East Durham Creates is funded by Arts Council England as part of its Creative People and Places (CPP) programme.

East Durham Creates seeks to engage local people in creative activities and grow arts provision in ways that are sustainable and can last. We aim to attract more people to choose, create and take part in brilliant art experiences in the places where they live.

The East Durham Creates team is based at East Durham Trust and managed by a group of partners – East Durham Trust, Beamish Museum, East Durham Area Action Partnership and Culture and Sport, Durham County Council. As of 2018, after a year of novation, East Durham Trust took over from Beamish as the lead organisation for the East Durham Creates project.
Phase 2 of East Durham Creates, running from 2017 to the start of 2020, is broken into three strands : -
A three-cycle commissioning process (2018-2020) that will further establish East Durham’s reputation as a place that creates relevant, exciting and inspiring art. Our approach will put collaborative working at its heart – bringing field-leading artists in to work with local groups from all walks of life.
There will be a number of projects on offer where local people can become creators, producers, commissioners and programmers across a huge range of artforms. Every project will offer something to take people further on their creative journey.
This strand will aim to help even more regular arts activity happen in the area through our successful Let’s Create scheme, with bigger, extra special ideas. We will also be offering trips to some of the most exciting, creative places in England to those who fancy themselves as a creative community leader!

This Place We Call Home

Applications for our final Artistic Commission for 'This Place We Call Home' are OPEN! East Durham Creates is seeking to commission a major arts project for communities and audiences in East Durham, which will target YOUNG PEOPLE AGED 13-25 and their friends and families. For more information about the commission and how to apply CLICK HERE.
Everything There Ever Was:
​The beautiful nature reserve of Crimdon Dene came alive with performance and song and attracted over 500 people, most of whom were local. It was a large outdoor event that told the story of the past, present and future of the Dene, and the many different communities for whom it has been – and ceased to be – home. 
If These Walls Could Talk:
Two North East visual artists; Sally Southern and Nicola Lynch have been delivering workshops with local people aged 55+ over the past six months. The project has been exploring the idea of what is the ‘magic’ of everyday life and looking at local people’s stories. The groups are currently accumulating their artwork into exhibitions for the final event in May.

Strikes of Brilliance

Cultural Hubs:
Bringing a wider range of art events, across even more venues, our Cultural Hubs are looking at developing their centres to deliver more tailored art events to suit their local communities. Meaning that our Cultural Hubs will be bringing a wide range of creative performances for people to choose from.​
Creative Cinema:
We have partnered up with two fantastic cinema providers, Cinegi Arts&Film and Cinema For All to ensure local venues can hire high quality equipment from our office in Peterlee to start up their own community cinema. East Durham has access to high quality cinema screening equipment and films. 
Creative Enterprise:
East Durham Creates and Business Durham invite local artists, creative practitioners and arts groups to take part in research to explore how we can support the business development of local creative people. The findings will help us identify how to use existing resources and create new opportunities.
Creative Age:
In partnership with Equal Arts, Creative Age NORTH will provide older people living with dementia and other long-term conditions and their carers the opportunity to take part in creative and inclusive activities, celebrate their achievements and support ongoing activity through Challenge fundraising. 
Apollo 50 Zine:
The Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee’s most iconic landmark is 50 years old this year! To mark the occasion there are a series of arts projects happening across the year, including spectacular installations, a birthday party and participatory workshop programmes.
Home Alone:
Aims to actively engage isolated older people from various parts of the North East, including East Durham. The work will also look at ‘Future Care’ and the implications of an ageing society, through photography and writing sessions with individuals in their own homes and with groups in community settings.

Arts for Everyone

Let's Create:
​Continuing with commissions that support the local community, Let's Create launched Big Ideas and Small Ideas in August 2017. The two schemes encourage local groups, artists and organisations to apply for support for projects that engage the people of East Durham in the arts.
Go and See:
​These trips will now act as research trips and generally further afield. So far we've taken a group of locals to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hull City of Culture, the Ouseburn Valley and the Mining Art Gallery in Bishop Auckland. We have lots more exciting trips planned over the next year, so watch this space!
The Community Panel:
​The Panel will continue to advise on various aspects of East Durham Creates and transition into the Creative Champions Network. Are you interested in becoming a Panel member or getting more involved in the project? Why not contact Jess on 0191 5693511 or jess.hunt@eastdurhamtrust.org.uk

For more information visit the East Durham Creates website

Phase 1 of East Durham Creates ran from 2014 to the start of 2017. East Durham Trust's strands included:

Go and Sees were exciting adventures that take people far and wide to explore art in it’s natural habitat. Best part? They were free! All together in phase 1 our Go and Sees included 26 trips to arts and culture across the North East and engaged almost 800 people.

Creative Socials were a new fun way of getting people engaged with art through vibrant one off events. They could take place any time of day, in any community venue and they gave the people of East Durham the chance to get using their local spaces, to showcase local artistic talent, eat tasty food and get involved in the arts. All together 16 Creative Socials were held by the local community and they engaged almost 1,400 people.

Let's Create was a commissioning scheme which supported local arts activities designed to engage the communities of East Durham. Communities could apply for between £500 and £2500. All together 22 projects received almost £50,000 of support and engaged almost 5,400 in almost 1,000 hours of new arts activities across East Durham.

Cultural Hubs, with the support of ARC, Stockton, took high quality theatre into local communities across the region. More than 1,300 people attended theatre performances taking place in East Durham community centres.

The Community Panel was a group of East Durham locals including teachers, community centre managers, councillors, artists, facilitators and more who help to make decisions on how the East Durham Creates project was run and what it will deliver, particularly the East Durham Trust strands.

Other projects and events have included the following (click on each one for further information): -

Location

East Durham Trust
Community House
Yoden Road
Peterlee
​SR8 5DP
T: 0191 5693511

WHAT WE DO

We help the communities of the former district of Easington which is made up 20 distinct areas, most of which are former Pit villages that continue to be hugely affected by deprivation following the closure of the Pits.
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We run a wide range of projects to help the community fight disadvantage including food parcels, telephone befriending for the socially isolated, helping people in the downward spiral of debt, supporting people to get the benefits they deserve, helping people get into employment, providing holiday activities with food, getting the disengaged engaged with the arts, support for single parents, arts on prescription, community loans and SO MUCH MORE! 

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