Arts, culture and heritage investment
East Kent has been chosen as one of 16 places across England to receive a significant investment as part of the £20 million Lottery funded Great Place Scheme, a partnership between Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and Historic England.
£1,489.255 is to be invested to put the arts, culture and heritage at the heart of communities in east Kent.
The grant will support “Pioneering Places”, an ambitious project that will make East Kent an even better place to live, work and visit by exploring heritage, developing civic pride and connecting artists and communities. The project will be delivered through a partnership between Turner Contemporary, the Creative Foundation and Canterbury City Council, overseen by the Cultural Transformation Board.
The projects in Folkestone, Thanet and Canterbury, will be led by the partnership organizations that will also collaborate with Dover organizations to develop a further exemplar project. Beyond these specific projects, the organizations will collaborate to share their learning, research the impact and social value of the programme and develop new models that impact on future planning development structures.
The three-year project will leave a legacy of influencing policy makers in the region, showing how culture makes for great placemaking.
Alastair Upton, CEO of the Creative Foundation, said: “From the Marlowe Theatre, through Turner Contemporary to the Folkestone Triennial, East Kent has a rich recent history of culturally-led placemaking that has helped define the region. This has included building galleries, museums, theatres and creative quarters. Pioneering Places will show how cultural placemaking can have an even larger role to play.
The Kent Cultural Transformation Board and three leading cultural organisations: Creative Foundation, Turner Contemporary and Canterbury City Council, will work with communities to transform some public spaces, housing and historic environments respectively, reimagining them for use today.”
