Improving access to Culture for Local People
After delays caused by the global pandemic the extension to East Durham Trust’s base at Community House was completed in August 2020.
A bespoke space designed for Arts and Cultural activity the Arts Café @ Community House providing a place for performances, sessions and activity.
The facility will stage artistic performances and exhibitions and support the aims of our East Durham Creates project by giving disadvantaged people the opportunity to engage with Culture and Creativity. Who needs Starbucks or Sage Gateshead?!
Since opening we have held a number of events including Arts Café Live, which brought live performance, storytelling and spoken word poetry live from the Arts Café, which was streamed to our community via Facebook Live, and ran for four weeks. It was a fantastic opportunity to get to experience live entertainment once again.
One of the exhibitions we most recently had was a collection of works organised by The Barn at Easington, with artwork including some of the incredible nature photographs captured during a winter in lockdown by members of the ‘Barn Arts’ Facebook group, wonderful artwork including screen prints by The Barn team and of course the wolf sculpture which moved around East Durham in 2021.
The café is also a regular meeting place for various groups held at East Durham Trust, including Craft and Chat and Garden Get Together.
The Arts Cafe @ Community House was made possible thanks to funding from the Clothworkers Foundation, East Durham Area Action Partnership, various local Councillors and Durham County Council as well as a crowdfunding campaign where you helped make it happen. See below for the people who made it happen:
