Kate Wood, Activate’s Executive and Artistic Director, discusses in this month’s edition of Spotlight the organisation’s role as executive creative producer for the National Landscape Association’s £2m project: Nature Calling.
What makes Nature Calling a major national arts programme?
‘Nature Calling is the first major commissioning programme that the National Landscapes Association has launched and its scope and scale is national.
Our ambition is to hear new voices and work with a wide range of people. The project was created to make sure that more people know that our National Landscapes are here for everyone.
As well as new commissions for artists, there will also be training for staff at the National Landscapes, National Parks and Trails, as well as artists labs. Significantly the project has enabled us to secure the appointment of the first Arts Development Programme Manager for the National Landscape Association, Kerenza McClarnan, a very experienced arts producer, who I am really enjoying working with.
Arts Council England, DEFRA (Department for Farming and Rural Affairs) and the individual National Landscapes have recognised the importance of this project and have invested funding to make it happen.’
What is Activate’s role in the newly launched project Nature Calling?
‘Activate has worked with the National Landscape Association and its members to devise the project and secure the funding to make it happen. Our role is executive creative producers, working with Kerenza and the National Landscape leads. I am joined in this role by our Co-Artistic Director for our festival, Inside Out Dorset, Bill Gee. It entails guiding the artistic and creative producing aspects of the programme, and leading on the training. We have helped bring together the local partnerships between the National Landscapes and the production companies and worked with the 6 commissioning National Landscapes on the writers and artists brief. We will be on the selection panels alongside partners and community representatives in each area and look forward to helping to create a national programme that really gets people involved locally.’
You have already been working in partnership with the National Landscape Association creating their first national arts strategy, can you tell us about this?
‘As part of a large scale project working with the artists Mandy Dyke and Ben Rigby from And Now: with the Life Cycles and Landscapes project where they created Wayfaring that travelled the Icknield Way – we built on the long standing partnership we had with Dorset National Landscape and teamed up with other such designated landscapes in the Wessex Downs, Chilterns and North Norfolk Coast. Wayfaring was also presented at Oerol festival and we took the opportunity to take the chief executive of the National Association of AONBs (the former Association title). Along with making presentations at each National Conference and a number of other National Landscapes who had been working with artists, there was a recognition that the arts can have an emotional impact on people and the potential to create a greater connectedness to nature. An application to Arts Council England was made and we were contracted to write a report and deliver training for officers. It led to the adoption of their first strategy: Arts In the Landscape – Connecting People to Nature.’
Why should writers and artists get involved?
‘We are really interested in hearing from new voices, from artists with ambitious ideas and an approach that encompasses communities.
This is a great opportunity to be inspired by our landscapes, to find new ways to fire up peoples imagination, connect people to place and the importance of our environment.’
What really excites you about this project?
‘I am really excited by the possibilities, the many different ideas that artists could present and how this can be shaped by/with communities.
The programme allows a real distinctiveness in each area, which together with all the other locations across the country will offer a very special national programme for people to come to and be part of.’
What do you hope will be achieved in the next year?
‘This year we will be selecting writers and artists and they will start working in each area. The newly commissioned projects will culminate in a season for audiences between May and October 2025, so there will be a lot of work to do before we launch the programme for the public nationally!’
Image credit: Roy Riley