Fascinating conference today. Odd that those two words sit side by side. It was a meeting led by Tin House and Les ARTiculeurs based around WAVES (Working with the Arts to Create Value that is Economic and Social) and a Europe wide community arts scheme including Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Holland and England. Les ARTiculeurs are a pioneering company whose work focuses on building work alongside a community driven by the issues that are important to the community, building links between artisans, business leaders and the disadvantaged and leaving a lasting effect in the form of large scale artworks and creative and business infrastructures. Their philosophy is based on working on developing a connection and respect for the communities they work on, which imbues the participants with a say in the artworks evolution and a solid sense of ownership. They focus heavily on dreaming, demanding the impossible, whilst also being incredibly well organised and having an intrinsic understanding of the need to take risks and be allowed to make mistakes along the way that can germinate new and unexpected routes for a project.

This particular project is based around procession, carnival and large-scale puppetry and the aim is to co-ordinate a community based project here in Norwich and possibly beyond that will be pushed forward as a result of discussions between the two companies already mentioned but also The Norwich Puppet Theatre, Stew Gallery and Artists Studios, The Garage, and Art in the Underbelly amongst others. At the moment its very much at the beginning with Tin House and Les ARTiculeurs working together for a piece as part of the procession for this years Sparks in the Parks bonfire night celebrations. The next meeting is in November and will be the beginning of a brainstorm for a much larger community arts project.