What is LOV?

Our Mission

Lincolnshire One Venues was a catalyst for creative change.

We were a network of arts venues working strategically to develop the cultural and creative landscape across Lincolnshire. We worked to support, sustain and develop creativity across the whole county.

We recognized the presence of diverse audiences and we aspire to create inclusive and accessible opportunities for all. We actively engaged with communities, cultivating strong relationships and developing ambitious participatory programmes. We aimed to have a strong presence across Lincolnshire, responsive to and inspired by the people we met there.

Our funded projects have now finished, more information Connecting Communities. The music project EVOLVE is now part of the activity and projects managed by Lincoln Arts Centre

Previous projects have been - Connected Creatives Workshop Programme for Creatives

Through our network and our community contacts we raised the profile of our venues’ programmed work and increased awareness of local events, opportunities and cultural strategy. We provided experiences that spanned a variety of art forms.

We always sought to learn from our work and developed our offer accordingly – and, we shared our knowledge to positively affect the future development of participatory practice. We believed that such understanding can develop community focused activity that fosters inclusion and creative excellence wherever it takes place.

We supported the artistic development of the people within our communities whether or not they consider themselves to be artists. We fostered high quality creative opportunities as we believe that such activity makes for a strong cultural ecology. We also offered development pathways for motivated individuals to become creative leaders and role models within their communities.

Our key ambitions were to:
· Offer opportunities for the people of Lincolnshire to take part in cultural and creative activity
· Empower communities to take ownership of their cultural landscape
· Support venues as they strive to connect with and reflect the communities that they serve

LOV History

In 2005 venues from the across the county came together to offer a more coherent arts offering to the people of Lincolnshire in response to the then current economic climate. The network jointly commissioned work which toured across Lincolnshire and beyond.

In 2012 the network set up the LOV Young People's Programme to support young people in being a part of the cultural landscape in Lincolnshire and to create a culture shift amongst young people, schools and families in the way they access the venues. The programme was designed to find the best way to work with young people and get them involved with their local arts venues, in order to make a genuine contribution to the venue and bring more young people in. Through this work the programme put on the first un-ticketed and free events for young people at some of the venues and created opportunities such as shadowing and training. The Network also commissioned work for young people by internationally acclaimed theatre companies and much, much more.

Young people have programmed and produced a variety of successful events such as the LOV Film Festival, this ran across four of our venues and engaged with many new audience members. Each event had different themes - music, comedy, youth - and included pre-show entertainment and activities. With funding from BFI, they programmed British Independent Films and the group Parallax Film Festival invited film makers to submit their work. Our decision makers ran numerous music events such as Breakout Festival with talented local artists The Pylons, Vigilantes, Nick Wilson and Lucinda Flynn. Youth Takeover in Spalding run regular Acoustic Nights in their venue which attracts a large audience and offers up and coming local acts a chance to perform. Our visual art groups have work towards creating art for exhibitions in the form of photography, fashion and zines.

We also ran trips to The Edinburgh Festival and other arts festivals and exhibitions; we ran an annual summer art school; and offered bursaries for people developing projects with and for young people.

With funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Arts Council England, BFI Film Audience Network and National Foundation for Youth Music, we run a varied programme with opportunities such as Producing, Programming, Commissioning, Skills Development and Workshops in many different art forms. We have a young decision making group in each of our venues, each group is unique and work towards arts projects they have chosen and are interested in.

We have achieved a lot and learnt a lot; not only about how we can work with young people but also how we can work together as a network and with external organisations.

We are keen to share our learning and experiences from our young people's programme and from working as a consortium. For more insight into LOV go to our Resources page for reports, evaluation and our LOV Toolkits.

The venues continue to programme individually but constantly work together to ensure that the arts offer across Lincolnshire is exciting and relevant to our local communities. More information about the venues can be found in the drop down menu.