Two-year cultural project for North Yorkshire towns awarded £350K
- Published
Cultural events planned for three towns in North Yorkshire have been awarded £350,000 in funding.
Now Then! will bring arts events and activities to the centres of Selby, Tadcaster and Sherburn-in-Elmet between April 2024 and March 2026.
The programme has been given a Place Partnership award from the Arts Council England through the National Lottery.
The scheme, featuring artworks, events and experiences, aims to install civic pride and regenerate the towns.
It also aims to tell the stories of places and people.
North Yorkshire Council's executive member for culture and leisure Simon Myers, said it was an "exciting and ambitious" project which will focus on people's pride in where they live.
"Visitors will see our towns as places of singular cultural experiences and local people will see where they live through fresh eyes," he said.
In Selby, activities will include new commissions based in the town's abbey and its surroundings.
It will include music, dance, writing and performance, as well as visual and digital arts.
In Tadcaster, members of the community arts company, ARCADE, will be working with children and young people to create a programme of new work, predominantly in the town centre.
Local communities in Sherburn-in-Elmet will help select creative practitioners they would like to work with to co-devise and deliver activities there.
Arts Council England's Pete Massey said they were delighted to fund the project.
"It's great to see so many partners working collaboratively on a project that will tell the stories of places and people as well as offer children and young people in Selby, Tadcaster and Sherburn the opportunity to get involved and develop their artistic skills," he said.
The project is also benefitting from cash from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and North Yorkshire Council's Cultural Development Fund.
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