Culture Mile News

CREATIVE SPACES developing the spaces within Culture Mile, from public realm to meanwhile use

Play Packs in Beech Street

We’re planning a series of outdoor vinyls, celebrating Culture Mile’s Play Packs to appear in Beech Street tunnel in the next few weeks, part of Culture Mile’s public realm branding that has started to appear across the area.

Get in touch: Marta Woloszczuk, Public Realm Team, City Corporation

Play at London Wall Place

Brookfield PLAY: an audio installation with augmented reality elements delivered by Guildhall School of Music & Drama students and Live Events team at London Wall Place is planned for August 2021. Brookfield will commission totems to promote the works in the physical space. Get in touch: Ben Lloyd Evans, Producer, Barbican

BECOMING A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT

CREATIVE COMMUNITIES: Strengthening connections with and between neighbours and the heritage and culture on their doorstep.

Nine businesses in the area have committed to forming a new business partnership that will support the development of proposals to establish a Business Improvement District in Culture Mile by spring 2023. Other businesses may join this group over the next few months. The first meeting will take place on 8 June, chaired by City Member Tijs Broeke on behalf of the Culture Mile Working Party and the Property Investment board. Get in touch: Tim Jones, Culture Mile Manager, City Corporation

CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS: Developing the City’s creative ecology and advocating for a deepened collaboration between commerce and culture

The Ideas Feast

Thanks to all who joined us online to celebrate the Imagine Fund – our pilot participatory grant-making project. The session was led by the community members who took part. It was great to see all the brilliant creative projects that have been taking place over the last few months, hear how it went, and think about where we could go next with these models of democratic decision-making. See the films and catch up on the event’s miro board

here. Get in touch: Anna Casey Producer, Barbican/Culture Mile.

Summer of Play

The Creative Communities team are working on a series of live play events over the summer, bringing Play Streets to local estates and communities that we have been working with, including Golden Lane Estate. We’ll also be continuing our work with Timbuktu Adventure Playground, running den-making workshops with local children. Get in touch: Anna Casey Producer, Barbican/Culture Mile..

Blooming City

Madhumita Bose’s (Forget Me Not charity) new quilting project starts this month, with women’s groups learning to make simple flowers from old textiles at home. All City residents and workers are invited to take part in a series of community days to contribute to a final handmade quilt. The first drop-in session will be at Middlesex Estate, Aldgate, E1 7EZ, on 26th June, 2pm- 4pm. Further sessions across the City to be confirmed. To be kept updated, on future dates, email Divya Satwani Assistant Producer, Barbican/Culture Mile

Creativity: The Commercial Superpower

A new report, commissioned by Culture Mile and co-funded by Guildhall School of Music & Drama, was released on 19 May. It evidences the benefits of creativity within corporate business and the potential for cross-sector collaboration between sectors. For the full report, Fast Fact sheet and video, see here. Get in touch: Elizabeth Mischler, Culture Mile, Strategy & Operations team, City Corporation

Culture and Commerce Taskforce

The Taskforce met in May to discuss progress on its 10 recommended projects, including a commissioning scheme for creative activity in streets, shop windows and lobbies; a programme of creative and commercial skills exchanges and development of repurposed office and retail space as dedicated workspaces for creative businesses. Get in touch: email Sian Bird, Culture Mile, Strategy & Operations team, City Corporation.

NDT Broadgate

The Taskforce will partner with New Diorama Theatre on NDT Broadgate, a major new artist development complex, opening this summer, in partnership with British Land comprising rehearsal rooms, design studios, presentation spaces and offices for independent artists to use for free throughout the year. Get in touch: email Sian Bird, Culture Mile, Strategy & Operations team, City Corporation.

CREATIVE LEARNING: A programme for schools and young people to support learning and social mobility developed with a partnership of 30 unique cultural venues

#Mood

Culture Mile Learning’s interactive digital artwork #Mood for the City Family of Schools, with Art in Flux launched last month coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Week. Pupils created digital and hand drawn memes to represent their feelings. The project was developed during lockdown by Stuart Batchelor for Culture Mile and the City of London Family of Schools and produced by Aphra Shemza from Art in Flux, allowing students to communicate how they are feeling at this pivotal moment in history. Get in touch: Beth Crosland, Culture Mile Learning, Museum of London

Fusion Futures

Fusion Futures delivered its first set of workshops last week to Year 10s from Oasis Academy Silvertown. Poet Adisa the Verbaliser joined forces with architectural practice Hawkins\Brown to connect the language of poetry with the physical language of the built environment. The students explored how the fusion of different types of creativity can take their problem-solving skills to the next level. Get in touch: Jamie Hannon, seconded to Culture Mile Learning, Barbican.

DATES AND UPDATES

2 June, GCDN Conversations – Live from Lugano.

Helen Kearney from the City Corporation Public Realm team joins the Global Culture District Network to discuss Are Cultural Districts Failing on Climate Action?

8 June, Creative Freelancers Exchange: SME support within Culture Mile: How Can We Help? A session with Culture Mile, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Small Business Research + Enterprise Centre, and Barbican Centre.

24 – 25 June. Museums, Cities, Cultural Power

A free two-day online symposium bringing together cultural and museum practitioners, academics, urbanists, architects, and activists for a series of urgent discussions on the evolving power relationships between urban museums, their neighbourhoods, and the people who inhabit them.

8-9 July, DISRUPT 2021

It’s time to unlearn, rethink and restructure! A new digital festival exploring how the performing arts has collaborated with communities during the pandemic, and how a year of uncertainty and change has encouraged new and radical ways of working. Tickets now available on a pay what you can basis.

Food for Thought

Rachel Smith is convening creatives across Culture Mile to talk all things food, to inspire and connect with plans, projects and ideas that are swirling around. From projects exploring permaculture design principles, community growing, seed banks, communal feasting to discussions around the future of food. If you’d like to join the conversation, contact Rachel.

How to work with artists in non-traditional contexts

Culture Mile ran sessions with the Contemporary Arts Society earlier this year to explore projects and challenges around working with artists in the public realm and non-traditional contexts. The session aimed to come up with a set of best practice frameworks from initial scoping and brief, to identifying the right artist, to creation and decommission. If you’d like to find out more, contact Elizabeth.

MY MILE

Eva Shackleford, Culture Mile Business Apprentice – our newest recruit.

I met some of the Culture Mile team in person for the first time last week. While in the City we saw Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty at the Barbican, which was amazing. It really challenged the stereotypical concept of art.

FOOTNOTES

Creativity ExchangeBeth in Culture Mile Learning has been catching on ACE’s Creativity Exchange resources. This article What is Creative Leadership in Schools? is inspiring reading.
How We Live NowFor those back in this City, this free real life exhibition at the Barbican is well worth dropping into. It explores important questions about our public spaces and designed environments. How We Live Now is open now – no advance booking necessary.
Creativity in Mind
An interesting piece of clinical research, exploring the impact of everyday creativity online on mood and anxiety levels.

If you’d like to share your must-reads next month, please get in touch

WHAT IS CULTURE MILE?

Culture Mile is the City of London’s

cultural district, stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate. Led by the City of London Corporation, with the Barbican, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Symphony Orchestra and Museum of London, the five partners are creating a vibrant, creative area in the north west corner of the Square Mile.

Culture Mile News