Case study / Capture Projects / Origin of Spaces Research
Making Thinking Matter
How a small group of creative professionals spearheaded a creative thinking method and developed new models of creative social practice
Working with young people in a Catch22 project
Capture is a not for profit company with over a ten year history. It has its origins in community arts and social arts practice and was founded initially as an organisation to provide affordable artists studios and deliver art and education projects with creative professionals and the local community. As the pressure on attaining affordable large scale premises developed in London, Capture’s entrepreneurial methods enabled it to shift and change its direction. Spearheaded by Deb Astell, a designer and artist, it has developed and grown into an innovative organisation that works both locally and across Europe. It no longer focuses on affordable studios but instead develops cutting edge projects that nurture creative thinking, and encourages social entrepreneurship and the creation of micro community enterprises. It created a creative thinking tool for education and delivers training to academics, professionals and artists across Europe.
1 UK/ C a p t u r e P r o j e c t s
Capture as an organisation has the ability to adapt and change because it is an open system, dependent on the skills and personalities of the people who work and collaborate together under its umbrella. It is able to react to outside forces, both economic and social, and has shifted from being a studio provider to artist-led educational projects, to becoming creative thinking and learning specialists and innovators, and to supporting and developing micro enterprises in community groups. It has strong and dynamic leadership and is willing to take risks, eliminate waste, evaluate and reflect on what works and what doesn't and evolve, grow and adapt dependent on current social and economic needs and advantages. Capture does not rely on any local government or council funding and is therefore free to go in whatever direction it feels will be a benefit to society.
case study Conviction: What do we believe in, what’s our ethos? What drives us? A core value of the organisation is to advocate for the importance of culture and creativity in society and to share and promote the benefits of nurturing creative process and how it can lead to self-confidence and ultimately self-actualisation. A motivational driver is knowledge, learning and growing as an organisation and as individuals in it. Also to work with some of the most hard to reach, vulnerable members of society and those who are not in education or training but need support to realise their goals in terms of becoming independent and creating a small social enterprise.
Intention: What do we want to achieve/do? Ultimately we want to share our knowledge, skills and experiences with those we feel will benefit the most. Personally I want the organisation to grow and expand and employ more local people, also to run a scheme of apprenticeships and peer learning. We want to shift more into a 4th sector model and sell our skills in the private sector, this will allow us to generate more income, share our values outside of the 3rd sector and create projects for social good with our profit. We also want to set up a co-working hub locally that is a co- creation and for social and economic benefit.
Communication: How do we tell our story? We tell our story via the usual mediums and networks, it is in fact our weakest link and we have made new efforts recently to address this and are about to allocate financial investment into this area by buying in experts that can manage this better than we can in house.
About Capture focuses on 4 main areas of work • • • •
Creative Thinking projects and training Social entrepreneurship Skills development projects Artist led projects that focus on participatory practice
a move into work that focuses more on the training of skills and setting up of micro enterprises with community groups and in youth projects. We feel this is a very important area of our work as these skills are not taught in formal education and these skills are necessary for the future in terms of how we enter the world of work, co working and collaboration. Capture is a registered company limited by guarantee that only works with freelancers on a project by project basis, everyone is trained in creative thinking techniques, undertakes peer to peer mentoring and learning and then are free to instigate their own projects under the companies umbrella. We monetize in house skills and sell these on the open market; all profit goes back into projects that align with the organisation’s core values of allowing culture, creativity and skills to be accessible to the public.
Action: What we have done Here is a small selection of activities: • Managed temporary spaces and reused them as art studios, project spaces, workshop spaces, galleries, cinema and shops selling artist and community made products • Delivered very successful art and education programmes in partnership with local schools and community groups and local and international artists • Managed International European artist exchange programme with Berlin and Lewisham. Partners included the Goethe Foundation • Delivered international digital festival in partnership with Deptford X, also managed the education programme of the festival • Trained in Edward de Bono Thinking tools • Worked on a 3-year social and educational research project; developed a creative thinking tool for education, trained many schools and parents in this method across London • Wrote a DIY thinking manual for artist and artist designers • Participated in many EU projects including Grundtvig, Leonardo, Youth in Action, Assistantships and Erasmus+ • Delivered training, workshops and seminars in Creative Thinking, innovation and social entrepreneurship.
2 UK/ C a p t u r e P r o j e c t s
case study Impact: What did we achieve, and what are the results?
Impact and Benefit
I think Capture’s greatest achievement is its ability to survive without core funding and grant aid, also its ability to reflect and change direction completely. For example when we developed the Capture System creative thinking method we had a large scale training programme in schools across London, it generated a lot of income and we could have had this one area of work as the only area of work. After several years delivering this work we did an exercise in self reflection and looked at the Lean system. I made the decision that we would phase this lucrative area of work out of Capture as we were not learning or growing internally, we were just allowing others to grow through the projects. This was a risk as it meant a reinvention of the organisation, this happened and we began working on EU projects, which then became a focus. The credit crunch happened shortly afterwards and many organisations we knew disappeared due to cuts in funding; the funding that paid us to deliver the Capture System projects also stopped.
In terms of impact on others this has been on many occasions profound (see success story 1) and we continue to develop projects, methods and tools that will better the lives of those who are less fortunate and in need of skills, creative projects and support. funding is being as local ties and central government look to make cuts and savings. For Capture we are entering the next stage of our evolution with a change of legal status, we are converting to a CIC or even a private company as we feel we need to be more accessible to the open market and need to generate profit and funds without any grants, as this way of having reliable income is unstable. The ahead mean that good outputs outcomes and what makes Capture different are becoming important in order to maintain ness, as as to win new We are looking at new ways to diversify our income streams and are looking at the development of new training packages as well as new training for our team members.
case study
At Capture we do extensive workshops, training and seminars around social entrepreneurship with young people and adults. The project is under our number82/ People’s Agency project umbrella, this is a platform for creative professionals, artists, designers etc. who work with the public, and it focuses on socially engaged practice, the creation of micro enterprises in the community, entrepreneurship, ecological transition (the traceability of materials, using materials that are sourced ethically etc.). It has core business and entrepreneurship skills alongside hands-on product design and making. We have built up this approach and methodology over several years, starting with small scale pilot projects to test ideas and building up to bigger, longer, more embedded projects and we now have both small scale and large scale models that can be used. All of these projects are participant-led; we build on the interests and ideas of the participants and always use a cocreation framework in our workshops and projects.
3
UK/ C a p t u r e
This is a recent project report: http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/social_enter prise_files/capture%20quaggy%20report.pdf A bit about young people: http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/YIA.html http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/social_enter prise.html We specialise in creative thinking, ideas generation and innovation for small NGO’s and deliver training in these areas as well: http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/6_hats.html Here is the latest newsletter on one of our EU projects: http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/new_grundt vig_files/newsletter-finaldraft%201deb%20grundtvig.pdf We work in the UK and on EU projects: http://captureprojects.org/captureprojects/Eu.html
6 Hats Training
Capture System workshop
Peoples Agency youth project
Young Mayor of Lewisham / Peoples Agency
Infractus. Collaborate cross discipline artist project with ceramicist Anja Lubach, Capture and Shunt Theatre Company 4
UK/ C a p t u r e