We have strong links with communities, and have a rich history of working in the parks of Sheffield. We have been commissioned to run several consultation activities, to use creativity to engage local people and find out what they want from parks or other sites in their local area. Please contact Luisa if you would like to work with Art in the Park in this way.
Art in the Park pitched up at Lowedges Festival on Sunday 14th August 2011 with our spectacular ‘community tree’, made by artist Caroline Gaytor. We’d been commissioned by the Working Together in Lowedges, Batemoor & Jordanthorpe team to create a piece of public art for the day, which included work from local people of all ages. We worked with the Lowedges Sheffield Futures youth group and a group of people at the Terminus Café plus festival goers on the day to gather comments on leaves. From “I am Rock & Roll” to “I am the need for more street lights” everyone shared thoughts about their area, what they loved, what they loathed and what could be done to make it better. Our tree not only looked pretty, covered in leaves, ribbons and colourful squares, but also helped us see what Lowedges means to people. Holly Dannhauser who works with Sheffield City Council said “The tree was a triumph and was especially impressive at such short notice” and one local resident admired the community spirit highlighting “the importance in bringing people together”. The tree will be on display in Lowedges and Greenhill library over the next month, so go have a sneaky peek at it!
Working with Sheffield City Council's Parks and Countryside team we held an event to find out what people would like to see happen to Sheffield's Forge Dam. Forge Dam is located in a very scenic valley to the south west of Sheffield and is popular with walkers, fishermen and families. Our artist Annie Kuipers ran a very popular haunted house themed activity (sticking to a Halloween theme) and a mapping exercise with visiting children and young people whilst their parents were asked to fill in questionnaires and provide ideas for the regeneration of the site.
Spider, Ponderosa, Crookes Valley and Philadelphia parks. Included workshops at Wisewood Secondary, Wisewood Primary and Netherthorpe Primary. Funded by Sheffield City Council, supporting communities.
This project involved an event in each green space and a workshops at the local school, with the aim to find out, in a creative way, what people liked, disliked and wanted to change in their local park. This would feed into a masterplan that Parks and Countryside are drawing up for the spaces within communities. We created questionnaires that were sent out to the community and delivered monster making and wish tree activities and get the community to talk to us about the transformations they wanted to see.