Epping Forest Arts : Border Dialogues

Border Dialogues Border Dialogues An innovative three-year arts development programme exploring and celebrating the District’s history, heritage and environment

Border Dialogues has been supported by a grant from Arts Council England.This programme will span a period of three years, from November 2005 through to October 2008. The aim of this programme is to allow Epping Forest Arts (EFA) to be more strategic and to take it's work further artistically and organisationally, to invest in and support talented artists and others, and to develop new audiences and partnerships in the District and beyond.

The overarching theme or 'common thread' is the notion of 'place' in its broadest sense. In this context we would like to discover what makes the Epping Forest District unique and distinctive by exploring its history, landscape and communities and to celebrate this diversity in a series of new and thought-provoking initiatives; Common or Garden (05-06), homelife (06-07), Transitions (07-08) and an interactive website.

The projects featured within the Border Dialogues programme aim to build on Epping Forest Arts' strengths, including high quality artist-led, cross-disciplinary, participatory initiatives, site-specific/site-sensitive work, and the sharing of good practice with the artistic and education communities in the district and beyond.

Much of the work will be taking place in rural and often quite remote parts of the District allowing us to forge stronger links with the local communities and explore new ways of developing and creating arts initiatives in a rural context. Through this work over the next three years EFA aims to be at the forefront of rural arts development, investing in local communities and artists, and breaking down barriers to accessing the arts.