative cultural programme for local young people. It is a set of five artist-led sessions including artist studio visits, talks, visual arts workshops and trips to cultural institutions.
Recent Culture Camps featured
- Painting and drawing at Porthmeor Studios overlooking the sea,
- A tour of Leach Pottery museum, a throwing demo and making a clay bowl using slump moulds,
- A visit to Tate St Ives to see the St Ives collection and current exhibitions,
- Q&A session with a contemporary artist and tour of their studio,
- A visit to Porthmeor Beach and a walk on St Ives Island to gather inspiration,
- Bronze Arts Award accreditation.
Who do we work with?
Youth partners, alternative provisions and we take referrals from secondary schools.
Since 2019, we have worked in partnership with 10 different schools and educational partners across Cornwall, reaching those most in need.
Culture Camp supports young people to re-engage in learning. All of the young people chosen have low cultural engagement, and having the Culture Camp experience, with Bronze Arts Award embedded, brings huge benefits to such at risk groups.
We work with local secondary schools as well as pupil referral units like Nine Maidens, and the Community and Hospital Education Service (CHES). All referred students from secondary schools are chosen because they are pupil premium and live in low income families. The young people attending the pupil referral units are excluded from education, while others in the CHES are too ill to go to school. We feel it’s important that local young people feel invited to arts spaces that often feel out of reach or exclusive to them. Breaking those barriers to engagement transforms young peoples aspirations. We want to help create the artists of the future!
St Ives School of Painting recognises how art and creativity can transform lives and change perspectives. We continue to support local young people with our resources, experience, artists and passion.
Create Room
This inclusion project, was piloted in Summer term in 2023 and was delivered onsite at Pool Academy during the school day. It is another way of engaging with young people who would otherwise not access the arts. The artist Emma Saffy Wilson supported by an art technician from School of Painting took over an area of the art department and worked with two sets of young people from low income backgrounds. All the art activities surrounded mindfulness and wellbeing. This project will run again in 2025 with artist Kitty Hillier and will expand into an Arts Award project, so vulnerable teenagers can achieve half a GCSE in Art.
CLEAR Trauma Charity
We started working in partnership with this charity in 2024 to bring the benefits of the arts and creativity to their young people. The young people have all experienced trauma of some kind, and after their allotted therapy sessions, they are referred to work with us. Last year we ran a bespoke Arts Award project for them as a group, followed by an exhibition to celebrate their achievements. In 2025 we will work in partnership with the CLEAR Ideas project.
