The research aimed to generate new knowledge and new perspectives on West Cumberland, with the aim of developing and instigating the kind of processes and initiatives that can enrich the cultural understanding of the place, and help to inform the ways in which it is viewed by local people, by visitors, and – through the wider dissemination and publication of books, articles and other outputs – by the public at large, wherever they may be.

This theme has recently been developing place-related research and engagement projects with the University of Lancashire’s “In Certain Places” programme, and also in collaboration with key local stakeholders in the cultural sector.

A new political geography in Cumberland presents an opportunity to reframe the place acculturation process, working with new place-based governance structures to address questions about the public value of place, and what makes a place, and inform discussions about the present and future of West Cumberland as a collective place facing big changes in the coming decades.

Current Research

‘Learning from the Contemporary: Emergent Cultural Practice and Policy Development’ (2023-2028)

In Certain Places’ work over the next five years aims to build on our work in ‘Place Development and Promotion’ (2017-2023) and to challenge how we understand and experience living in and with places. Our methods foster long-term change by connecting institutions and communities, and will form part of an ongoing conversation about what places mean, who has the power to (re)make them and how cultural practice can help us to connect with and care for the places in which we live.

Contemporary arts practice engages with culture in the broadest sense: from understandings that are rooted in the culture and heritage of places, to others that identify cultural production, participation and consumption as key aspects of how we live today. Within the context of the political economy of any place, a concern with culture also directs our attention to the role of knowledge, discourse and the emergence and shaping of particular values in defining and giving form to policy and practice.

Whitehaven-street-view

Ongoing and Future Activities

Our approach reveals the ways in which emergent actions or processes are already taking shape and how they may be brought into relation to create new assemblages that can, for example, allow for greater participation in, and benefit from, the cultural life of the region that is the main focus of our work.

Our involvement in the development and delivery of the bid for a major Arts Council England award under the Creative People and Places programme, led to the award of £1.7m funding for community arts. The programme, now titled ‘Everyone Here’, is led by a team of creative directors who are employed by the bid’s lead community organization, ACTion for Communities in Cumbria. ACT were one of a number of partners in the original consortium (along with University of Lancashire, Allerdale Borough Council, Florence Arts, Rosehill Theatre, Sellafield Ltd., Lakes College and Theatre by the Lake) who developed the bid from concept through to the successful award of funding.

Since the start of the programme proper, we have taken the role of Learning Partner, which is external to the consortium and its creative directors. The principal goal of our involvement is to reveal how actions and relationships within the programme are working, and to suggest ways of improving or refining approaches, practices and actions. We are, therefore, an integral link between the various actors and components that make up this action research programme. https://everyonehere.org

‘Creative People and Places’ illustrates one approach to developing the cultural infrastructure and broader cultural ecology of places insofar as it is intended to stimulate self-sustaining engagement at the community level through arts participation and, ultimately, community ownership of a commissioning process that is funded by Arts Council England. But, more broadly than that, as a collaborative effort between a range of organizations, institutions and economic partners, the development of the bid that brought this investment to the region involved another facet of the region’s developing cultural ecology, which exists at the level of local government, arts organizations, economic players, and institutions like the University of Lancashire. Establishing and sustaining new relationships with these partners provides a model of cultural practice that we will build upon in the next five years.

Recently, in April 2023, a cultural strategy for West Cumbria was launched under the aegis of the new Cumberland council. To mark the creation of the new local authority, we organized a ‘walking and talking’ workshop in June 2023, which visited two places that could be taken to represent different facets of the new Cumberland. This workshop was originally intended to stimulate conversation on two contrasting places in Cumbria, if not to think about what the naming of the new council as ‘Cumberland’ might change about the region and the role of culture and the arts in the new local government configuration. We asked participants with an interest or stake in the culture of the region, and other participants with academic expertise in place and culture to reflect on the discussions that took place during the workshop and contribute to a publication that will consider more broadly how the demands of the contemporary are being addressed in their own thinking and practice in relation to place and culture.

From a methodological point of view, this initiative illustrates the importance we place on social interaction as a means of opening up a space of democratic exchange, and it is an important indicator of how we intend to continue. It also serves as one instance of how method and practice relate to outputs: the project is initiated through our intervention, it then develops further through the coming together of interested parties, stimulates dialogue and discovery, and continues through further refinements and discussions, which will result in a publication that will be produced some time in 2024.

Outputs since 2017

Exhibitions and Workshops

A coach trip/workshop on Cumbria / Cumberland, place and culture in light of local government reorganization. June 2023.

Find Out More

Unpublished by Irene Rogan, Bridewell Gallery, Liverpool, 1-16 October 2022. Co-produced for In Certain Places/University of Lancashire with Liverpool John Moores University, the Bridewell Gallery and artist Irene Rogan. The exhibition took the work of 15 artists made for an original Arts Council-funded programme in 2021 from West Cumbria on to a national stage. https://www.unpublishedtour.uk

An exhibition held at Millom Palladium, Cumbria, 27 November 2021. Co-produced with artist Irene Rogan and based on her 3-month arts programme of the same name, featuring the work of 10 artists whose subject was the Duddon Estuary and the landscapes and places around it. https://www.unpublishedtour.uk/unpublished-liverpool

A guided tour of places featured in the publication, West Cumbria: On the Edge. June 2019

Whitehaven-Marina

Beach-at-St-Bees

Workington-RNLI

Whitehaven-Harbour-wall

Whitehaven-harbour

View-from-Whitehaven-Harbour

Silloth-Ice-Cream

Silloth

Whitehaven-Town-view

Ravenglass-boat

Ravenglass

Port-of-Workington

Florence-Arts-Centre