The Creative Associate Artists are a key part of the Geraldine Connor Foundation.  Not only do they help guide the direction that GCF takes, they are often the core of artistic delivery for our projects. They are a hugely talented and skilled group of people so we thought we’d tell you a bit more about who they are and what they do.

Who are they?

The Creative Associates are the artistic heart of the Geraldine Connor Foundation. Most of them knew or worked with Geraldine Connor and are passionate about continuing her legacy. There is a huge mixture of specialisms within the group, ranging from spoken word to musical theatre to visual art; if you can think of an artform then we’ll almost certainly have a specialist within our ranks. The Creative Associates are all highly skilled and experienced artists who have worked across the world. We believe in the power of collaboration and mixing of talent and having a group such as the Creative Associates within GCF is a huge privilege!

You can see a list of our current Creative Associate Artists here.

What do they do?

We hold Creative Associate Artist meetings three times a year which are creative consultations for the Geraldine Connor Foundation. During the meetings we discuss current projects and artists have the chance to talk about their recent successes. We also open up the discussion to plans for the future of GCF and give the artists time to make suggestions about what they think we should do in the upcoming years. All Creative Associate Artists are welcome at these meetings and it is fascinating to hear from such talented and creative people. The latest meeting was held on 23rd January 2020 and the next will take place on Thursday 21st May. 

We also employ our Creative Associate Artists to work on our projects, whether that be through delivering activities or taking on producing roles. Recent projects that have involved our Creative Associates include Global Mash Up, our Musical Theatre Workshops and Forest Dreaming.

Our Latest Meeting

On Thursday 23^rd January we held the first Creative Associate Artist meeting of 2020. This focused on plans for 2022 which will mark 10 years of the Geraldine Connor Foundation and would have been Geraldine’s 70^th birthday.

The meeting started with Khadijah Ibrahiim telling us about a recent project that was funded by the Arts Council’s Developing Your Creative Practice Fund. She strongly encouraged other artists round the table to think about applying for the fund as it is a great opportunity to be able to invest in taking yourself to the next level.

The conversation then moved onto plans for the future and ideas for 2022. Plans for this year are still in their early stages and we were gathering opinions about what the artists would like to see us do to mark the year. Many different ideas were suggested but running through them all was a desire to bring Geraldine to the forefront of what we do and make the year about her.  Most of the artists at the meeting had worked with Geraldine and it was wonderful to hear the way that her legacy and method of creating continues to influence work that they produce

We are not sure what form 2022 will take but we will definitely be working towards making sure Geraldine continues to inspire artists from all walks of life.

We would like to hear from people that knew Geraldine and would like to help us shape our celebrations in 2022. If you have any ideas or things you would like to say, please leave a comment below or drop us an email!

If you are an experienced artist that is interested in becoming a Creative Associate Artist then please get in touch with our Director, Selina. She would be very happy to discuss becoming a Creative Associate in more detail with you. You can contact her by email: [email protected] or by calling the GCF office: 0113 243 1166.