Helping to keep the craft wheel turning
●●Crafting Heritage at Cartwheel Arts
THANKS to the generous support of The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Public Health England, Cartwheel Arts (CA) are working on a two-year exploration of the rich heritage crafts flourishing within Rochdale’s vibrant communities with experience of forced migration, building on CA’S, ongoing activities, and research with these communities.
Throughout this project, they want to flip the power balance.
This means that these communities are positioned as the experts in their craft.
Together with skilled heritage craft practitioners, CA will ensure that their voice takes centre stage in shaping the narrative of their diverse heritage, which is preserved and celebrated.
This project will produce the Crafting Heritage Learning Resource, a unique learning resource tailored for primary schools in Rochdale, accompanied by specialised training for teaching staff, to ensure a future for aspects of the borough’s cultural heritage which might otherwise risk becoming endangered.
Plus, a ground-breaking eight-week training programme for four artists who have experienced forced migration.
Crafting Heritage will culminate in a celebratory event including a film, exhibition, and community event for Refugee Week in 2025. The materials created during the project will be archived at Touchstones Rochdale along with the heritage crafts of the communities Cartwheel connects. CA promotes social inclusion, cohesion, diversity and regeneration through community participation in vibrant, innovative, high-quality arts projects.
They use a wide range of media to initiate, and respond to, project opportunities in Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, Wigan and North Manchester, as well as promoting the development of the arts and examples of good practice across the North West.
Cartwheel has over 35 years’ experience of promoting imaginative and often challenging arts projects - never shying from confronting difficult or sensitive issues - with a focus on participation, enabling people who may have had little experience of the arts to explore and develop their creativity and talents, generating a sense of ownership and pride.
If you would like to find out more about what CA are doing and how to get involved, please get in touch with Ruth@cartwheelarts.org.uk. They also have some amazing volunteer opportunities to get involved in! Visit: https:// www.cartwheelarts.org.uk/