About Us
A Creative People and Places project
OUTSIDE is a Creative People and Places project, funded through Arts Council England. A participatory arts programme, OUTSIDE is led by people in the Staffordshire Moorlands working with professional artists. Together, they are co-curating arts and cultural activities that take place in, and are about life in, the rural and isolated landscape and settlements, villages and market towns of the Staffordshire Moorlands.
OUTSIDE’s mission is to make a lasting change in the way local communities take part in, make, and experience the arts. Creating extraordinary moments that encourage the residents of the Staffordshire Moorlands to come together for transformative experiences and celebrations of their place. We’ll explore what it means to live in a rural community, using culture and storytelling as a lens to look at our way of life, reflecting communities back to themselves and creating visibility for those often unseen and unheard. We will invest in and support an ambitious, collaborative, vibrant creative ecology and regenerative future for the Moorlands.
OUTSIDE is part of the Creative People and Places programme, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Thanks to National Lottery players, Creative People and Places is about more people taking the lead in choosing, creating and taking part in creative and cultural experiences in the places where they live.
Since 2012, there have been over 15 million engagements with the CPP programme and 90%* of people who participate in CPP weren’t previously engaging regularly with creativity and culture.
Find out more about each project, the difference the programme has made and our learning >
* Average across 3 Audience Finder National Reports 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24