Creative Estuary x PDC

People Dem Collective – a community organisation based in Margate - will be connecting with audiences, artists, curators, and creative  spaces through 2022 to explore the Black, Brown and Diaspora experience within arts commissioning and programming.

The project is a Creative Estuary Co-commission – the initiative which  aims to showcase 60 miles of the North Kent and South Essex region as one of the UK’s most dynamic and creative areas in the whole of  the UK. People Dem Collective will be collecting data across the Creative Estuary area to try and establish how creative spaces and curators  have responded to the anti-racism movement since 2020 and the call for better representation within the arts.

The key questions we are looking to answer are:

• Has there been an impact or change within the art and cultural landscape?

• How do we ensure artists are elevated and not exploited in times of political crisis?

• What’s the legacy?

People will be able to connect with the conversation in a wide range of ways - through podcasts, panels, live case studies and events. There will be invitations to explore and reimagine what a new creative ecosystem might look like and how a best practice for commissioning and programming can be developed for real everlasting change and impact.

The first initiative to get underway through April will be a mapping of the access and experiences of people in the creative landscape throughout the Estuary. This will be done via three surveys for creative spaces, creatives and audiences. Through these surveys it is hoped they will be able to create a current and compelling picture of the present landscape and a snapshot of the engagement with local communities.