Tag: conference

Culture, news

Bucks Spark Awards

buckinghamshireculture

In November 2024, at our Cultural Collaboration Conference, Bucks Culture ran the first ever Bucks Spark Awards designed to showcase the great work that is taking place in our cultural sector. The judges where impressed by the quality of the submissions received and struggled to choose the winners. The submissions we received spanned the breadth of cultural delivery in our county:

From grass roots delivery to Paralympic heritage, blind-folded baroque experiences to street murals. Heritage-meets-astronomy, to a chair festival, open studios and diverse stories. Revealing hidden artists and a smatter of Shakespeare, music for care, dance for youth, writing from Marlow, and exploring Bucks landscape through a fine art lens…

We welcomed award-winning author, Claire Fuller to make the awards and Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Lady Howe to present the Judges’ Discretionary Award.

The Awards were made as follows:

Best collaboration

This award recognizes the best project, event or activity that has been delivered collaboratively (by at least two entities) to promote Buckinghamshire’s culture.

Winner – Vache Baroque and Milton’s Cottage

Runner up – Bucks Youth Dance Co and Wycombe Youth Action

Best exhibition

This award recognises excellence in exhibitions or displays related to an aspect of Buckinghamshire’s culture. It could include a new permanent exhibition or a temporary exhibition.

Winner – Fractured Land Collective

Runner up – Amersham Museum

Best Event

This award recognises excellence in a one-off event that has promoted Buckinghamshire’s culture. The event could have taken place digitally, within its own site, or at another location.

Winner – Unbound

Runner up – Astronomy UK

Judges discretionary award for ‘Contribution to Culture in Bucks’

This award was made at the Judges’ discretion and in respect of the scale and longevity of this particular Bucks event, celebrating its 40th year in 2025.

Winner – Bucks Art Weeks

We would like to thank every one who took the time to prepare and submit an application to the first ever Bucks Spark Awards, as well as our panel of Judges, and Claire Fuller and Lady Howe for presenting the awards.

Culture

Creative Collaboration Conference

buckinghamshireculture

The Bucks Culture Creative Collaboration Conference took place in November 2024. The Conference successfully brought together professionals, creatives, and community leaders to explore the power of collaboration in the arts. Held at the newly opened Garsington Studios, the event provided an inspiring setting for insightful discussions, creative exploration, and networking opportunities. The conference aimed to facilitate meaningful conversations on the challenges and joys of creative collaboration while fostering new partnerships to enhance cultural engagement across Buckinghamshire. 

The venue provided a beautiful backdrop to a cultural event that invited audiences to share insight into practice and disseminate learning to support future collaboration whilst providing opportunity for creative exploration.  

The event was well attended and allowed Bucks Culture to work closely with new partners. The event supported sector-wide conversations surrounding the challenges and joys of creative collaboration both within the sector and beyond, and examined what it means to co-create with communities. The conference was established with the intention to connect, collaborate and co-create, an outcome we continue to pursue in the delivery of Buckinghamshire’s Cultural Strategy. Our 2024 event incorporated the inaugural Bucks Spark Award Ceremony, now set to be a regular feature of the cultural calendar.

We are proposing that future conferences be developed by a small group of key strategic partners working together to shape the format and programme the conference read more about the conference and feel free to send us your suggestions. 

Process 

Our partners, the board, the creative sector and the internal team were invited to make suggestions for the programme during board meetings, lead-in sector development sessions, and via the newsletter with a call for contributions surveyed online. 

In addition to the open invitation for contributions the development of the programme was informed by feedback and evaluation from 2023, aiming to capture suggestions and implement changes to build a model better suited to the needs of audiences.  

Three Words Analysis 

This is what Chat GPT thought of responses to our ‘what 3 words describe your experience’ question. 

The responses to the “three words” question reflect overwhelmingly positive experiences, with key themes emerging: 

1. Inspiration & Engagement 

Many attendees described the event as inspiring, engaging, thought-provoking, and enlightening. This suggests that the conference successfully delivered fresh perspectives and meaningful discussions, resonating with participants on both an intellectual and emotional level. 

2. Networking & Connection 

Words like welcoming, friendly, vibrant, connection, and collaborative indicate that the event fostered an inclusive and supportive environment for attendees to interact, share ideas, and build relationships. 

3. Learning & Insight 

Terms such as informative, insightful, educational, and paradigm-shifting reinforce the idea that the event provided valuable knowledge and challenged conventional ways of thinking. 

4. Energy & Atmosphere 

Words like dynamic, lively, fun, happy, and exciting suggest a positive and high-energy atmosphere, making the experience enjoyable beyond just the formal content. 

5. Areas for Improvement 

A few words, such as inaccessible, poorly attended, and tiring, indicate that some participants experienced challenges, possibly around accessibility, turnout, or event pacing. These could be key areas to address in future iterations. 

Overall Takeaway 

The conference was largely seen as an engaging and enriching experience, successfully fostering inspiration, connection, and learning.

Culture

Bucks Spark Awards Shortlist

buckinghamshireculture

Celebrating Bucks Arts, Heritage & Culture – first ever Bucks Spark Awards

Bucks Culture is excited to present the first ever Bucks Spark Awards created to showcase and celebrate arts, heritage and cultural achievements delivered by fantastic, hard-working organisations and voluntary groups within the county.  Submissions for work taking place in the last year were invited across three categories and we are now able to share the inspiring shortlist.

The categories and shortlist for this first year of Bucks Spark Awards are:

Best cultural event:

  • UK Astronomy’s Planetarium at Stowe
  • Unbound Theatre’s Buckinghamshire Shakespeare Festival
  • Visual Images Group’s Bucks Art Weeks

Best cultural exhibition:

  • Amersham Museum’s Marie-Louise in Amersham exhibition
  • Fractured Land Collective’s Fractured Land exhibition
  • Marlow Museum’s Writers of Marlow exhibition
  • National Paralympic Heritage Trust’s The Story of the Games display
  • South Asian Artists’ Community’s Kaleidoscope exhibition

Best cultural collaboration:

  • Buckinghamshire Council’s Local Heritage List
  • Bucks Youth Dance Company and Wycombe Youth Action’s Express Yourself project
  • Chiltern Music Therapy and English Sinfonia’s Safe in Sound project
  • Decreate and Hughenden’s Easter Family Art Trail
  • National Paralympic Heritage Trust’s Global Virtual Museum
  • Milton’s Cottage and Vache Baroque’s Visionaries: a multi-sensory experience
  • Wycombe Museum and Chalk, Cherries and Chair’s Chiltern Chairs Festival.

All of the submissions we received were of an extremely high quality and judging has been very hard.  Our judging panel consists of:

  • Professor Sri-Kartini Leet, Head of School of Art and Performing Arts at Buckinghamshire New University
  • Daniel Williams, County and Diocesan Archivist at Buckinghamshire Archives
  • Pablo Colella, Director and Lead Consultant at Disconnected Bodies
  • Julius Weinberg, Co-Chair at Buckinghamshire Culture.

Pablo Colella said: “I was blown away by the calibre of the submissions for Bucks Spark Awards this year, I am so impressed by the range of events and activities that are taking place in the county.  I feel really lucky to have been selected as the community panel member for the Awards judging.”

The winners and runners-up will be announced at Bucks Culture’s Conference on 7th November, with awards presented by award winning author Claire Fuller and Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Countess Howe.

We are so excited to share these cultural moments and achievements with partners, colleagues and friends in the sector.  We aim to build a supportive creative community to celebrate these successes and the value that the cultural sector brings to our county and its residents.

You can book tickets for the Conference and/or the Bucks Spark Awards here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-collaboration-conference-bucks-spark-awards-tickets-1006666405317?aff=oddtdtcreator