The Creative Industries Project is well into its groove, with six courses completed, two pop-up market stalls successfully delivered, Etsy shops in the works, two courses in action and multiple participants on their path to interviews and employment opportunities in London's’ Creative Industries.

If you’re not familiar with the Initiative yet: Our Creative Industries Project (CIP) aims to enhance the connection between our SHP ArtHouse Project and Achieving Potential - Employability Service. The two services working together for this Project will benefit clients through the provision of training courses, employability support and work placements, to support people moving further along the road of education and employment within the creative industries in London.

We asked Ruth, the CIP Coordinator, to share with us an in-depth update into the Project and is participants:

Camden Film Makers

Camden Film Makers was an 8-week course led by two facilitators from Untold Arts. This course had 9 participants who met at our Arlington service each week and created their film using their local area of Camden as their stimulus.

The group discovered that Camden had historically been the piano manufacturing capital of the world and that the area still carried a lot of this musical heritage. The film became about music and the course participants relationship and experiences of music, with a focus on music and musicians who hold special meaning for them.

As well as developing the ideas for their film, writing moments of scripts for it and interviewing each other, participants crewed their films, as well as learned to use sound and film equipment such as Lumix G80 cameras and shotgun mics and lav mics.

West End Stories

The West End Film Course, also led by Untold Arts was held at our Kean Street building with nine participants. Participants were pulled their inspiration from the local area of Westminster. They developed their film into an exploration of their stories about arriving in or experiencing London and what those stories mean to them now.

This included explorations of the atmosphere of the west end and some of the local work such as busking and rickshaw driving. The group enjoyed filming local street performer and magician James who they filmed performing some of his magic tricks.

Participants on our film course crewed the film entirely themselves with some participants keen to also take a role in front of the camera as well. Participants on this course have been keen to move on after the course to develop both performance and technical camera work skills.

A big shoutout and thanks to ‘Rickshaws London’ (www.rickshawslondon.co.uk), and their fantastic rickshaw driver Damian, for kindly offering our participants the chance to film a rickshaw for their film and giving them the chance to take some really great film shots while riding in it! We would also like to thank Damian for being up for doing a bit of impromptu acting in the film too!

Vauxhall Jewellery Academy

The Vauxhall Jewellery Academy, led by social enterprise Pivot, had five participants who formed a really supportive and productive creative group.

Over eight weeks the group designed, made and sold an original jewellery collection from scratch.

The group drew inspiration from the local area of Vauxhall and the patterns and shapes they were able pick out using photography. These images became the basis for the designs which the women developed over a period of six weeks before handmaking each piece of the Alnisa' collection for a further two weeks.

During the groups marketing session, they came up with the name Alnisa’ for their collection which means women in Arabic. This name was inspired by the group of all women, as well as two participants’ first language being Arabic.

The whole group attended the market day at Oval Market along with the Jewellery course facilitator and the CIP team. They did a fantastic job with sales (despite a very persistently rainy day!) and sold a brilliant 17 pieces of the collection making over £300. As with all our Jewellery Making courses, 75% of the profits will go back to the group participants and 25% will be donated to SHP.

Our next step for this group is working with them to photograph the Alnisa’ collection to be sold on our Etsy shop in time for Christmas shopping... So stay tuned!

Lewisham Jewellery Academy

Our Lewisham Jewellery Academy was held at our Young Peoples service in Perry Vale and was also facilitated by Pivot.

This group of five participants pulled their inspiration from the surrounding area of Forest Hill by going a walk to photograph the area. They then used tracing paper to do some ‘form finding’ to identify shapes and patterns in their photographs to use for their collection.

The group named their collection ‘The Satori Forest Collection’. This name was chosen by the group because Satori is a Japanese Buddhist term for the ‘path to enlightenment’ and the group identified that they were all on their own pathways. They added ‘Forest’ to the name to signify their original inspiration which was their local area of Forest Hill.

This groups market day was at Telegraph Hill Market. The group did extremely well with their sales, making earrings at the stall to show customers their creative process and approaching customers to tell them about the collection. One of the pieces in the groups collections is a pendant with a clock face and moving clock hands. During the marketing session, participants came up with the suggestion that customers could set the clock hands to a time of the day that was meaningful for them, this went down very well with the customers on the day! The participants confidence with sales grew throughout the day and they sold a fantastic 15 pieces of their collection making nearly £300!

This groups collection will be on sale soon on our Etsy shop!

Wandsworth Jewellery Academy

Our current Jewellery Course, Wandsworth Jewellery Academy, is in its sixth week and is being held in our mental health service at Queens Town Road.

The group of seven participants have now reached the making stage of their Battersea Park inspired collection. With their market day landing on December 4th, and very much in Christmas Shopping season, they are also including a strong festive element in their collection!

The group are working together brilliantly and making fantastic progress. We are very excited to see their finished pieces soon and for them to introduce their original collection to the public on December 4th at Telegraph Hill Market! Please pop by if you can!

Creekside Carpenters

Our first Carpentry course, Creekside Carpenters, was held at Creekside Service and was our very first CIP course for young people. The course was led by ‘Woodwork for Wellbeing’ facilitators Alex and Barney and allowed participants to work with and learn to use equipment such as jigsaws, rail-saws drills and coping saws.

This course engaged eight young people in total with Participants making their own stools, door signs and spice racks. Many participants chose to use pyrography to add detail to their items.

On completion of the course some participants have chosen to start attending Woodwork for Wellbeing’s weekly free community workshops in Bethnal Green where they continue to develop their carpentry skills.

Westminster Carpenters

Our Westminster Carpentry Course is currently hosted at a fantastic community centre, The Abbey Center, which is just a two-minute walk from our King Georges Service. We are delighted to be welcomed into such a warm and positive space and thank The Abby Center team for their hospitality.

Our group of ten participants are in their third week, most participants have now completed their initial starter project of a keyring and are in the midst of creating either a stool or a table. The designs participants are working to varies, allowing them creative control over their project. Skills participants are learning as part of the project include drilling, measuring and marking out accurately, cross halving joints and Lap joints.

Once participants have completed their stools or tables, they are looking forward to moving onto creating a chest.

Lewisham Film Making Course - YP’s

Upcoming Enrolment Event - Tuesday 23rd NOV @ 5pm - Farnborough

8 Week Course - Tuesdays 7th Dec - 1 Feb @ 5-7pm - Farnborough

For event or course sign up or for any questions about the course please email creativeindustries@shp.org.uk

What The Future Holds At The Creative Industries Project

We are delighted that the vast majority of CIP participants are excited to link up with our ‘Achieving Potential’ team to coordinate their next steps towards training, engagement, education or employment.

One of our CIP ‘Achieving Potential’ team member meets participants at the start of each course at our enrolment event and visits again at the end of each course where they can have a one-to-one interview about their next-step goals.

Below are just a few of the exciting next step developments for CIP participants:

* We are delighted that one of our fantastic Vauxhall Jewellery Course participants has, with support from the CIP team, secured a place at ‘The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London’ on an apprenticeship for rail track maintenance! We are loving hearing about how she is finding the course!

* The prestigious Old Vic Theatre has offered CIP access to an exciting new paid placement opportunity for backstage roles. CIP participants were also offered the opportunity to meet a member of the Old Vic team and see one of their five-star productions before making their application. We are delighted that six SHP young people now have up and coming interviews for this opportunity!

* We are excited to hear that many of our film course participants are interested in engaging further in performance and writing opportunities. That is why we are delighted to welcome ‘Outside Edge Theatre Company’ to SHP In December to deliver three taster sessions in three of our services. Interested participants can then sign up for their free weekly drama or writing courses!

* One of London’s leading set-build production companies ‘Fables Creative’ gave CIP participants the opportunity to have a tour around their exciting creative carpentry studio. Participants were then given the opportunity to apply for a paid apprenticeship with them. We are delighted that two participants have so far completed trial shifts with ‘Fables Creative’.

* Two film course participants enjoyed a two-day paid photography work experience opportunity. With support from their film course facilitators, they photographed an SHP/FLIC event. They then attended an editing session with the facilitator to work on the photos they had taken. Both participants had fantastic feedback from the event organisers and took some really brilliant photographs!

* On completion of the CIP Creekside Young Peoples Carpentry course two participants have chosen to start attending Woodwork for Wellbeing’s weekly free community workshops in Bethnal Green where they continue to develop their carpentry skills.

“We would definitely want to work with him again in the future if possible”

- FLIC event coordinator

“I got a real feel of a proper professional photo shoot it makes me want to pursue photography even more”

- CIP Participant

“Thanks to his hard work we've got beautiful shots for our team and clients to cherish.”