What is Percent for Art?

Our Percent for Art team comprises two officers who are based in our Community Engagement Team and work across all areas of Bolton.  Our arts officers work with residents, community groups, partners and other community stakeholders to develop socially engaged arts projects that help to improve our communities and benefit customers.

We commission appropriate artists or arts organisations, to work with the local community, and we manage the project from start to finish.

The Percent for Art service actively encourages individuals and community groups to get involved in schemes that can offer creative solutions to neighbourhood issues.

Ideas for arts projects can come from our neighbourhood teams and they will focus on specific neighbourhood priorities or be developed through conversations with community groups, partner organisations or other community stakeholders.  Sometimes local arts projects are developed through wider Greater Manchester, regional or national networks or funding.

Our service also offers advice and guidance to our partners with regard to developing arts projects involving other social housing customers across Bolton.  We have also been commissioned by partners to project manage a number of community arts and public / environmental art projects in Bolton.

Projects can be in any medium including visual arts, performance, music, crafts, digital art and film. They can take the form of arts based consultation, skills and confidence building projects, arts in health & wellbeing work, festivals and celebratory arts, as well as streetscaping and environmental arts projects designed to enhance the physical environment.

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2005 Boardman Street Library of Unwritten Books

2005 Boardman Street Library of Unwritten Books

Housing Percent for Art worked with Blackburn Road Neighbourhood Panel and residents of the Boardman Street area to develop an arts project that would bring the community together.

Artists Caroline Jupp and Sam Brown were commissioned to bring their project ‘The Library of Unwritten Books’ – a unique national initiative to create a collection of ‘imaginary’ books - to Boardman Street.

Residents of the estate and the surrounding area were invited to be interviewed about the book they would like to write or make and interviews were then transcribed, printed and bound. The artists held a celebratory event, to which all the authors were invited to receive a copy of their Book.