Heart of Glass / A Modest Proposal
In addressing these and other fundamental questions, Heart of Glass brings a strong and mutually supportive place-based consortium to the task, reflecting the town’s many and varied facets. Incorporating St Helens Rugby Football Club, Helena Partnerships, FACT (Foundation for Art + Creative Technology) St Helens Council, St Helens Arts Partnership (Platform Arts, The Citadel arts centre and The World of Glass museum), St Helens College, Northwest Museum of Road Transport, Carers UK and Health Watch; our consortium includes a broad and well-networked range of skill sets, experience and understanding.
Our programme is enhanced and strengthened by that core partnership. Our first phase of operation has seen a programme of artistic interventions within the context of a purpose-built rugby stadium – live art interventions, a film programme, pop up performances and the development of arts resource packs; a glass museum – operatic performances in disused chimneys, site specific theatre performances in abandoned glass furnaces; a regional theatre – queer performance nights, disability arts programming, national partnerships, and a rave for kids; social housing – residencies in sheltered and supported housing, collaborations with young people living against the backdrop of regeneration, a programme of specially produced performances in domestic spaces across the borough; a market – artist in residence, family art clubs, and pop up art cafés – to name but a few.
Heart of Glass benefits from and contributes proactively to the Creative People and Places peer learning network and we work closely with Arts Council England in our continued development. Art, the arts, participation and practice are the four overarching principles at our core, and our artistic programme is delivered as part of our wider commitment to developing a living and sustainable arts ‘ecology’ for St Helens. Through our Prototype community- commissioning programme, we have reclaimed and reignited St Helens’ history of innovation and invention by supporting artists and communities in testing, exploring and developing new and innovative ideas. The emphasis for this programme is on local artists, on developing their artistic practice and thinking, testing new ways of working and forming new and exciting collaborations. Between 2014 and 2016, 35 diverse projects were awarded commissions via the Prototype project including ideas that involved bringing the iconic Beecham’s building back to life through a performance and tour.
We are delighted that in our first 18 months of operation, we have exceeded our targets and established a strong foundation upon which we can build. In this period we have developed and delivered more than 150 projects, commissioned 126 local artists and 172 national, and international artists. We have had an audience reach of more than 101,000 with 47,000 logged attendees participating in or engaging with our programme. We have delivered this with a commitment to an art form spread including visual arts, literature, theatre, dance, live arts, spoken art, digital art, music, film and disability arts; all viewed through the lens of collaborative and socially engaged practice. This has seen work manifest in diverse settings including disused shops, taxi cabs, theatres, parks, a sports stadium, a museum, the public realm, shopping centres, glass furnaces, chimneys, people’s homes, libraries, schools, buses and pubs, all with the active involvement of diverse communities of place and interest. We have established a clear and values-based ethos as an organisation and a reputation for high quality programming and events, both of which have contributed to an already strong local adoption of the Heart of Glass brand.
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