Celebrating 50 years of Junction Arts

Once in a while, the dream freelance opportunity comes along. For me, this was the opportunity to support Derbyshire-based community arts charity Junction Arts as they reached their 50 year milestone. This is a commission to support the brilliant Junction Arts team as they look back on their impact over the past half century, and think ahead about what comes next as they look to the future. A fascinating role, made all the more powerful for me by the fact that I'm a former participant - I took part in Junction Arts' very first lantern parade in 1994, and they played a hugely formative role in my creative beginnings.

As an initially very open-ended brief, we spent the first part of the year 'looking back' at the archive, history and cumulative impact of Junction Arts. This was an opportunity to think beyond the typical 3-5 year period of evaluation or impact studies to explore what 50-year impact looks like, especially in the context of a rapidly-changing north Derbyshire mining community.

This first phase included:

• a documentary analysis of existing evaluations and impact reports, to map evidence against Junction Arts' organisational aims, and identify strengths, gaps and possible areas for future work

• facilitating discussions with the team and Board at an away day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

• a day immersed in the Junction Arts archive at Derbyshire Record Office

• regular 'geek fests', learning with and thinking alongside Dr. Anthony Schrag at Queen Margaret University, situating the practical experience of Junction Arts alongside academic and theoretical knowledge.

This work resulted in a long-form article for Junction Arts, a commission for the Creative Health special edition of the Perspectives in Public Health academic journal (forthcoming), and a feature by the Centre for Cultural Value. It also laid the groundwork for a successful bid to the National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund, which awarded Junction Arts £56,000 for a new '50 stories for 50 years' project - a way to celebrate long-term impact without over-simplifying the many and complex narratives that make up their impact on place and people.

With this 'looking back' phase complete, we moved to look forward to the coming 50 years. Drawing together existing research on horizon scanning, future trends and the opportunities for civil society in a changing landscape, I facilitated a second staff and Board away-day in Dronfield, Derbyshire in early 2026. This was an opportunity to think together about how the 50 year track-record of Junction Arts can stand them in good stead for future challenges, and to explore how their remit and approach might continue to evolve to meet the needs of their communities as far ahead as 2076.

From there, we'll be working together to draw this big-picture thinking a little closer to home, to shape an operational business plan for 2027-2032. And we'll be continuing to use all this learning to cement Junction Arts' reputation as one of the UK's founding community arts organisations, with half a century of experience and impact to their name. More to come, but it's already been such a pleasure to play a small role in supporting this brilliant organisation, who've meant so much to me, as well as generations of people across north-east Derbyshire.