Emerging Creatives: Formulating ideas and possibilities for the future

I have almost finished my fourth month into the Emerging Creative’s role and stopping to reflect on how I’ve grown and changed in relation to my creative journey makes me feel very curious. Curious about how each small experience and conversation pieces together into an identity.

Earlier this year, when I realised that pursuing the arts was the most important thing to me, I felt excited but also overwhelmed by my lack of confidence and experience as well as the unstable ground that this industry is walking on. To be met by such encouraging people, people who have worked hard and given a lot of their lives to the arts, and have a relentless perspective that anything’s possible, I would say, has been the most valuable factor to my growth. I have given myself a lot of internal limitations that I’m constantly unpicking, however being at Walk the Plank has taught me the importance of understanding your own process, believing in your work and dreaming outside of your means. 

I’ve been primarily placed on a project called Wild Wanders, and seeing how it has developed over the past couple of months has been insightful. The producers have an emergent way of working, where ideas can spring out of passing thoughts. Just this week I was able to see the culmination of one aspect of the project and being able to see the level of engagement that each child had with the giant baby puppet Lily, and with their ideas for the future was truly inspiring. I’m looking forward to seeing the effect and impact of more of Walk the Plank’s projects being delivered to the public. 

As an Emerging Creative I am formulating ideas and possibilities for the future, shadowing how different teams work through a frame of curiosity. I am finding that knowledge sharing from the Walk the Plank team has been extremely useful, especially the project management sessions run by Liz Pugh and informal conversations over lunch with the team. 

Some of the highlights of my three months at Cobden Works include being a volunteer for Lost Village festival and taking up a stage management role in the parade, creating connections with a wide variety of musicians and communities through artist liaison roles at Manchester Day: Let the Games Begin! and for visitors from CAVIC in Abuja, Nigeria. I’ve been working alongside the producing team to provide support with different projects, and I have learnt new skills in marketing & comms, focusing on prospect research.  

One of my key learnings is that sometimes elements of your projects might not go how they were originally planned. However, creating an environment where you can be flexible with unknown outcomes leads to confidence in your team whatever role you are carrying out, whether you are a production manager leading a team of forty volunteers and crew or as an artist who divides their time between making, producing, budgeting and admin.  

It is an absolute privilege to be working in the arts and for an organisation whose  values  and ideas are essential for a new utopian future. 

Emerging Creatives was created as part of our initiative to provide early career creatives with a paid development opportunity in the outdoor arts sector. The role, given to two people at the beginning of their career, allows them to explore the different departments within Walk the Plank, and tailor the journey to their interests, whilst working on several events throughout their time with us. 

Emerging Creatives is funded by GMCA and Walk the Plank.