Metro Mayor launches Generations for Change to help tackle racial inequality

LIVERPOOL City Region Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram, has launched a new project to tackle racial inequality faced by young people across the Region. Generations for Change is part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority's Race Equality Programme, launched last year to tackle systemic racial inequality and drive change with people from the City Region's Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities. Under the scheme, delivered in partnership with Curious Minds, a charity using creativity and culture to improve the lives of children and young people, 6 young people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds will carry out creative research, each in one of the Liverpool City Region's 6 districts. Hosted by a cultural organisation that will provide them with practical support, each young person will carry out independent research, gathering the voices and perspectives of young people within the area they are working in. They will be particularly trying to understand young people's lived experiences of discrimination and racism in the workplace, in accessing skills training and business support, as well as in the cultural sphere. Their findings will help the Combined Authority to develop creative solutions.

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region said:- "Our diversity is 1 of our great strengths and, if we're going to build a City Region with no 1 left behind, then we have to work in partnership with all of our communities to harness that vibrancy. Over the past year, we have begun to take meaningful action to address some of the deep-seated and structural inequalities that exist in society. And I have made sure that we lead by example, investing in projects that help deliver real, lasting change and improving the way that the organisation I lead does things. But to deliver the sort of radical change we want to see, we have to listen to those who are most affected by it. Through Generations for Change, we are going out and speaking to young people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds to understand their experiences and hear their priorities."

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has made it a priority to address racial inequalities in the aftermath of the global call for action that followed the murder of George Floyd, in May 2020. The Combined Authority has set out a declaration of intent setting out how it will address structural inequalities by encouraging and supporting organisations to prioritise race equality and address under representation in the workforce. Blackfest, Capoeira for All, Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival, Liverpool World Centre, MakeCIC and Writing on the Wall will each host 1 young person. The results of their work will be showcased at an event later this year.

Joanne Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool and Combined Authority Portfolio Holder for Education, Skills, Equality and Diversity, said:- "There are so many negative disproportionate quality of life outcomes experienced by our Black, Asian and ethnic minority young people, it is really important that we ensure their voices are heard in shaping the solutions to address these inequalities. I very much welcome this project as a move in the right direction."

Alice Demba, Cultural Education Manager at Curious Minds, a cultural education charity and Arts Council England's Bridge Organisation for the North West Region, said:- "A combined investment of ₤100,000 will enable us to learn from the experiences of Black, Asian and ethnically diverse young people working in the cultural sector. Their research will help us understand how we can change Regional policy and practice to challenge systemic racism, making the cultural and creative industries more accessible and inclusive."
 

'Pottery and Pastel' - a retrospective by Chris Hughes

WITH so much uncertainty at present, it is hardly surprising that people are being drawn to seek out activities that will provide some structure to their day during the Pandemic. TV programmes like:- 'The Great Pottery Throw Down' have certainly fired people's curiosity during lockdown into attempting new skills and hobbies. For any creative artist, the stimulus of their media will always be the inspiration for their craft; painters using oils; weavers and their threads; sketchers working with charcoal. Likewise, there is an inherent tactile attraction to the potential of moulding a humble lump of wet clay into an accomplished work of art. This same appeal is well to the fore in the stoneware ceramics of avid potter, Chris Hughes, who has been perfecting his clay working skills well before the 1st lockdown hit, producing hand built bowls, lampshades and clocks from his studio in Ainsdale.

Chris confirms:- "It is amazingly accessible. You can buy a bag of clay and make your pots; on the kitchen table or the garden bench; if they go wrong you dry them out and reconstitute the clay and start again."

Chris goes on to add:- "I believe that most artists are drawn to the medium that suits them the best. I like clay. I like the feel of it the way it changes, you can model it, stick it together and build with it, carve into it, colour it and just leave it as the colour of the earth. By training I am a geographer, clay is all about earth, fire and water, pretty similar really."

A former Primary School Teacher, Chris began making his pots in the late 1970's after attending courses at Edge Hill College in Ormskirk run by Brian Cook. As his interest in pottery took hold, Chris undertook night School classes at Southport College and gained a 1 term secondment at St Martin's College in Lancaster to attend the course:- "Clay as a Teaching Medium" ran by Barry Gregson of Caton Pottery. It supported Teachers from both Primary and Secondary School to improve their own pottery skills and to learn new and innovative teaching methods to use with the children back at their Schools.

More assured in his ability, in 2005 he initially set up a studio; Ainsdale Pottery; in his own back garden. Then, on retirement two years later, Chris enhanced his studio environment by building a full workshop and installing his own kiln. The new studio now provided Chris with the space to increase the quantity of pots he could produce and expand the range of shapes and glazes used to create his original and unique pottery. All Chris's pots are hand built using pinching, coiling and slabbing techniques and glazed in sympathetic natural tones. Favourites are blue and black (Tenmoku) and iron, cobalt and copper oxides enhance his usual surface decoration.

A life long walker and climber, the landscapes of the Lake District and Snowdonia play a substantial part in the decoration of Chris' pots and contribute to their overall shape and composition. Chris' biggest relief landscape lamp so far will be on show, at The ArtHouse exhibition:- "This is the largest lamp I have ever made, seen here paired with a lamp shade made by Joanne Eddon. The landscape is a scene of the Coniston Fells; Coniston Old Man and Dow Crag as seen from the southern end of Coniston Water. This is a place we have stayed at every year for a very long time and this view means a lot to me and my family."

Chris also likes to draw, using soft pastels, choosing landscape and abstract subjects. His abstract drawings draw heavily on aspects of the landscape and reflect his own interest in, and educational background, as a graduate in geography. "I don't make pots during the winter months as it is impossible to dry the slabs so I concentrate on drawing. I work in pencil, pen and pastel and prefer to work at quite a large scale, but I sketch all the time in reasonably small sketchbooks. I have filled many of these over the years and many more this year. It is just not practical to continue to work at large scale so it is these much smaller sketches that I have looked to make use of in making my cards and coasters."

Caught out, like some many other artists during the lockdowns, with retail outlets shut, galleries closed and exhibitions cancelled, Chris has been reinforcing his online presence. "I have hosted my Ainsdale Pottery website for many years, but it has really only worked as a 'showcase' and a library of my work. Although I have sold a few items, I have never really tried to do more. But with the closure of all other sales outlets, virtual sites have become far more important. I have certainly become more attentive to Facebook and started to use Instagram more effectively. My son, who is my 'webmaster' has created several new sections on the website, most noticeably a 'shop.'"

Treasurer of, and regular exhibitor with, The Southport Palette Club and also at Lancashire Makers in Churchtown and Ormskirk, Chris will be exhibiting at The ArtHouse in Southport end of July 2021. Director of Southport Contemporary Arts, Norrie Beswick Calvert, confirms that:- "The ArtHouse is pleased to welcome Chris Hughes' solo exhibition which celebrates Chris' love of landscape and will feature his contemporary, semi abstract landscapes and his landscape inspired ceramics."