Artlink Central brings artists together with people experiencing exclusion, disability or disadvantage. Our mission and artistic vision is to explore the creative potential of socially engaged arts practice in public and sited spaces.
We aim to
Create challenging experimental work with no concessions, bound together with a shared love of cultural exchange.
Use creativity to break down the barriers between us, forming the perfect environment in which to create work that is as engaging for the (sometimes unsuspecting) audience as it is for the participants.
Build a model of creation that all people working in the creative arts should pay attention to.
Honour the unique perspective and voices of our participants and partner artists and boldly present their unique work on a public platform.
Artlink Central has a core programme of ongoing social prescription and member-led services:
Artspace
Our adult mental health social prescription service for people in Stirling has been running since 2003. A programme for young people has been developed and runs similataneously.
Artreach
A creative project for adults with Learning Disabilities that has specialised in live arts and interdisciplinary work has created commissions in Stirling Castle, Scottish Parliament and the University of Stirling. The group was established in 2011.
Our ongoing place-based projects explore the arts, creativity, neighbourhood and community.
Key long term projects include:
Scene Stirling
We manage Stirling's Place Partnership, a significant cultural project connecting Stirling's creative communities through training, network building, skills development, pr, grants, and project funding.
Arts and Wellbeing NHS Forth Valley
We coordinate all arts commissions, exhibitions and participatory and creative work for our local health board who we have worked with for over thirty years. When visiting NHS locations such as Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Stirling Community Hospital, and many more - you will see the work created by artists during our projects.
Our Connected Neighbourhoods
We have partnered with the University of Stirling and others to develop, design and deliver change to the way we make our neighbourhoods dementia inclusive, through physical design, digital and social and creative interventions.
Camelon Arts
Three-year long community arts place-based partnership.
Impact
Artlink Central uses a range of tools and approaches to determine some of the impact we make across our work.
Individual
At the heart of our work is a commitment to making space for individual creative expression, building opportunities to reduce social isolation, enhance confidence and wellbeing. We put the individual front and centre of designing our programmes, setting their desired outcomes and supporting them in evaluating the impact on their lives.
We use a range of self-reflective tools and creative processes to capture the impact of our work on the individual in their own words and against agreed outcomes that support models of recovery, throughcare and progression. We have expertise in supporting transitions and modelling personalised care through our creative participatory design processes.
Public
Artink Central has a distinctive track record of leading and designing programmes for change within the public and third sector, using the arts and creativity as a tool for change, communication and learning, that delivers on personal and collective outcomes, coalescing typically through the creation of original art works and/or design outputs, that are the product of a shared vision, determined by place, people and partnerships.
We aim to produce opportunities to work with talented professional and non-professional artists to create:
'accessible work of any kind that cares about, challenges, involves, and consults the audience for or with whom it was made, respecting community and environment'.
Lucy Lippard
Partnership
Artlink Central applies our extensive expertise to support more embedded partnerships with a range of public and education bodies, applying our processes to service and product design within healthcare particularly.
Artlink Central is in a unique situation through the close partnerships we forge to deliver our services in healthcare and social care settings, schools, prisons and community settings, of being able to design truly creative solutions for many of our clients’ needs. This also unlocks these partners' resources and opportunities to people who face barriers to accessing culture, heritage and social opportunity, widening access across each of these areas.
We have established formalised partnerships with organisations such as NHS Forth Valley, Scottish Prison Service, local authorities and with independent arts organisations and design agencies, were recently nominated for a Scottish Charity award for a 'perfect partnership' with NHS Forth Valley, sited as a 'value of cultural partnerships' case study by Culture at King's College Cultural and have built strong working relationships to contribute to current and future social research at the University of Stirling, whilst establishing a strong evidence base and research led approach to developing our own business.