Putting Cornwall on the National Map

A community event taking place this month will put Cornwall on the map during a national initiative.

Taking place between 20^th – 26^th May, national “Creativity and Wellbeing Week” brings together organisations and initiatives from across the country, highlighting the wealth of opportunities offered by the creative sector and their benefits.

“Trovya”, which means “discover” in Cornish, will take place at Redruth Library on Monday 20^th May from 9:30am-12:30pm, organised by Arts Well.

A free, community drop-in event, open to all, visitors will be able to meet the Arts Well CIC team, discover the benefits of creativity on wellbeing, chat and enjoy a creative activity in the welcoming setting of Redruth Library.

Trovya will enable people to engage in an imaginative workshop and find out about other creative opportunities happening in the local area throughout the year, with packs available to take away filled with info, research links, resources and bitesize activities to try at home.

Vicki Bampfield-Hammond, Programme Coordinator for Arts Well explains:

“Creativity and Wellbeing Week is an annual event showcasing the benefits that creativity can have on wellbeing. It is run in partnership between London Arts in Health Forum and The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance and is a platform for organisations across the country to promote the range of arts-based activities they have available and to highlight their impact.”

Vicki continues:

“As well as a chance to meet people and talk about the many physical and mental health benefits of creative pursuits, at Trovya we will launch a creative challenge that will run for the week via Redruth Library and Arts Well’s social media, and hopefully other libraries in Cornwall. We hope that people will take up the challenge and get involved – during this national week, but also continuing with creative activities afterwards. We hope that Trovya will be the start of many people’s new artistic endeavours, as well as the beginning of a lovely collaborative venture with libraries across Cornwall. We are delighted that Redruth Library are hosting our event and would like to thank Sarah Bolton and her team for embracing Trovya.”

Sarah Bolton, Assistant and Manager of Redruth Library said:

“We are excited to be working with Arts Well to host Trovya. Redruth Library is a beautiful building, and we can’t wait to welcome people to this latest event in our programme. The creative challenge is going to be fun and we’re looking forward to seeing what people produce.”

Arts Well’s challenge will be to re-imagine the cover of a favourite book, recreating it from found or natural materials, or craft materials if you have them.

The challenge can be undertaken at Trovya on the 20^th May, or at any time during Creativity and Wellbeing Week, with participants invited to take a photo of their results and either email it to Arts Well on vicki@arts-well.com or upload it onto to social media remembering to tag your local library and Arts Well.

Arts Well will also be collaborating with Fish Factory's Community facilitators - Sophie Craven and Jasmine Blackmoore – utilising the Penryn based art space to showcase photographs of the book covers made during Creativity and Wellbeing Week later in the year.

Alongside being promoted via Arts Well’s social media channels, the book cover challenge will be circulated to all 28 libraries in Cornwall to take part if they wish to, as part of an ongoing collaboration, following the first Trovya at Redruth Library.

Vicki explains:

“We are aiming to visit many libraries with Trovya throughout the year, with 8 interested in hosting us already. Our Trovya partnership with libraries begins with Redruth aptly launched during Creativity and Wellness Week, then followed by other events in many libraries throughout Cornwall to come over the year.”

Creativity and Wellbeing Week is run in partnership between London Arts in Health Forum and The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance; started in 2012 as a small event based in London, 2019 saw it taken national – allowing thousands more people across the UK to participate in culture and creative activities as part of a week-long festival.

Now organisations from all over the country take part, with the festival encouraging and supporting organisations and individuals to organise and share their own activities in order to reach far and wide.

Events can take any art form and can be held in clinical settings, cultural buildings or in the community – with the proviso that they involve either accessing or participating in artistic activities that improve health and wellbeing, with more information available here: https://creativityandwellbeing.org.uk  

“Trovya” is just one of Arts Well’s activities in a year-round programme of community initiatives to enable people to discover the value of creativity on health and well-being.

For further information about Arts Well, visit https://arts-well.com/ or find them on social media.