This was an invitation from Dudley's Time Rebels to taste, touch, glimpse, imagine and ultimately practice together the futures we want for culture in and across our communities in Dudley borough over the next 100 years.

‘Time to Make’ is a team of Dudley ‘Time Rebels’ (Rachel, Dan, Rick and Becky) who hold a shared belief that making space and time for people to be creative and connect positively impacts individuals and can build on the cultural ecology of Dudley Borough.

3 artists came together in early November to host a weekend of workshops with attendees using foraged items to make beautiful autumnal colour dyes and botanical inks which were then use to experiment with.

Winter Cultural Collaborators Gathering.

In Garbett and Laybourne’s Compendium of Aphorisms, Sayings and Terms, the entry on page eight reads “You have to go away to come back”. This is a phrase we use often and it means that even though our work is hyper-locally focused sometimes we need to head off, get away and wander further afield in search of different places, new experiences and inspiration. We bring back ideas, creative energy, artistic material and fresh ways of thinking.

It has been a really exciting week here at Dudley Creates as we met with our wonderful cohort of Nature Inspired micro commission funded project leads.

Using foraged autumn greens and browns as media to stimulate sharing on flows and niches in Dudley’s cultural ecosystem. 

Reclaiming Our Roots is an experimental and creative community (re)connection experience designed by Time Rebel Deb McDonald, in collaboration with her fellow Director of Ekho Collective, Clare Evans, and herbalist, teacher, artist and author Amaia Dadachanji.

Do you work creatively with nature and our environment, create with natural materials, or take a focus on nature as a subject matter? If so we are looking for Dudley Borough based creatives to support co-created projects that can inspire people to connect with nature and their local green and blue spaces.

As part of our funding for the Dudley Creates Cultural Compact we wanted to see what an approach to an alternative ‘meeting agenda’ could look like. Rather than a circulated word document sent to a small handful of people with several ‘agenda items’ we thought it would be more appropriate to showcase the ‘strategy in action’.

Who owns Dudley High Street?

Street Detectorism

Stories from a more-than-human High Street

Sonification of a more-than-human High Street

Place naming: Transform Anywhere to Somewhere

Journeys to the High Street

Adventures with Time

The Time Rebels of Dudley invited local people to pop into CoLab Dudley on the High Street for the Summer Cultural Collaborators Seasonal Gathering.

Getting into Hot Water

Growing Land Connections