Cultural Collaborators in Dudley borough

August 29, 2022
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Published by Lorna Prescott
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With creative partners and associates that we bring together in the CoLab Dudley team, Dudley CVS are nurturing an open network of people seeking to catalyse change through creativity in Dudley borough. This Cultural Collaborators network will connect people who invite, use or support an approach to arts and culture that actively engages everyone in deciding what counts as culture, where it happens, who makes it, and who experiences it. The Cultural Collaborators network is being co-created by those who get involved and have a commitment to connection, learning and action. It is Dudley’s answer to Arts Council England’s Cultural Compacts Initiative (you can see a 2020 review of the initiative here).

We’re not taking a top-down approach. Our network weaving happens on the streets, in local parks and community and learning spaces. Happily we’re not starting a from scratch. For a number of years we’ve been convening a collective of local creatives and doers through CoLab Dudley. We call them Time Rebels. Since 2020 they have been collectively approaching designing, doing and learning together in ways which help to nurture collective imagination and long-term thinking. They co-create with other local people, in places they love, live, work and play. This autumn we’re growing the collective of Time Rebels and a network people around them.

☕️ 100 coffees

To help weave the Cultural Collaborators network and encourage resource flows across it we aim to have conversations with 100 people this year over coffee, or tea, or simply on a walk. We want to chat to creative practitioners, guardians of local cultural assets, educators, creative producers, community connectors, and colleagues from the council, NHS and other institutions who support people in our borough. To date we’ve had coffees with regeneration and planning officers, local artists, social entrepreneurs, and voluntary sector workers.

If you’d like to chat about anything from everyday creativity in communities, cultural programming across the borough, or the role of culture in responding to the climate emergency, please get in touch. Contact Lorna Prescott: lorna@dudleycvs.org.uk and/or Kerry O’Coy: kerry@creativeblackcountry.co.uk We’d love to arrange a coffee. Read on to find out what’s next…

Black Country Collage Club at Do Fest Dudley 2021, and example of a Time Rebel adventure to discover new kinds of doing, creating and making that unlock our imaginations.

🎭 Rehearsing the Futures We Want

During autumn 2022 we’re undertaking an open, shared enquiry to inform the crafting of a long term, 100 year cultural strategy for Dudley borough. It will pay attention to three interconnected challenges which impact the futures of communities in Dudley borough:

  • the role of culture in responding to the climate emergency and restoring our relationship with the rest of nature;
  • barriers to everyday creativity in communities;
  • uneven cultural engagement across Dudley borough.

Time Rebels from the Cultural Collaborators network will be sharing the emergent cultural strategy through open events on:

Wednesday 7 December 2022 | 5pm-8pm and
Thursday 8 December 2022 | 12pm-3pm

Please do note the dates in your diary. And if you’re super curious about this work, why not take an amble around the digital allotment we’re collectively tending? You can find it at

A rectangle with a dark green background, white outline drawings of flowers along the bottom, and white text saying: The Digital Allotment - We are using the metaphor of an allotment to invoke the spirit of open design among Cultural Collaborators The digital allotment invites the sharing of learning and stories from creatives who are agents of social change.

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