Artspeaks - a celebration of hidden talents

Most people would agree that food, shelter, education and a basic income, were essentials for life, but art, beauty, culture? The jury is still out on that one.

“Living in poverty is bleak, it makes you feel such a failure. That’s why it is so important to be able to create your own beauty, to get a sense of achieving something. It makes us all richer inside.” This is how one woman explained the importance of art to her.

She has been involved over three years in the London-based Empowerment through Art project. Organised by the voluntary organisation ATD Fourth World with funding from the National Lottery and the support of the Arts Council of England, it was a collaboration, through regular workshops, between professional artists and people living in poverty.

The majority of participants from the housing estates around London had previously seen art and culture as a closed world. Lack of money, time and of practical and emotional space had stymied their own creative potential. While, almost more paralysing, was the fear that they would be made to feel unwelcome, stupid or out-of-place in galleries, museums, theatres and other cultural places.

In all, around 170 people took part in the Empowerment through Art project including 32 professional artists and parents and children from about forty-six families, mostly from the South-East of the United Kingdom. Amongst the media explored were pottery, glass painting, collage, sculpture, papermaking, photography, textile painting, mural painting, clay and creative writing.

Art is becoming more accepted as an element of anti-poverty work. It’s importance is emphasised in a recent report considering the impact of the UK’s Government spending on art and sport on poor neighbourhoods. In his foreword, Secretary of State, Chris Smith, said, “This report shows that art and sport can not only make a valuable contribution to delivering key outcomes of lower long-term unemployment, less crime, better health and better qualifications, but can also help to develop the individual pride, community spirit and capacity for responsibility that enable communities to run regeneration programmes themselves.” (Policy Action Team 10 report, July 1999, The Department of Culture, Media and Sport)

The Empowerment through Art Project resulted in a touring exhibition - Artspeaks, a celebration of hidden talents. It comprises: the bold colourful images of the Wild Walls mural and other paintings; the black and white photos which create A Child’s Eye View; the Stepping Stones to the Future, clay tiles which collectively express the participants’ aims and dreams; wood carvings; brightly painted textile banners with the theme of human rights; and hopes, dreams and snap-shots of daily life expressed in prose and poetry pouring forth from a children’s telephone, a cuddly bear, a face, a tunnel and

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