Architects – Aedas
Contractor – Interserve
Client – Telford & Wrekin District Council

Hadley Learning Community (HLC) is an innovative multi-purpose learning campus. This Private Finance Initiative centre of excellence draws together primary, secondary and special schools, a children’s centre, public library, and arts and sports facilities for lifelong learning.

Impact Art were involved at concept stage of this £70m integrated education environment. The aim was to create a unifying hub, benefiting the community while being a focus for purpose and aspiration. Service users are the heart of Hadley, so it was vital that their diverse needs were listened to from the outset.

NURTURE AND PROGRESS

Working with nearly 20 artists, the wider Hadley community and other project partners, Impact Art developed the commissioning and consultation aspects of the arts programme as well as securing a major grant from Arts Council England West Midlands.

All our extensive arts projects offered opportunities for fruitful collaboration, making sure local people could actively participate and humanize the steel, concrete and glass within the buildings’ construction. Arts sessions included:

Community conversations Lead artist Vanessa Dell worked with writer and storyteller Maria Whatton. Together they spent several months meeting, talking, listening and running workshops to carry the voices of the people. As a result, HLC is impregnated with poems, histories, thoughts and ambitions.
Art of engineering - Impact Art worked with a student arts council, helping them develop a brief, shortlist and interview artists. With artist Carl Jaycock, students then created empowering representations for the new building.
Site Dances - Salamanda Tandem created bespoke contemporary multimedia events involving musicians, dancers, filmmakers and sound artists.  They worked with the students across the campus as well as the wider community helping the audience and participants interact, discover and explore their new building.
Iron and steel - Gallery visits and casting workshops with over 300 students let artist Jason Thompson make sculptures that reflected young people’s stories and the region’s iron industrial heritage.
Bridge Special School - Artists Michelle O’ Connor and storyteller Amy Douglas introduced multi-sensory themes, local narratives and ceramic tile workshops for pupils.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the large numbers of people I have come into contact with during this project and have felt myself to be a privileged interloper into the lives of the people of Hadley" Vanessa Dell, Lead Artist HLC.