Huge cash boost for diversity-focused arts project

The Hastings-based project is among four organisations in the UK to receive funding in the latest round of the Arts Council’s Ambition for Excellence fund. A total of £2.3 million has been awarded, with £573,611 going to Project Art Works for ‘EXPLORERS’.

With the support of £573,611, Project Art Works will create and deliver EXPLORERS – a programme of inclusive cultural activities and partnerships nationally and internationally.

Working in partnership with the Forestry Commission, Tate, artist Ben Rivers and Project Art Works’ artists, EXPLORERS will track an investigation of a forest, the outdoors and wilderness in collaboration with a group of people who are highly sensitive to the sensory stimuli of the world around them.

EXPLORERS aims to increase public, artists’ and arts professionals’ awareness of the extraordinary contribution people with complex needs can make to mainstream culture.

Kate Adams, director, Project Art Works, said: “The Project Art Works team is hugely excited by this news and the opportunity to realise the full potential of the EXPLORERS programme in creating a major new work and in exploring neurodiverse perceptions of ‘wilderness’ alongside an evolving and open discourse on cultural inclusion that is central to the wider EXPLORERS programme.”

Hedley Swain, area director, South East, Arts Council England, said: “We’re delighted to be able to support Project Arts Work’s ambitious new project – EXPLORERS.

“It is really important that everyone has the opportunity to be creative, irrespective of who or where they are.

“Project Art Works has consistently delivered that opportunity to artists and makers with complex needs. EXPLORERS will be an important step forward in further developing the recognition and awareness of the great work that they produce.”

Visit http://projectartworks.org.

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