I had the dubious pleasure of attending a school reunion last year when my old high school announced it was marking its 70th Birthday with a shindig one Saturday in June. It promised so much (reviving old friendships, rekindling old memories and fondly reimagining what we actually did at school) but when was all said and done, and the event had taken place, it delivered very little in those terms.
I realised that much like ‘Facebook Friends’ who aren’t actual friends at all but just people you share a bit of cyberspace with for a fraction of the time you spend on the internet, many of those old school ‘friendships’ fell by the wayside for a very good reason: those ‘friends’ weren’t friends at all but just acquaintances I had to share my physical day with by virtue of the fact that we were born in the same academic year and happened to live in roughly the same geographic region at that point in history. Just when I thought I had all my memories safely packed away in a box labelled ‘Treasures’, the reunion caused that box to relabel itself ‘Pandoras’ and my relationship with that institution has never been the same since.
So, the false friendships, the alarming memories and the potential combination of over promising and under delivering are all good reasons not to attend any school reunion ever again.
But.
With all that baggage gathering in our homes as we prepare for an imminent LIPA reunion, we might answer the question of why here, why now by accepting that the imminent Community Arts LIPA reunion in August 2025 isn’t merely a matter of rekindling old memories that died out for very good reason: it also gives all of us the opportunity to reassess together what that work meant to us back then and perhaps more importantly to consider what it might mean for us and our wider society and its futures.
A Community Arts infused reunion will be more than just about sharing food and gossip and participating in the occasional brawl over the weekend; it will also be about making new friends from the company of strangers; it will be about seeing people in the flesh for the very first time in many years rather than through the shiny electronic veneer the social media platforms dress us up in; and it will give us an opportunity to take stock – privately and collaboratively – about what that time in our lives meant to us.
It will also be about re-minding and re-membering how arts and culture need to continue to play a role in improving all our lives, all the time, everywhere. Whitewashed memories are one thing: helping construct whole new futures for those who follow in our footsteps is quite another and something worth regathering for.
Another way of reviewing our pasts and envisioning our futures is to join in with our Community Arts Writing 2025 Award! You can find details here:
We’re delighted to confirm that Maddi Nicholson, freelance Artist and founder director of Art Gene, a visual art charity and Arts Council NPO in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria is joining our panel of judges for our Community Arts Award 2025.
Art Gene’s research remit extends across a program of environmentally aware placemaking, socially engaged art projects, residencies, exhibitions, and education work focusing on the role and engagement of artists and communities in the revisioning of their social, natural and built environment.
As an Artist Maddi produces challenging work for varied and diverse situations nationwide, video, cast iron and stitched works to huge paintings, signage and inflated and recycled plastic sculptures.
Works range from an inflated replica of a Barrow terraced house due for demolition, in ‘Going home from here’ which toured beauty spots in Cumbria, to a set of cast iron enamelled terraced house models, commenting on the lives of 18th and 19th Century working class women in Spinningfields Manchester in ‘a place lived’.
Her Art Gene art works include the Roker Pods for Sunderland City Council: spherical mobile eco off grid pods on the beach and the prom, as café, education and events facilities. The Peoples Museum on Piel Island, for Barrow Borough Council; including a cabinet of curiosities, repurposed engraved tables, beer maps and the islands of Barrow Map. Seldom Seen Maps and Mobile Apps walking tours for coastal areas of Cumbria and Lancashire. Razzle Dazzle bird hides as education resources with interior artwork interpretation for Cumbria Wildlife Trust. Walney Island Nature reserve, mobile App walking tour and non civic war memorial gate and sculpture for Natural England’s North Walney Island national nature reserve.
We’re delighted our Writing Award competition has been joined by five long standing friends, advocates and practitioners in Community Arts. You can read more about them below.
Emily Bowman is Managing Director of Junction Arts, a leading organisation for participatory arts in the UK. Emily champions community-led creative initiatives that foster cultural engagement and social impact. Previously, she served as Deputy CEO of The Mighty Creatives. She is dedicated to ensuring that communities have access to meaningful cultural experiences. She believes in the power of the arts to bring people together, amplify voices, and drive positive change, working to create opportunities where creativity can thrive at a grassroots level.
Emily has over 20 years of experience in the creative sector, with a background in performance and arts leadership. She is deeply committed to arts, culture, and creativity, with a particular focus on co-producing high-quality, inclusive programmes that engage and empower communities. Throughout her career, Emily has worked with a range of cultural organisations, beginning as an actor and facilitator in international productions. She has extensive expertise in facilitation, producing, fundraising, project development, and cultural leadership. Her passion lies in interdisciplinary, collaborative, and participatory work, co-producing projects that respond to community needs and aspirations.
Beyond her role at Junction Arts, Emily is a trustee for Hubbub Theatre and an Area Council member for Arts Council England in the Midlands. She also chairs the Culture & Place group for Bolsover and sits on the Neighbourhood Board for Chesterfield, actively contributing to regional cultural strategy and community development.
Emily Bowman
Rob Elkington MBE is Director of Arts Connect. His work in creative and cultural education includes leading a young people’s theatre company, working on national creativity in education programmes, leading the regional Bridge infrastructure programme in the West Midlands and for major national organisations in local partnership development roles. What connects this work is an interest in system wide improvement that leads to social justice ends and democratisation of arts and culture. He is a fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme, a Trustee of the Cultural Learning Alliance and is Chair of the Black Country Music Hub Board.
Rob Elkington MBE
Anissa Ladjemi is a Community Arts Drama Graduate from 2004. She currently works with those with life-limiting health conditions, supporting them to get what they are entitled to and advising them on their rights, while giving a listening ear. She has run youth theatres and art projects around the world but fell into the third sector during the years of austerity. She has worked with local government and organisations that support and advocate for the homeless, those with mental health issues and learning disabilities. She found working in the third sector allows her to use her creative side. Her arts background has helped her to communicate openly and problem solve, needed when working with those whose voices are often overlooked. She says: “Every career plan I made ended up taking me down a very different path than I planned. It wasn’t always easy but it has certainly been fulfilling and interesting. I guess you could say that working with people is what drives and inspires me. Thank you to Nick and Roger who took a chance on me the day I walked into the LIPA audition. When my school teacher said ”good luck but you will never get in there”, thankfully he was wrong!”
Anissa Ladjemi
Maddi Nicholson is a freelance Artist and founder director of Art Gene, a visual art charity and Arts Council NPO in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Art Gene’s research remit extends across a program of environmentally aware placemaking, socially engaged art projects, residencies, exhibitions, and education work focusing on the role and engagement of artists and communities in the revisioning of their social, natural and built environment. As an Artist Maddi produces challenging work for varied and diverse situations nationwide, video, cast iron and stitched works to huge paintings, signage and inflated and recycled plastic sculptures.
Works range from an inflated replica of a Barrow terraced house due for demolition, in ‘Going home from here’ which toured beauty spots in Cumbria, to a set of cast iron enamelled terraced house models, commenting on the lives of 18th and 19th Century working class women in Spinningfields Manchester in ‘a place lived’. Her Art Gene art works include the Roker Pods for Sunderland City Council: spherical mobile eco off grid pods on the beach and the prom, as café, education and events facilities. The Peoples Museum on Piel Island, for Barrow Borough Council; including a cabinet of curiosities, repurposed engraved tables, beer maps and the islands of Barrow Map. Seldom Seen Maps and Mobile Apps walking tours for coastal areas of Cumbria and Lancashire. Razzle Dazzle bird hides as education resources with interior artwork interpretation for Cumbria Wildlife Trust. Walney Island Nature reserve, mobile App walking tour and non civic war memorial gate and sculpture for Natural England’s North Walney Island national nature reserve.
Maddi Nicholson
Bee Patience is Communications and Marketing Manager at The Mighty Creatives in Leicester. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a first-class BA(hons) in Creative and Professional Writing. She started her career as a creative practitioner, delivering creative writing and poetry workshops in schools. Since then, she has completed CIM qualifications and spent more than 12 years working in marketing; first in the fast-paced world of EdTech and now in the charity sector. She is Nottingham Poetry Society’s 2012 Poetry Slam winner and founded the Run Your Tongue spoken word night in her hometown of Kettering.
Bee Patience
More news on future judges to follow!
Interested in applying for the award? You can download the application pack here:
“What can an artist musician do in the face of war? Ultimately there may come a time when the choice comes down to fight or flight. Until then, and as long as there is even the smallest hope that other activities will help to promote peaceful solutions, I think one has a responsibility to not look away but instead call for kindness and compassion in the face of violence and anger.
What can an artist musician do in the face of the seemingly relentless and apparently unthinking, uncaring ruination of the planetary ecosystems that support the web of life? While I still have life and the ability to love, I feel a responsibility to acknowledge the challenge and say: people, we are all in this together. My wellbeing depends on yours. Let’s work together for our collective survival. Let’s celebrate what we have in common much more than what we see differently. Let’s rise above the past and let every day be a new chance to love and be loved. And let’s do this at every level, from the ordinary everyday to the global emergency.
These are some words attempting to explain the origin of the song ‘Never Too Late For Love’ and the video created by Serg Collaiber. But of course a piece of art has a life of its own and belongs to everyone who experiences it. I hope the song-video will be an ambassador for kindness wherever it lands.” “
(Martin John Milner)
Martin is a musician, community musician, teacher, poet and facilitator. He grew up in the global North (Liverpool, England, and Nova Scotia, Canada), and since 2008 has lived in Potsdam, Germany. He was deeply involved in Community Music in England 1998-2008. and was a Teaching Fellow on the B.A. Honours Community Arts degree and the Performing Arts For Disabled Artists courses at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (2002-04) . We met soon after when he became Musician in Residence for the Aspire Trust’s Deschooled? Re-engaged! project at Oldershaw School and Riverside Primary School.
We’ve kept in touch even since and contributed to his recent production, Never Too Late (for Love) which you can see here:
or hear, here:
The Deschooled Re-enagged Project became the subject for a chapter in the International Handbook of Creative Learning. You can download that here:
We’ve worked with various collaborators this year on a range of texts: ancient, modern, new and pre-loved.
Composer of TABLOID!!!, Gary Carpenter studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London with Humphrey Searle, Thea Musgrave, and John Lambert, and participated in master classes with Nadia Boulanger. He has lived in Holland and Germany and has written operas and musicals including: The Streets of London, (Her Majesty’s Theatre, 1981), Goodnight Mister Tom – The Musical, and China Song (Vivian Ellis Prize 1999 and tour). He has also written ballets (mainly for Nederlands Dans Theater), a radio music-drama (The One Alone with Iris Murdoch) and a great deal of concert music. He has been the musical director and/or arranger-orchestrator on many stage shows and films (including The Wicker Man [1972]), his Azaleas for Harp Trio received a 2006 British Composer Award in the chamber category. CDs include SET (orchestral works) and Die Flimmerkiste (chamber works). A dark folk album co-written with Matthew Deighton for the band Magnet will be released in 2025.Gary holds a professorship at the Royal Northern College of Music and lectures at the Royal Academy of Music.
Mike Kenny, author of THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, is one of the UK’s leading writers specialising in young people’s theatre. He was included in the Independent on Sunday’s list of Top Ten Living Playwrights and his plays are performed regularly throughout the UK and all over the world. In 2000, he was Arts Council England’s first recipient of The Children’s Award for Playwriting for Children and Young People. His Olivier Award-winning adaptation of THE RAILWAY CHILDREN for York Theatre Royal has had several successful revivals at Waterloo and Kings Cross stations, as well as at the National Railway Museum. In Canada it won the People’s Choice Award following its record-breaking run in Toronto. Upcoming productions and commissions include the book for a musical version of Ted Hughes’ THE IRON WOMAN; an adaptation of one of C.J. Sansome’s Shardlake novels for York Theatre Royal; a companion piece to his classic play BOY WITH A SUITCASE for Schauburg Theatre in Munich; and RAPUNZEL ALONE for 24th Street Theatre in Los Angeles following their critically acclaimed production of Mike’s WALKING THE TIGHTROPE which the L.A. Times called “an indelible must-see for all ages”.
Our editor Alexander Moore started his career in the creative industry as an actor, working across the UK and Europe. This naturally transitioned into roles creating and directing workshops and plays. In 2012, he toured with Theatre Blah Blah Blah in a production called Hide and Seek, about the ethics surrounding our annual “celebration” of Bonfire Night. The play explored historical figures, murder, torture, and the religious persecution that ultimately motivated the Gunpowder Plot. He has written and directed plays for young people and led many workshops about understanding Shakespeare’s texts, script development, and modern social issues like internet safety. He has edited over 50 books for children and young adults, and numerous academic manuscripts written by eminent law professors and published internationally. He has collaborated with writers of fiction, biographies, and screenplays, but also with universities, charities, and regional businesses. On his website – AdvancedEditing.co.uk – he writes articles about grammar, points of style, and effective approaches to writing in English.
And our long-standing collaborator, Paul Warren, has illustrated all our publications since we began in 2021. Paul Warren has always sketched and drawn and painted images. In 2013, after renting studio space at Harrington Mill Studios in Long Eaton, he began drawing on an iPad and he has drawn on an iPad ever since. He calls his artwork, Momentism. A phrase he has coined is “the iPad is my sketch pad” and it fits very well. His drawing style is continually evolving and developing. He draws people, the human figure and adds a sprinkling of artistic license. He doesn’t strictly create pictures; he’s interested in facial expression, stance, form, interaction between members of society, a moment in the workaday activities. Whilst “A SPELL IN THE ARMY” was written and produced in 1988, Paul was in the army between 1961 and 1964. He remembers the last call-up chaps being demobbed when he joined the battalion after basic training and his images are impressions of memories of those early days as a young, innocent rookie in ill-fitting khaki denims.
Paul WarrenAlexander MooreMike KennyGary Carpenter
