Alice, as co-director, working alongside founders and artists Natasha Nixon and Ruth Pitter, MBE, Alice spent another year facilitating and project-managing on this successful community project which exists to remove access barriers to green spaces and creative activities in Dorset for marginalised women, especially women of colour and vulnerable women.
GTS awarded a Seedbed Artist Residency by 101 Outdoor Arts, the National Centre for Arts in Public Spaces.
In spring, 2024, all GTS co-directors enjoyed a creative and productive residency at 101 Outdoor Arts in Newbury. We moved each day, walked on Greenham Common, planned our vision for the organisation and seeded ideas for our long-term performance project – Belonging – to be co-created with the diverse and vibrant Grace the Space community members. In January, 2025 we will take a cohort of 12 women from the different groups we work with to begin our first R&D phase on Belonging, as part of our Seedbed Residency, thanks to 101 Outdoor Arts and with additional support from Activate Performing Arts, Dorset.
Image: GTS Directors: Ruth Pitter, MBE, Alice Flynn and Natasha Nixon, Seedbed Residency, 2024.
A celebration of our summer and autumn community events and collaboration with the FLAVOURS Project – an enthusiastic partnership between Dorset National Landscape, Dorset Food and Drink, Activate Performing Arts, Dorset Race Equality Council with support from BPC Indian Community.
In 2024, in collaboration with the FLAVOURS Project, Grace the Space (GTS) facilitated creative events in nature tailored to the communities we worked with. We were joined by over 170 participants from many places, cultures and ethnic backgrounds including: Nigerian, Bangladeshi, Kurdish, Black British women of African and Caribbean and white British heritage, Brazilian, Albanian, Ecuadorian, Kurdish, Pakistani, Ukrainian and Afghan women – to celebrate just some of those GTS connected with – as well as, through the FLAVOURS Project, their partners, families and children.
Over the two seasons we sweated under the hot sun and played in the rain thanks to our colourful ponchos. We co-hosted events across Dorset at venues such as Durlston Country Park, Swanage, Upton Country Park, Poole and Thorncombe Woods, Dorset. We shared hunts, games (for all ages), a gentle stretch, playful movement, drawing and much more.
Each event focusses on sharing the simple pleasures together outdoors, from a cup of coffee in warm company, cake and shared food, thanks to the FLAVOURS Project.
Thank you to each and every community member who joined us and made the events as special as they were. Thank you to the FLAVOURS team, Sue, Caz, Kate and Anastasia for all their invaluable support and presence, and to the FLAVOURS Project and partners for making the events in 2024 possible. Thank you to the community groups we worked with including: Unity in Vision, Nigerian Community Group Dorset, BPC Indian Community Group, ICN, The Brazilian Saturday School and the Ukrainian Community Group. Thank you to the amazing caterers who shared such delicious food with us: Tia at Eat Thrive Grow, Unity in Vision’s catering team, Autumn at Round Belly Rice, Mimi’s African Restaurant and to everyone who generously shared homemade delights, too! We especially thank the land that held us all, too.
For more event images and details see our Instagram and Facebook feeds: @gracethespaceproject
Cover image credit: Women’s Day Event, playing in ponchos in the rain. Grace the Space and FLAVOURS Project, 2024.
Images below from our summer events: Partner Artwork Activity, A Quiet Moment, Tamarisk at Durlston Country Park, Delicious food from Round Belly Rice – all at Durlston Country Park. Image credits: Grace the Space and FLAVOURS Project, 2024.
