Community Arts by ZK CIC (CAZK) is an award winning community interest company based in Pendle. At CAZK, we use art as a driving force to bring communities together from different age ranges, walks of life and social, cultural backgrounds, with a strong emphasis on community cohesion, integration and wellbeing. We design and deliver art projects, activities, and workshops that value, encourage and engage people in the community, allowing them to express themselves more effectively and communicate their ideas in a creative way. Our workshops and projects cover a broad range of techniques, and we work with creative practitioners and artists from across the world and from a variety of creative disciplines. Examples include fine art, mixed media, photography, traditional and contemporary methods, textiles, environmental artists, installation, and sculpture. We collaborate across partners organisations, creative and cultural institutions, taking our community on trips and providing educational experiences. We strive for inclusivity, diversity and equality, aiming to improve community cohesion and resilience through art and social connection. Our mission is to provide creative solutions that have a positive social impact in communities. We use art as a tool to tackle inequalities and promote a diverse, creative, and inclusive community. With a positive outlook and hope for a better future, we will strive to help people fulfil their potential and work with communities, partners, and artists to build cohesion, resilience and unity. Art has the power to stimulate change, and through collaboration, expertise, passion, and togetherness, we will reach our goals. We want everyone to feel valued, represented, recognised, and heard, regardless of age, race, gender, identity, or ability. We want to provide hope and opportunity and recognise and celebrate individual talent at all levels. We empower people through art, culture and education and help communities to thrive and excel. We value and encourage creativity and freedom of expression, and strive to create a positive, inclusive, and kind society. The community has the opportunity to express themselves and communicate, thoughts, ideas through art and learned new skills. We also work in collaboration with other organisations to focus on community relevant, solution focused art. Art is a proven way of making a tangible difference to neighbourhoods and there is plenty of evidence to show that the arts as a whole improve personal, social, mental health and well-being. Our workshops used Art as a tool to have an impact on local peoples and the issues they face. For example, helping them build confidence and achieve their dreams and long terms goals, lifting people out of loneliness and isolation to help reshape their future. We provided art workshops that helped address mental health issues, by bringing together artists from different creative disciplines. They offered a range of skills to develop peoples’ creativity and talent at all levels, allowing all to experiment with a wide variety of art mediums, materials to create wonderful works of art for everyone in the community to appreciate and enjoy. We delivered fun, therapeutic and engaging art sessions, these sessions gave participants the chance to escape from the disruption and stress of their situations. These workshops enabled the community to move towards a shared hope for the future. Learning something new and sharing their experience with others enhanced self-confidence and encourage a sense of achievement. People are often able to express in their artwork what they cant express in words and inevitably all of this will improve communication and alleviate the suffering caused by this pandemic. (see our website for more information www.communityartsbyzk.co.uk ) Healing Arts for All (HAFA) is a 3 year long innovative people-powered heritage and arts project. It will follow a creative investigation into Pendle’s heritage and its place in the textile industry, with a key focus on Brierfield Mill, and the ideas, voices, stories, and identity of the South Asian community that moved to the area to work there. Brierfield Mill, now a newly renovated business centre (Northlight Estates) where CAZK are based, is an iconic grade II listed former cotton mill built in 1832. Our community is fascinated by the heritage of the mill as their families worked there; indeed, many of Pendle’s residents are firmly rooted in the mill’s industrial soil. We will be exploring how far the next generation has come. Collaborating with creative practitioners, archivists, historians, and local cultural institutions, this project aims to revive this heritage collecting oral histories and artefacts undertaking research trips and combining all of this in creative workshops. Learning about heritage can evoke deep personal responses and emotional connection to places, allowing our community to ‘heal’. We will use high-quality, innovative art as a vehicle to respond to this heritage, and the socio-economic circumstances that have shaped the nature of Pendle today: to excite, inspire, and engage a wider audience with heritage. We will be hiring a new creative practitioner for each 12 week phase of the project, providing participants with training in a new technique or skill to explore the heritage.

We have had a positive repose from the community who have participated in our projects and workshops, this includes care homes, families, young people, and community groups. The workshops have bought the community together as they share their creations to inspire each other, stay connected and stimulate new ways of working and learning through art. The community has highlighted that our project and workshops has bought hope, comfort and had a positive impact in the community. The key focus being on hope, using arts as a tool to allow people to express their feelings through creativity.

Remuneration received amounted to £41,802

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration