Arts in Ramsgate (AiR) exists to encourage people’s innate creativity and curiosity and expand cultural participation for everyone.
Together with our community we work to improve mental health, encourage social cohesion and build cultural and civic participation for under-served people.
AiR is a low pressure environment and there is no obligation placed on people who come. ‘Participation’ might mean popping in for a chat or relaxing on the couch with a cuppa.
We strive to improve access for people who have been ignored, excluded or discriminated against. We are a trauma informed space and subscribe to the social model of disability.
In response to the needs of the people who come to us and world we live in, we are always in a process of unfolding and changing.
Our community programme has become very popular and so, to help us to increase our capacity and improve the quality of experience and support for our participants, we are being taken under the wing of Madlove, a mental health charity run by artist activist the vacuum cleaner, AKA James Leadbitter.
To enable us to flex and change in response to needs expressed by our regulars, the original organisation founded in 2016 Arts in Ramsgate CIC has been dissolved, and we are now running as High Street Social Club for the Arts in Ramsgate. Which is a huge mouthful! But choosing this long official title means we can still be known as Arts in Ramsgate to our community. In a chaotic world, this familiarity and continuity feels really important.
We can’t wait to build on the radically supportive relationships we have fostered to become the organisation we have always known we could be. Watch this space.
Jemma Cullen, Arts in Ramsgate director
October 2024
It’s My Life, Don’t You Forget
Spring 2024
It’s My Life, Don’t You Forget was a 10 part, process-driven project developed by Open School East for their associate 2023/24 programme, guided by internationally recognised artist and disability advocate James Leadbitter (working under the name ‘vacuum cleaner’).
The project was designed for the community at The Beacon, an NHS mental healthcare space in Ramsgate, three of the sessions were delivered at Arts in Ramsgate for Beacon outpatients as well as the community of regulars at Arts in Ramsgate.
The Associates delivered a programme of 10 workshops in spring 2024 to foreground outpatient and staff members’ needs and creative ideas, utilising each Associate’s artistic practice and specialist skills, that includes poetry, performance, audio and video production, animation, painting and textiles. Each workshop created a space in which participants could platform and share their own experiences and advocate for their needs.
Through an engaging and varied programme, It’s My Life, Don’t You Forget sought to improve the quality of life for Beacon outpatients and AiR regulars, to trial partnerships with cultural partners to benefit mental health in Thanet, and prepare a new wave of early-career artists to work in ways that can support mental health (and mental health care provision settings), centring lived experience and the interests of the patient.
Along with seven other Kent based mental health and arts professionals, AiR director Jemma Cullen has been part of the Advisory & Accountability Group for the project which is in place to help shape and adapt a collaborative approach, so that planned activities could reflect more creative ways of working with NHS users and staff members at The Beacon and AiR. The A&AG group met monthly to engage in critical discussion around the project with Open School East and the vacuum cleaner. The group act as caretakers of the project, supporting through training sessions, skill sharing and mutual mentoring.
Alongside artist and designer Rachelle Francis, Jemma ran a preparatory workshop for the associates; ‘A peer support group for people who need to look after themselves so they can look after other people’.
High Street Social Club
Winter 2023/24
Everyone knows what it's like to feel lonely. For some people, for all kinds of reasons, it can be a particularly tricky problem to solve. And that's why Arts in Ramsgate joined forces with lead partner Discovery Planet and Dr Nadia Brookes, Dr Vanessa Abrahamson and Dr Stella Bolaki of the University of Kent with the support of a Creative Lives Know Your Neighbourhood grant to set up the High Street Social Club which through a series of free workshops and events reached 650 people.
Across three months we enlivened the high street with a programme of free workshops for our regulars and new attendees and volunteers drawn to our services by the project.
With artist and designer Rebecca Strickson we learned ‘The Art of Words’; wording, design, colour theory and layout to create welcoming invitations and a bright window design to welcome people to our club. At Christmastime we also made block colour Christmas wreaths from cut paper in a Strickson style.
Using layout skills we learned with Rebecca, printmaker Mat Pringle guided us to we carve lino to create our own linocut prints.
With metalsmith Billie M. Vigne we fashioned embossed ‘beer can votive’ offerings for our Christmas tree from used drinks cans we opened up and flattened, tooling patterns, words and pictures into the metal.
With Clair and Carli of the Lunatraktors we danced and sang and celebrated Yule.
In ‘The Art of Books’ with Stella Bolaki we learned to hand sew books, inspired by unique publications from the University’s special collections whilst over at AiR, Jemma Cullen guided a group through the Power Threat Meaning Framework to create and take ownership of own mental health stories in ‘The Story of You’.
In ‘The Art of Mapping’ at Discovery Planet, particpants created a community map of Ramsgate, capturing all our favourite spots whilst over at AiR, sound artist and musician Dan Mayfield The School of Noise gave a hands-on demo of his amazing sound making equipment including a Themein and an Omnichord as well as a guided sound tour of the neighbourhood.
In ‘The Art of Feeling Good’ with Jasbir Dhillon, inspired by her Punjabi Indian heritage, we made a community mandala from flower petals, drank ginger and lemon tea whilst we swapped stories with strangers by the light of a diya (a traditional Sikh mustard oil lamp).
In the final run, as requested by regulars, with photorealist artist Lynne Webster (and AiR board member and volunteer) we learned to improve our drawing skills.
The High Street Social Club continues every Friday 11am - 4pm. Whoever you are and whatever your story you are invited you to join our club to use your own lived experience to help us remove barriers and help people feel welcome.
Ramsgate Reconnects
Ramsgate Festival of Sound
Summer 2023
What does it mean to ‘regenerate’ a town? And what does regeneration mean for Ramsgate? These sonic workshops took place to amplify the voices of townspeople.
With the help of composer, sonic artist and Neurodivergent advocate Louis Palfrey, in this collaborative, temporary installation we used conductive paint and the power of touch to bring aspects of the decision making process to life.
This commission for the Ramsgate Festival of Sound was a chance to respond to the council’s plans for ‘Ramsgate Future’. We immersed ourselves in a symphony of sounds as we worked together to create a tactile sonic map, thinking through the impact of change and connection together.
This was an independent event not affiliated with Thanet District Council or Ramsgate Town Council, though members of the regeneration team were in attendance to help talk us through plans and report back to the council.
Ramsgate Rocks
Spring 2023
Arts in Ramsgate is on Ramsgate High Street which is a part of a ‘Heritage Action Zone’. With funding from Historic England designed to involve communities in the history and heritage of their local areas, we were able to deliver a series of workshops, a lecture and community group exhibiton to explore the fascinating history of our little corner of the high street, and think about the lives that have been lived there. Both human and dinosaur!
Inspired by an evening lecture by ‘Mr Ramsgate’, local history enthusiast Ralph Hoult we explored the geography of the area in a drawing workshops Drawing Ramsgate with artist and eduator Laura Owen.
Poet Connor Sansby taught us how to write Haiku, to encapsulate our favourite memories of bygone Ramsgate using a specific number of syllables, and perhaps a seasonal reference.
In Dancing in Circles, Lunatraktors Carli and Clair helped us explore the joy of being part of the Ramsgate community with song, dance and... body percussion.
This programme culminated in a group community exhibition Ramsgate Rocks where we showed our newly learned skills to the public alongside old footage and photos as we shared memories of the town over cups of tea and biscuits.
Ramsgate Winter Lantern Parade
Christmas 2022
The Ramsgate Winter Lantern Parade was launched in 2017 in collboration with artist and Great British Carnival founder Teresa Askew. The event has been managed by AiR volunteers every Christmas until the Covid pandemic halted proceedings.
In 2022, supported by The Big Lottery Community Fund, Ramsgate Town Council and Thanet District Council the event returned under the theme Safe Harbour. The team delivered three months’ of workshops for participants of all ages and backgrounds followed by a dazzling parade of over 500 people carrying hundreds of handmade willow lanterns, a magnificent cardboard replica of the St. George’s Church beacon built by local artist Janis Gibbs, newly formed community samba band ‘Samba Ya Wantsum’, a giant lobster and the Whitstable giant, proceeding from Arts in Ramsgate on the High Street to the main sands for carols and Christmas songs conducted by choirmaster Emily Peasgood, accompanied by a brass band.
Arts in Ramsgate and The Great British Carnival plan to run the event annually, funding permitting, expanding the project to include a number of Ramsgate community groups.
Click here for more information
Photos by Vicki Couchman
The Plants Talk Back
Margate Now
Autumn 2021
Commissioned for Margate Now by Open School East founder and curator Anna Colin, led by Jemma Cullen / Arts in Ramsgate in collaboration with GOLD (Getting on with Learning Difficulties), artists Rosie Carr, Holly Hunter and writer and comedian Trevor Neal ‘The Plants Talk Back’ was a two-day site-specific exploration and speculation at the Sunken Garden (though it was rained off and took place indoors at The Nayland Rock Hotel) to investigate just how entangled we are with our natural environment, and each other.
Day one was a drama improvisation workshop led by Trevor Neal (’swing your pants’) involving Arts in Ramsgate regulars, members of GOLD and members of the public to create a casual and celebratory public performance.
Day two was a sound workshop led by local artists Rosie Carr and Holly Hunter with members of GOLD and Arts in Ramsgate. By harnessing plant and human bioelectricity using Playtronica devices, we speculated about what plants might say and gave voice to flora from the garden. The workshop was followed by a public live improvised performance of our ‘plant orchestra’.
Across both days, sixty participants took part in workshops and 300 people attended performances.
Click here for more information and documentation
Don’t Mock the Donkey
Autumn 2021
Arts in Ramsgate was used as a location by director Samin Saadat and crew to shoot their Arts Council England funded Persian and English language short film Don’t Mock the Donkey.
Saadat ploughed his lived experience into the script, choosing the Kent coast as a location at a time many ‘small boats’ were arriving on Kent shores.
Click here to view the trailer