Meadow art

There are a number of community and art projects inspired by the meadows to engage with communities, allow people to express what they feel is important and provide collaboration between artists, communities and scientists.

Whilst it is important to develop an understanding of the challenges we face, we need to motivate people with positivity and hope by celebrating the benefits and resilience floodplain meadows can deliver. Using art and creativity can do this, sharing messages to inspire and trigger emotional responses that can bring about lasting change.

Art can also convey messages that can help change views, for example in influencing policy work around floodplain meadows. Our arts and crafts calendar was sent to numerous MPs and policy officials for example.

How to set up your own art project – hints and tips

Its so important to have a realistic timescale from the initial idea through planning to point of delivery. This is where most projects fall down especially if there are time restricted grants involved.
Allow plenty of time to advertise the event -and to be able to do this you need to have already got to the stage of knowing in detail what is happening!
Aim for a sustainable project - consider the importance of having environmentally sustainable values built into project from practices to process and product.
Distinguish between key objectives and outcomes to be delivered to support these objectives. A great question to consider to help with focusing the key objectives is; what will success look like?
Set a broad theme as the hook to draw people in and help to explain your ideas
Remember that art does have to be a 'thing' – it can be a process, a performance or just a different way of thinking, and so there might not be a finished article, it depends on the outcomes of the project
One aim may be to engage people with science and research in which case you may want to consider how the art work connects/reflects the science topic. Does it help to enhance the ideas, help people to understand the science more clearly
Are you working together to create one artwork, or are you planning to show multiple individual pieces within one exhibition? If it's the former, how might individual contributions be recognisable within the whole? Does that matter? Sometimes with community projects people like to be able to pick out their contribution and this helps to build pride in and ownership of a collective outcome, which in turn can help to raise awareness as news spreads by positive word of mouth
Think about who you want to work with, how you reach them and the best spaces in which to co-create. This could be a local village hall, youth centre, public space, or even outdoors
If looking to work with groups or communities to co-create the artwork wherever possible, ensure these groups are part of the planning process for your project from the very beginning
Consider your audience and what aims you have for the art project. Is it aimed at all ages and abilities? What level of interaction and understanding are they looking for? The beauty of art is that there is no right or wrong answer, this can be very positive and unifying when working with new groups
Another consideration will be the venue/exhibiting space, where will it be displayed, who will this reach audience wise, where will it have most impact/engagement with your desired audience
Are you looking to use the artwork long-term? In which case you will need to provide wavers within any signed agreements
You will need to get signed permission slips completed if you want to use photographs of people within your marketing or social media posts about the project
Consider whether this is a project which would benefit from working with a professional body who already works with artists – almost like a matchmaking scheme. This is especially useful if you have limited experience or expertise with developing and running creative projects. They can help develop the brief for appointing the artists, manage contracts with those creative practitioners you eventually choose and help with the curation of the final pieces. They should also have contacts with relevant press and media networks useful for raising awareness. You should develop a brief for appointing the group setting out the project, budget, timetable and aims
Find your local arts organisations and build relationships with them, take time to talk about how they work, what their interests are and find out who they engage with – for example, are they interested in local radical history, do they work with particular groups or communities, do they have interest in activism or are they interested in the movement for wellbeing – knowing their focus helps in knowing who would be a good fit for particular project ideas
Does your chosen artist have experience of collaborating with community groups or scientists?
Budget wise you will need to consider the daily rates for artists will need to cover project management such as meetings and travel expenses
There are many useful places to find out more information and the Artists Information Company is a good place to start