Wild Imaginings: Mobile Meditations

Connecting local people with the places they live, Mobile Meditations uses sensory and creative practice to transform the smartphone from a tool of distraction into one of deep attention. Taking place in Flass Vale, a beautiful, historic woodland wilderness in the heart of Durham City, using multi-sensory meditative walks, drawing exercises and photography.

Don't Judge a Book by its ReCOVERy

This project uses creative writing, printmaking and mixed media to explore how words can shape lives and tell stories, working with adults in active recovery in and around Bishop Auckland.

The Identity Cabaret

Led by Andy Willoughby as Creative Writing Lead in partnership with Drama Practitioner Gemma Kell, the artists are working with home educated children to develop a multi-disciplinary cabaret exploring how these young people connect with the history and heritage of the area and how this impacts upon their sense of self. The project takes place in and around Redhills, Durham City.

Magpie of Segga

Magpie of Segga is a project using nature exploration as catalyst for meaningful self-inquiry of identity, social positionality and future ambition of young people in Sacriston. Utilising digital and written recording for creative reflection, participants will develop co-created narratives of their explorations, for dialogue with each other, peers and wider community.

Peterlee - A Guide for Future Visitors

Bringing together residents of different generations to explore what makes Peterlee unique, the artist and residents will create a collective guide to the town for future visitors. The project will use the idea of a visitor centre as a creative framework. David will gather memories, stories, local knowledge, observations and aspirations for Peterlee, considering what should be remembered, celebrated, challenged and carried forward.

Clayful Hands: Engaging Older People in Ceramic Hand-Building

Clayful Hands is a participatory ceramic hand-building project developed with older people in Seaham. It asks: how can ceramic art help us share the small places, routines, memories and relationships that make a town feel like home?

East Durham Reef - Folk

This project asks how emerging digital sensing technologies and traditional theatrical crafts can merge to bridge the gap between local maritime heritage and the urgent realities of the climate crisis. By transforming invisible ecological forces into a tangible, shared experience, the project will explore the intersection of County Durham’s coastal history and its environmental future. The project will take place in the East Durham Heritage & Lifeboat Centre at Seaham Harbour.

Homeward

Homeward is a participatory theatre project exploring the stories, memories and messages that connect us. Working alongside older people in care homes and community settings across County Durham, the project asks how our relationships are shaped by the words we share, the memories we hold onto and the connections we make throughout our lives.

Stories in a Teacup / CommuniTea

Engaging with participants from the hilltop villages in and around Tow Law, this project explores how the familiar ritual of sharing a cup of tea can create opportunities for conversation, connection and storytelling, “The inspiration comes from my mum's inherited collection of china cups, each carrying memories of family members and gatherings”.

Tending the Threads: Teesdale

Lucy will weave a welcoming space for adults in this remote, rural area of County Durham to learn lost, ancient arts of spinning, thread making and thread weaving, through connecting with natural, local and sustainably-sourced materials such as animal and plant fibres.

Hidden Worlds

Hidden Worlds is a community led project using environmental art, sculpture, habitat creation, illustration, and photography to explore how imagination and connection with nature can support creativity, with adults in Barnard Castle.

Creating a Community Legacy – “The Last Lanchester Legionary”

A series of scriptwriting, performance and research led workshops exploring the history and significance of the abandoned Roman Fort at Lanchester for the local community, using imaginative dramatic techniques in a shared creative activity to bring the village’s hidden history to life.

Durham: Through Our Lens

A community photography project led by Rory Studio’s founding director, Paul Miller. It brings together 15 D/deaf, hard of hearing, and disabled participants to foster pride in place, challenge perceptions, and demonstrate the valuable contribution that D/deaf and disabled people make to Durham.

Art Adapts UK - Pilot Project

An eight‑week creative programme for disabled and neurodivergent adults from in and around Bishop Auckland, exploring identity, self‑expression, and the lived experience of disability through a wide range of accessible arts and crafts. The creative line of enquiry centres on the question: “How can people with disabilities use art to tell their own stories, celebrate their identities, and discover new ways of creating which works for their bodies and minds?”

Seeing the Unseen

The project explores how small, often overlooked details shape our sense of place and connection to County Durham. We become so familiar with the places where we live that we often stop noticing what makes them unique. This project invites adult participants to look at County Durham with fresh eyes and reflect on what makes it special to them, using painted glass techniques, sketch development and creative experimentation with transparency, light and colour.

Polyphonic Hub

Polyphonic Hub is an accessible music making project for a diverse range of people who use TCR Hub in Barnard Castle,help them re-engage with music to make a piece of music that represents and celebrates them all.

Betwixt and Between (Twa Dales)

This project aims to bridge gaps between the communities of Weardale and Teesdale. In particular, the “no man’s land” of the moors that lies between the two dales is a place of interest to me - a blank canvas to populate with our ideas. Using folk dance, storytelling, costume making and performance to engage adults and young people of Teesdale and Weardale in methods of creative co-production and co-operative enquiry.

Underwater Aerial Exhibition

Working with an aerial group in Newton Aycliffe the project will explore elements of freediving, mermaiding and water dance to empower creative movement for people who are not necessarily dancers and who have never danced underwater previously.

Stories in Stone: Exploring human connection and endurance

A project exploring our relationship with endurance through connectivity in nature, creativity and to nurture an increased sense of pride in our environment. Through wellbeing walks, creative writing sessions, and the making of organic natural forms from materials gathered in the environment in Teesdale, participants are invited to express their responses to Cup and Ring marks and Stone Circles from the Bronze Age - whilst exploring their wellbeing and capacity for endurance.

Animated Connections

A participatory animation project developed in collaboration with members of the Poverty Truth Commission (PTC) in County Durham. Through a series of accessible and collaborative workshops with adult members and the young people’s group, participants will explore themes of friendship, mental health and life transitions using handmade animation techniques including collage, stop-motion, drawing, text and sound.