This year’s highlights Standing Together as Lights in the Darkness: Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated every 27th January to remember all those lost to Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides. We were honoured to be part of Newcastle City Council’s Holocaust Memorial Day Programme for both 2020 and 2021. In January 2020, we were funded to facilitate A Little Bit of Good in the World: a theatre workshop at Good Space exploring what little bits of good we can a do where we are right now and with what we have. We were also delighted to be able to represent the Good Space workspace community alongside young people from Projects 4 Change and Newcastle City Arts Team at the Holocaust Memorial Day National Commemoration event at Westminster on 27th January 2020, and for our artwork to be included in 75 Memorial Flames national artwork collection: 75 flames made by community organisations from across the UK marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Annual Report 2020/21
Artwork: Josie Brookes
Welcome to our first ever Annual Report for Monkfish Productions CIO. Despite the challenges that COVID-19 has brought to us all, we have gone from strength to strength as a new charity making fantastic creative things happen with artists and communities in the North East of England.
75 Memorial Flames Artwork
We would like to say a huge thank you to all of the Creative Team, all of our partners, our artists and especially to the young people involved.
by Monkfish & Good Space
Here’s to the year ahead!
Photo: Claire MurphyMorgan
Susan Coles Chair, Board of Trustees
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In 2021 we commissioned spoken word artist Sky Hawkins and filmmaker Andy Berriman to make Let This City Shine: a short film exploring the idea of Newcastle as a place of hope and light. https://youtu.be/6ZQJ6a-DURY CoLab @ Culture Lab We had already made plans to take part in Newcastle Gateshead’s Late Shows: the annual celebration of after hour’s culture with MA Creative Practice Students at Newcastle University and Culture Lab. We very quickly were able to move the project online, with the students responding to the idea of Good Space and workspace community as the focus for their work with input from Claire our Artistic Director in a visiting lecturer capacity. Congratulations to all the students in for the amazing work they made during this project – and under exceptional circumstances!
Melanie with young people from Projects 4 Change and Mrs. T @ Blakelaw Centre with their work J Photo: Kelly Coates
Illustrator and animator Josie Brookes also worked with the young people to gather inspiration, and she created artwork that was share all across our social media platforms. Josie also ran a very popular online ‘Little Bit of Good Drink & Draw’ that was really popular.
A Little Bit of Good in The World From its first steps as part of Holocaust Memorial Day 2020, A Little Bit of Good in the World has gone from strength as a project. With funding from Arts Council England, we were able to work with young people at Projects 4 Change in Cowgate & Blakelaw to recruit 2 artists in residence to work with us on this project. Working with textile artists Melanie Kyles, the young people made a banner for their community exploring what a little bit of good meant to them. Local heroes, standing up for social justice and nature reclaiming spaces during Covid-19 lockdown were definitely some key ideas that came out! The banner was unveiled at a socially distanced Halloween family treasure hunt at Blakelaw Centre in October 2020.
Work by Chloe Rodham, who took part in our online Drink & Draw October 2020! Photo by the artist J
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Our Arts Council funding also meant that were able to commission Social Media Associate Amy Lord to work with us to develop a strong online digital brand for the project and to develop the 4 C’s of A Little Bit of Good: #creativity #connection #criticalthinking #citizenship. Amy was also able to work with us to develop a Social Media Strategy to work across all of our projects and activities going forward. We also worked on a podcast with Audiovisual Cultures to explore the project in more detail: http://www.monkfishproductions.org/cur rent-projects/ and we featured in The Psychologist Magazine (November 2020).
Going the Social Distance We were also fortunate to receive funding from The Coronavirus Community Support Fund (National Lottery Community Fund) for Going the Social Distance: a 12 week online creative arts and mental wellbeing course for young people aged 13-18 from November 2020 – February 2021. Young people worked with our project team Josie Brookes, Jennifer Ironside and Kema Sikazwe to explore positive approaches to keeping well during the pandemic through illustration, crafts and storytelling. Augmented Reality
Producing Place The Arts Council funding also enabled us to develop Producing Place: our creative practice framework for working with artists in place and space-based contexts. We were able to commission a Creative Associate Nick Malyan to work with us to consult with 7 of our associate artists in the creation of a methodological framework in working with artists and communities in making site specific work. The draft Producing Places Framework was presented to the Arts Council England North East in December 2020 with plans for how we wish to go forward. In addition to A Little Bit of Good, this project strand will underpin much of our organisational development going forward into 2021-22.
Artwork: Jayne Dent
As part of the Producing Place programme, we commissioned musician Jayne Dent to make a new piece of work in response to the idea of place and space. Augmented Reality is a piece made for walking, and as accompanies the listener whilst walking through liminal spaces. You can listen to final piece here: https://jaynedent.bandcamp.com/track/a ugmented-reality
Discover, Dream, Design, and Deliver
Crafted with Care
• Interviewing artists and associates • Fixed questions • 1. How did you become involved with Monkfish?
Monkfish has continued to work with young people at Projects 4 Change to develop their ideas for their local community, and we have supported an online steering group for them to take
• 2. What role does space and place play in your practice? • 3. What would an ideal space or place based project look like? • 4. What could Monkfish put in place to help realise this ‘ideal’?
Nick chatting with our Associate Helen Collard (Image: Nick Malyan from PowerPoint)
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forward their ideas in helping to do good in their community through crafty and creative ideas. Monkfish was awarded a grant from Local Connections Fund (National Lottery Community Fund) to deliver Crafted for Care in March 2021: young people worked together with textile artist Melanie Kyles to make hand crafted gifts for older residents of a The Dales supported living scheme in Cowgate
So, despite Covid-19 and all it has thrown at us, we have had a really positive first full year as a registered charity. Our priorities going forward are: •
•
InSEA: Artistic Practice Worldwide We were delighted to be invited to InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) online conference in February 2021, sharing good practice with arts educators from across Europe and to have the opportunity to talk about our work alongside amazing projects in Finland, Sweden, Greece and Hungary.
•
To develop our organisation: continue to support our Board of Trustees to thrive and further develop good practice governance and our artistic strategy To test our new Producing Places framework through 2 artists residencies and the establishment of a network with other arts organisations To Continue to develop A Little Bit of Good in the World, in particular working with young people to lead on the development of this project
We are also now registered with Artists Union England’s Good Practice Charter J Say hello… …In addition to lots of great new folks on our creative team, we were also pleased to welcome Simon James to the Board of Trustees this year. Wave goodbye… We sadly had to say goodbye to Good Space, our workspace community which closed down during the pandemic. We wish Stacey, Alice, Rachel, Suzy, all at Northern Creative Solutions all of our comembers at Good Space all the very best going forward.
Crafted with Care: Susan (Home Group), Melanie, young people from Projects 4 Change and residents of The Dales supported living scheme, Cowgate, Newcastle with their crafty creations J Photo: Claire Murphy-Morgan
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Summary of Accounts Year End 31st March 2021
Receipts
Financial highlights:
Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Funds
Funds
Funds
2021
2021
2021
24730
24730
Despite the crisis of Covid-19, Monkfish Productions CIO has exceeded £25,000 in turnover during our first year of operation as a newly registered charity.
£ Grants Earned Income
250
250
Donations
300
300
Other
358
358
Total Receipts
908
24730
25638
183
2497
2680
8686
8686
741
741
500
2100
2600
600
10400
11000
A grant of £15,000 from Arts Council England has helped us to begin the process of developing our organisation and our artistic strategy through Producing Place and A Little Bit of Good in the World Project Strands.
Payments Overheads Organisational Development Project Costs Publicity and Marketing Artistic and Freelancer fees Hospitality
25
1308
Two grants of £5,930 and £2,500 respectively from National Lottery Community Fund programmes has enabled us to develop our young peoples and intergenerational work.
25
24424
25732
Surplus / deficit for the year
-400
306
-94
Funds prior to registration
1467
0
1467
Funds on 31 March 2021
1067
306
1373
The Board of Trustees is in the process of further developing financial and fundraising strategies in line with the organisation’s policies and procedures review.
End of year accounts prepared by: VODA
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Thank you to our funders:
The Board of Trustees would also like to thank: Artistic Director Claire Murphy-Morgan and all the creative team: Andy Berriman, Paula Blair @ Audiovisual Cultures, Rachel Brook @ Placeholder, Josie Brookes, Jayne Dent, Sky Hawkins, Jennifer Ironside @ TakePART Northeast, Melanie Kyles, Amy Lord, Nick Malyan, Kema Sikazwe and Mariae Smiarowska. Thank you to Tom Schofield and all the MA Creative Practice students at Newcastle University – it was a pleasure to work with you all on the CoLab @ Culture Lab Project Spring 2020.
And thank you to our commissioners: MA in Creative Arts Practice Digital Cultures, Culture Lab At Newcastle University
Thank you to Rachel and Paula for inviting us to be part of Placeholder’s event to mark International Women’s Day @ B&D studios, March 2020.
And our supporters:
Thank you to our Associate Artists who took part in our Producing Place consultation and helped us build our framework: Andy Berriman, Charlie Bramley, Helen Collard, Graeme Hopper, Simon James, Toby Lloyd and Paul Raymond. Thank you to Sophie Lisa Beresford for some amazing creative conversations!
Talbot Jones Risk Solutions
Thanks to our partners: Kelly Coates, Shannon Devine, the youth work team and all of the amazing young people at Projects 4 Change in Outer West Newcastle; Blakelaw Young Mums Group; Susan Anthony and all the staff and residents at The Dales supported living, Cowgate.
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We would also like to thank: • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Monkfish Productions CIO Floor 2 Commercial Union House 39 Pilgrim Street Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QE
Annie Rigby @ Unfolding Theatre Alison Flannagan-Wood at Newcastle City Arts Team Skimstone Arts Laura Cresser, Arts Council England, Northeast Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and all on the Newcastle City Council Holocaust Memorial Day Team Toni @ Photoline Print Rachael Nicholl @ The Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun. InSEA Jon Sutton @ The Psychologist Magazine Theresa Easton and all @ Artists Union England Jonpaul Kirvan and all the team at Orbis, CU House Karen Watson @ Newcastle Volunteer Centre Stacey, Alice, Laura, Rachel, Suzy and all @ the Good Space workspace community.
Tel: 0191 580 6115 Board of Trustees: Susan Coles (Chair) Prof John Bowers Simon James Prof Mark Wetherell Registered Charity No: 1186985
Our mission at Monkfish Productions is to nurture artists through creative interventions in new and unusual spaces. We work through the arts to collaborate with a wide range of communities, and to support individuals to unlock their creative potential.
Thank you to all of you who have taken part this year.
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