Bronze Digital Arts Award – The final photograph has been taken from Blackpool Grand Theatre’s joint project with Blackpool’s Headstart. A Digital Bronze Arts Award where participants learn new skills in photography, animation, and graphic design.

The group passed with flying colours in their Grand Theatre ‘Digital Bronze Arts Award‘. To achieve the award, young people collect evidence in an individual arts portfolio of their experiences of arts practice and pathways, such as implementing and reviewing their newly learned skills, reviewing arts events, and undertaking arts research. The young people completed the course by sharing their work at a photographic exhibition, exploring ‘A sense of belonging’ through their hometown at the Sanctuary Space, Marine Hall, Fleetwood.

Following a year of Arts Award after-school sessions, the young people had an access-all-areas tour of the Grand Theatre and met with the Operations and Creative Leaning Managers to discover and understand the inner-workings and employment opportunities within theatre.
The participants also visited the Grundy Art Gallery, for some, it was the first time. With a guided tour and an opportunity to spend time with Claire Griffiths a local photographer that supported the young people later curating their photographic exhibition.

Within the project participants also experienced an action-packed day in Manchester starting at 42nd Street, inclusive and accessible space in the City Centre offering creative sessions with a focus on wellbeing. This gave an opportunity to participate in an art session led by an artist and youth worker linked to exploring a sense of belonging from a different perspective.

Bronze Digital Arts Award

The young people involved in the Bronze Digital Arts Award project said; ‘If I won the Lottery, I’d fund all of us in the group to do the Silver Arts Award.’, and another said ‘I found it really important to be yourself. When you can drop what people think of you or what you’re doing, you can get on and go for it.’

The exploration day finished with an afternoon at Electric Box, where everyone got fitted up in digital kit entering a world made from projection mapping, touch screens, motion tracking, and surround sound combining to make this a truly immersive experience.

Grand Theatre and Local Artist Collaboration

The Bronze Digital Arts Award group created thought-provoking creative work with one of the Grand Theatre’s lead artists on the project Claire Walmsely Griffiths; “The Arts Award group incorporated stop-motion, animation, storytelling, and communication. How an image can communicate who we are, how we feel, seeing in a new way, how text and conversations can be part of the process, and how photography is a visual language. Young photographers created images of Blackpool, perceptions of home, and positive-and-negative feelings associated with Covid-19 Lockdown.”