Celebrating empty shops

 

Creative and learning centres housed in empty shops in Taunton and Blackburn’s town centres have proven to be a huge success, attracting scores of visitors and praise from across the communities.  Launched in February 2010, the six-week-long projects, Project Our Place: Arts in the Heart of Blackburn and ‘Our Place, Your Place: Taunton', provided an innovative new approach to engage communities in informal learning activities, like art, music and dance, by being located in accessible high-street venues. 

The projects, funded by a grant to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) from The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Learning Revolution Transformation Fund, encouraged groups of adults, many of which had not participated in learning activities previously, to get involved in plans for their community and acquire new skills in a relaxed environment.

The MLA was awarded £100,000 from the £20 million fund to open up new informal adult learning opportunities, particularly for people from disadvantaged groups.  Partnership development is actively encouraged by the MLA, which supported a joint art collaboration between the two projects.

Our Place Project Manager at the MLA, Theodora Spanou, said: “Informal adult learning aims to inspire and enhance people’s lives through access to new skills, information or resources.  We have been overwhelmed by the success of the empty shops projects in Taunton and Blackburn, which engaged and contributed to the well-being of these communities.” 

POP - ‘Project Our Place: Arts in the Heart of Blackburn’ celebrated Blackburn and its community.  Local artists ran workshops and events for local schools and people - creating opportunities to learn and have a go at something new including tattoo designing, street dancing, T-shirt printing, interactive poetry workshops, story telling and music workshops.  The end of the POP project was marked by a celebratory Conga through the town centre.

Taunton high street's shop was converted into a base for the ‘Our Place, Your Place: Taunton’ project. The aim was to bring residents together to share memories, thoughts and pictures of the town as well as learn about how Taunton is changing. The former shoe shop, opened on 8 February 2010 and hosted a programme of activities and exhibitions over a six week period looking at Taunton’s past, present and future.