Bedford Creative Arts

Who we are

Our Vision is that future communities will have an outrageous sense of entitlement to the arts because of its power to provoke change.   

We work predominantly in Bedfordshire but strive for our activities & learning to make a national impact on the sectors where we work & the world we live in.  

Creative commissioning is at the heart of what we do, which is where an artwork is commissioned in response to a social objective & community need.  Sometimes we are the commissioner & sometimes we work in partnership by supporting an artist or community working independently on a project that aligns with our strategic aims.  We are also a leading local provider of cultural education commissioning, mentoring & brokerage.    

We acknowledge that as an established, publicly funded organisation we have an obligation to nurture a strong creative sector & therefore develop the local creative ecology.  We build up our local peers to create a thriving cultural economy for Bedfordshire, underpinning the development of local cultural audiences.  We are a catalyst that develops local cultural institutions & raises the bar for ambition & excellence. 

Our culture and values

We believe that art is essential for a full life as it engenders self-expression, confidence, connectedness and a sense of belonging.  It builds strong and resilient communities; it empowers individuals.      

Where there are challenges in communities, whether social, educational, environmental or economic, the arts have the intrinsic power to provoke and facilitate change.      

The arts can provide a platform for a diversity of voices to be heard.  Through engagement with the arts, people can explore, express, connect, learn, share, debate and challenge, often in innovative and ambitious ways.   We want all communities to have access to the arts so that they can do these things and become active citizens with us to work towards better, stronger communities.     

We see a community as a neighbourhood or as a group of people with a common characteristic or shared experience.  We recognise that neighbourhoods are home to many communities and each of us is a member of several communities.  

We: 

• Put PEOPLE at the heart of our work, working responsively & collaboratively with communities.      

• Drive PLACE-making, shaping & enriching by helping communities to have a sense of identity, belonging, agency & pride in where they live.     

• PARTNER with communities to provoke change, champion social & environmental justice & strive for a just & equitable society.     

• Seek to ask questions & have conversations that explore POSSIBILITY, challenge the status quo, support meaningful debate & enable radical ideas to be explored.      

• Use socially engaged artistic PRACTICE to develop knowledges, skills & tools that can be shared & used nationally.   

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

The arts have the intrinsic power to provoke and facilitate change. This means that the arts have the power to showcase our wonderfully diverse society, to embrace and share the talents of richly diverse communities, to challenge discrimination in creative ways, to increase representation from people with protected characteristics in the creation of art, and to facilitate conversations that enable issues of equality, equity, diversity & inclusion to be radically debated and explored. 

We do more than just ensure we continue to adhere to our legal obligations to prevent discrimination as directed under the Equality Act 2010; it outlines how, through all of our creative and business activities, we will constantly strive to embrace the rich benefits of living in a diverse world. It guides all of our staff, trustees, volunteers, artists, partners and contractors to understand our values, know what is required of them, and encourages a culture of constant challenge and questioning that aims to support access and inclusion whilst generously embracing diversity.

Our full EEDI Policy is available on our website.