Isle of Wight High Streets in Newport and Ryde are set to receive a share of a £6 million fund to deliver community-led cultural activities over the next 3 years.
Historic England has announced that more than 60 High Streets Heritage Action Zones (HSHAZ) will receive substantial grants totalling £6 million going to local arts organisations, with grants of up to £120,000 awarded to 6 high streets in the South East taking part in the Heritage Action Zone scheme.
Newport High Street will receive a £90,000 share of the funding, with the Renew Newport cultural programme on track to offer a ‘transformative programme of culture-led regeneration, including a children’s festival, a public art project, art exhibitions, museum displays, heritage talks and a rolling programme of concerts and workshops. The consortium responsible is made up of 8 organisations and led by charity Independent Arts.
Meanwhile in Ryde, a £95,000 grant fund 2 major projects – both of which focus on Ryde’s tradition of outdoor arts. Waving the Flag is a 3-year project designed to strengthen and develop Ryde Carnival to ensure its sustainability for the future.
Stories of our Streets will bring to life Ryde High Street’s personal, commercial and entrepreneurial histories. The project will engage new audiences in the heritage of the High Street through creative commissions that draw on newly collated secondary and primary research into ten premises. Both projects will use the physical space of the High Street and established cultural traditions to renew civic pride in the town.
Abi Wheeler, Creative Director of Ryde Arts CIC said:
“Ryde Arts CIC are delighted to be leading the Waving the Flag project on behalf of the newly formed Cultural Consortium. We have a strong network of local partners who will be working together to combine an enormous wealth of knowledge and expertise with Outdoor Arts activities. After the disappointing setbacks of the last year, Ryde Carnival will be coming back to Ryde in 2022, stronger than ever.”
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Emily Gee, Regional Director, Historic England in London and the South East, said:
“The High Streets Cultural Programme is such an important – and exciting – way of bringing people back to their cherished high streets in need of love. We are working together to regenerate historic high streets through conservation and building work, and this community-led cultural activity programme will draw people back to enliven and shape these special places for the future.”
Culture Minister, Caroline Dinenage MP, said:
“High streets are often the heart of our communities and should be places we all want to engage with and enjoy. These grants will help transform high streets into thriving cultural hubs, encouraging us to embrace all the joys our town centres have to offer.”
As well as the grant-funded cultural activity taking place on high streets over the next three years, Historic England is also curating a programme of cultural commissions to get people back to high streets. On the Island this includes the unofficial ‘twinning’ or Ryde and Ramsgate.
A programme of creative commissions will see artists working with local people to uncover what the 2 towns have in common. The artworks will explore themes of identity as well as the communities’ collective hopes and challenges, culminating in a series of installations, performances and digital work.
Artist practice Mooch are working with local residents, and students at Broadstairs College for their project, Isle of Rydesgate, a fantasy town that twins Ramsgate in Kent and Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
In June, local people will be sent “craft kits” to decorate scale models of historic high street buildings, and from July to August there will be exhibitions of the model high streets in town centre shops in Ryde and Ramsgate.
Fancy drawing a model building for the fantasy island? If you would like to join in making a template, you have until 21st May to send in your drawing of one of our buildings. Use the Mooch instructions to help draw your building template of one, or more, buildings from the list.
