Glimmer - Community Arts and Education in Clacton and Tendring

With funding from Arts Council England, the University of Essex’s gallery Art Exchange devised ‘Glimmer’, a community-led project which takes inspiration from ‘glimmers’ - the complete opposite of triggers – which are moments that spark joy.

Jess Twyman (Curator (Exhibitions & Public Programme), Library and Cultural Services, University of Essex, will talk to us about the project and the impact it made in Clacton and other coastal communities in Tendring, Essex. She will expand on how the arts can enrich the lives of young people from isolated coastal communities.

Glimmer is delivered in collaboration with schools, libraries and community centres in Clacton and other coastal communities in Tendring including Walton-on-the-Naze, Brightlingsea, Frinton and Manningtree. Together we make arts events for Tendring children – in their schools, with their families and at their youth clubs.

We are aware of the data for Tendring, placing it No 1 in the Indices of Deprivation in England (2019), alongside the English Health Index (2021) which has Tendring in the bottom 20% for children's social, emotional and mental health, at 77.8%, to a national average 100%. Tendring schools reinforce this picture, with our partner school – White Hall Academy - having a 65% Pupil Premium uptake of cohort (free school meals index). The school’s 2024 Ofsted inspection also drew attention to the pupils’ poverty of experience and Glimmer was designed to create new experiences for them in their communities, but also extending these opportunities through visits to the University of Essex’s Colchester campus.

Glimmer hopes to reveal the accumulative effect of a number of positive experiences on young people.

Visit Eventbrite for further details and to register