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Creative Minds is a national movement initiated and led by artists and performers with learning disabilities eager to get their voices and their talents heard and seen by a wider arts audience. Manchester’s Venture Arts is paving the way for Creative Minds North, a conference taking place at HOME Manchester on Thursday 15th June. Working in partnership with key arts organisations across the North; Mind The Gap (Bradford); DIY Theatre Company (Manchester); The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company (Newcastle); TIN Arts (Durham); More Music (Morecambe); Blue Room at the Bluecoat (Liverpool); Prism Arts (Lancaster), Headway Arts (Northumberland), Dark Horse Theatre Company (Huddersfield) and First Step (Liverpool).

This summer a group of artists and performers with learning disabilities will be descending on HOME Manchester on the Thursday 15th of June to share their talents, experience and expertise, and everyone is invited.

Creative Minds is a national movement initiated and led by artists and performers with learning disabilities eager to get their voices and their talents heard and seen by a wider arts audience.

Manchesters Venture Arts is paving the way for Creative Minds North, a conference taking place at HOME Manchester on Thursday 15th June. Working in partnership with key arts organisations across the North; Mind The Gap (Bradford); DIY Theatre Company (Manchester); The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company (Newcastle); TIN Arts (Durham); More Music (Morecambe); Blue Room at the Bluecoat (Liverpool); Prism Arts (Lancaster), Headway Arts (Northumberland), Dark Horse Theatre Company (Huddersfield) and First Step (Liverpool).

There will be workshops, accessible debates, and the chance to hear key success stories, showing how far learning disability-led art has already come. There will be talks and presentations by songsmith extraordinaire Jez Colborne and actor Sarah Gordy, famous for her TV roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Call the Midwife and Holby City. Also featured is artist Leslie Thompson, whose exhibition at Manchester Contemporary in September was a critical and financial success, and dancer George Williams from Middlesbrough who, in 2016, became the first dancer with a learning disability to perform with the National Youth Dance Company on the main stage at Sadlers Wells in London. Paul Wilshaw, Artist at Mind the Gap Studios says: Creative Minds is important for us to get our voices across to a widespread audience and professional industry people, to prove that we are as capable as anyone else as long as we have the right tools in place. It is really important to show our creativity to the media and to change preconceptions.

Karen Flood, First Step, says: 'Creative Minds North allows learning disabled people the same chances and opportunities as others in the art world. Creative Minds North includes us from day one and our input is valuable. The best thing about this event is that talented learning disabled people from all over the country are to lead the day. This is just the beginning...'

The conference takes place from 9.30am 4.30pm on Thursday 15th June, and tickets on sale now at http://bit.ly/CMnorth.

www.creativemindsproject.com

Twitter @CMdiscussion #CMNorth Facebook @creativemindsproject

For more information or interviews please contact Lisa Wolfe, [email protected] or call on 01273 234 734

Images can be found here: Creative Minds Photographs

NOTES

Creative Minds was started in 2013 by a group of learning disabled artists and performers in Brighton who felt that their work was being sidelined. They organised an event and invited arts organisations, venues and producers, the education sector, arts critics and other learning disabled artists to look at how they could improve their relationship with the wider arts world. The Manchester conference continues this conversation.

It is supported by Arts Council England, The Monument Trust and Manchester City Council. Previous conferences have taken place in Brighton, Bristol and Ipswich, and the fifth event is at mac Birmingham on 4 October 2017.

Creative Minds is developing a team of learning disabled reviews to critique visual and performing arts. It hosts an open talking area forum and contributes to other conferences, seminars and debates around the country and abroad. Creative Minds is an initiative of Carousel, the learning disability led arts organisation based in Brighton (charity number 297201). www.carousel.org.uk

Venture Arts is charitable Community Benefit society (No. 28604R) working in visual arts with learning disabled people since 1985. Our vision is for learning disabled people to be valuable contributors to our culture as artists, workers, participants and audiences.

Venture Arts is a visual arts organisation that develops the creative talents and career opportunities of learning disabled people. Web address: www.venturearts.org

Mind The Gap (Bradford) http://www.mind-the-gap.org.uk

DIY Theatre (Manchester) http://diytheatre.org.uk/

Lawnmower Theatre (Newcastle); http://www.thelawnmowers.co.uk/

Tin Arts (Durham); http://www.tinarts.co.uk/

More Music (Morecambe); http://www.moremusic.org.uk/

Blue Room at the Bluecoat Gallery (Liverpool); http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/content/blue-room Prism Arts (Lancaster) http://www.prismarts.org.uk

Headway Arts (Northumberland) http://headwayarts.co.uk

Creative Minds North is hosted by HOME https://homemcr.org/

HOME, Manchesters centre for international contemporary art, theatre, film and books, opened its doors in 2015. HOME is a place for curiosity seekers, for lovers of the dramatic, the digital and the deeply engaging; for radicals and reciprocators. HOME works with artists to produce new and extraordinary theatre experiences, programming an exciting, eclectic mix of drama and dance with a strong focus on international work, new commissions and talent development. The patrons of HOME are Danny Boyle, former National Theatre Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner, actress Suranne Jones, playwright and poet Jackie Kay MBE, artists Rosa Barba and Phil Collins, filmmaker Asif Kapadia, and actress and author Meera Syal CBE. www.homemcr.org | @HOME_mcr

Creative Minds North is supported by Arts Council England, The Monument Trust and Manchester City Council and produced by Creative Minds and Venture Arts (Manchester) in partnership with: Mind the Gap; DIY Theatre; Lawnmower Theatre; Tin Arts; More Music; Blue Room at the Bluecoat Gallery; Prism Arts and Headway Arts.

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