The Taking Yourself Seriously Project set out to explore the relationship between
community arts and social cohesion with particular reference to sustainability of projects
- beyond the immediate context.
The Taking Yourself Seriously project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council’s Connected Communities Programme. This programme seeks to encourage
community co-produced living knowledge that directly works with, not on communities.
The funding aimed to explore the role of artists in social cohesion projects in partnership
with ARVAC, the Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sectors. At
the end of the project, the project team gathered together in Sheffield to reflect on the
findings and to consider what we learned. We were joined by Sharon Hutchings, from
ARVAC.
We came together as one group, enacting social cohesion in practice. The purpose of
the writing retreat was to explore what everyone had been working on and how it all
fits together. It was an opportunity to listen to each other and to hopefully learn more
together about the ways in which artistic methodologies can inform social cohesion.

You can download this here TYS Writing Retreat