Art Branches is a not-for-profit community interest company, specialising in inclusive creative projects for improving wellbeing in communities across the East of England. Sara Noonan and Deborah Pipe retired from the board after 5 years of helping Art Branches grow.
In 2021 our board of Directors was augmented by Lucy Allen and Dr Noel Smith. Lucy is an experienced practitioner in creative industries and is interested in the interaction of art and nature to improve wellbeing. Noel joined us from the world of research, service policy design and monitoring, evaluation and learning and helped direct for one year. In 2022 we were joined by Ian Johnston, imparting valuable board and local industry experience.
Together the directors bring a wealth of experience and qualifications in health and social care, environmental consultancy, heritage, project management, arts, design, cultural enrichment and research.
Our work is led by project managers and experienced associates, who have a wide variety of expertise. All of our professional artists have DBS checks and relevant experience working with the community. We carefully match experienced associates with the groups we work with to ensure we enable the best from both parties. Projects are helped by peer support and volunteers, who are largely previous participants who have been through an Art Branches intervention programme. An important part of our work is mentoring and supporting participants into becoming long term volunteers.
Art Branches specialises in creating bespoke projects, inspired by specific environments that often take place in outdoor settings and historic landscapes. We work across the arts and heritage, with filmmaking, photography and textiles, sculpture, fine art, poetry and ceramics. Work is also delivered in schools, community centres, parks, residential homes, hospitals and online.
Art Branches 