Creative Community being Rebuilt at Salisbury Arts Centre

Wiltshire Creative has launched the next chapter of a vibrant participatory programme at Salisbury Arts Centre.

The much-loved venue is buzzing with energy and activity following the success of a pilot Take Part season in spring, which saw nearly 500 people booking onto workshops.

Salisbury Arts Centre is home to a large performance space, a selection of meeting rooms and a studio.

The former church was transformed in 1975 after a community campaign and has been a unique fixture of Salisbury’s creative scene ever since.

Now, building on this tradition of community involvement, a new phase in the Arts Centre’s story is being shaped by local artists, makers and volunteers.

The upcoming autumn season offers a range of new opportunities to create, learn and socialise alongside regular, returning courses. There are activities for all ages – stay and play sessions for pre-schoolers, school holiday and term-time after-school activities, and events curated for teens and young adults. Adults of all ages can explore various art forms with tailored classes to suit all abilities and some specific needs.

Many of the workshops and courses are led by local artists who are passionate about sharing creativity. Helen Southwell, glass artist and course leader, said: “It’s great to see Salisbury Arts Centre coming back to life and broadening the range of Take Part opportunities on offer for all ages and especially for the visual arts. I am delighted to be involved in delivering workshops in collaboration with Wiltshire Creative and look forward to the Arts Centre going from strength to strength.”

For those interested in arts and crafts, there are classes in drawing, sketching, stitching, glass art, and creative writing, too. Mindfulness and wellbeing are central to many of the season’s workshops, such as sessions on meditation and journalling. There are opportunities to explore and develop performance arts, including theatre, dance and singing, and new social groups set up to forge connections through creativity in a safe, shared space.

The success of the pilot season shows an appetite for all that the Take Part programme has to offer. Several sell-out spring courses will be returning for autumn, including theatre and glass fusion workshops for adults. The Creative Writing for Wellbeing and Salisbury Stanza Poetry Group both ran trial classes in spring and are now setting up as regular sessions, building up creative communities.   

Sarah Gregson, Take Part Director, Wiltshire Creative, said: "It's been such a pleasure to start the process of building the Take Part programme at the arts centre through conversation. Conversations with former Arts Centre employees, volunteers, our neighbours, local artists, young people, local creative businesses and more.

"Through dialogue we have discovered new ideas and been able to programme them, alongside our own core activity, so that we have adults creating, children exploring, students learning and artists working - so the building is singing, sometimes literally!"

As well as classes, Salisbury Arts Centre is hosting a fortnightly pop-up café run by volunteers on Thursdays (10 and 24 September, 8 and 22 October, 5 and 19 November, 3 and 17 December, 10 am – 2 pm), offering affordable drinks and cakes, pop-up exhibitions and a welcoming space to relax and connect. There’s also a varied programme of live performances from September to December, including music, comedy and theatre.   

Wiltshire Creative’s Take Part team would welcome more volunteers to help support and shape this new approach as it develops. Contact takepart@wiltshirecreative.co.uk to express interest.