Escape Arts celebrates 20th with exhibition this weekend

ESCAPE Arts are celebrating 20 years of bringing people together through creativity with a landmark exhibition at Stratford Town Hall.

This unique, two-day anniversary exhibition on Friday, 30th June, and Saturday, 1st July, is part of Warwickshire Open Studios and is being held as Stratford River Festival brings the riverside alive.

It reflects the changing patterns of lives and Escape Arts’ growth at the heart of local communities, and takes visitors on a journey through an impressive display of work created by some of the people they have worked with from all across Warwickshire.

Established in 1997, Escape Arts has gone through an extraordinary transformation over the past 20 years: from a group of individuals meeting up to share their enthusiasm and skills for the arts, to seeing thousands taking part in art and creative classes that are run all around the region in the last few years.

“When we started we had no idea what the demand for the sort of work we are doing would be,” Robin Wade, artistic director tells Herald arts.

“For the first session we ran, three people came, and it stayed at a small level for some time, but by the end of the year we had quite a big group.”

Robin added: “People came for all sorts of reasons, and I think that’s when we realised the impact we could have on people’s health and wellbeing.

“So we’ve built on that and done a couple of research programmes, just to give us the evidence that it can do what we can see it can do.”

Arts Council England funding has allowed Escape Arts to extend its reach across Warwickshire. Creative activities have been delivered through the ‘Changing Landscapes’ programme in Stratford, Leamington, Nuneaton, Bedworth and Bidford, providing opportunities for all ages and abilities to engage in vibrant and innovative arts activities

With this funding Escape was also able to commission Rachel Higgins’ magnificent metal sculpture of a heffer at The Old Slaughterhouse site in Sheep Street, Stratford.

The faithful restoration of this Grade II-Listed building which was funded from the £1million Stratford Town Trust CommYOUnity Challenge and has provided Escape Arts with the newly-named Old Slaughterhouse Arts and Heritage Centre, creating a safe community space where people of all ages can come together.

Just opposite the Town Hall, The Old Slaughterhouse, will be open during the exhibition for refreshments and a chance to see the current exhibition showing the history and restoration of the Old Toll House on Clopton Bridge.

Also in 2015, Funding from Big Lottery, Reaching Communities Fund enabled Escape Arts to commission a purpose-built multi-media arts bus, enabling their work to be delivered across many rural Warwickshire communities. This will feature with other entertainments at the River Festival over the same weekend

WHEN AND WHERE: The Escape Arts 20th anniversary exhibition is open 10am to 5pm on Friday, 30th June, and from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, 1st July. See www.escapearts.org.uk