GFN in a HUB

We're seeking Good for Nothing designers, copywriters, developers and creatives who love Chester and can help answer these challenges..

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***The Challenges*

1. What can we produce tonight, to let everyone know how to #makechester at 61 Watergate St Row South?

2. How do we leverage the opportunities brought by INDUSTRY and ONE CHAIR to create more spaces focused around grass roots culture, collaboration and creativity in Chester?

3. What can we create tonight to transform #makechester into a shared collaboration brand and a tool for creating cultural change in Chester?

*The Brief *

In general in Chester, there often seems to be talk about ‘getting back’ to where it used to be. But looking back through rose tinted glasses on past glories while grumbling about a current situation is pretty easy to do. It’s more difficult to say that the past is exactly that, the past, that the world is ever changing, that we need to move on, to find new purpose, to build the foundations of where we want to go. And even more difficult to say how we should do so.

Because, in a city with a small number of large actors (cwac, the uni etc) it is often those actors that are simultaneously looked upon as the cause of and the solution to Chester’s problems. Whereas, it could be more helpful to work from the ground up, to create the space where, ideas, businesses, artists, social enterprises can develop. Highly visible space with a broad footprint of participants. All making a large amount of small changes but within a space with a conduit to those larger players (and vice versa) when appropriate.

It is not about a fixed end state, it is about managing the present, focusing on catalysts and small beginnings. The more it succeeds, the more progressive we make the city, the more talent we retain, the more connections are made, the more businesses we build and the more dynamic we become.

To quote from The Radical Incrementalist… ‘Cultural and creative industries aren’t just consumption activities, they also contribute to the employment structure of cities. They are associated with emerging lifestyle and living forms, such as live-work studios, which add to the rich mix
of cities and accommodate a variety of uses. They are livable, mixed-use, resilient and respectful of the city’s unique heritage and urban fabric.’

More on One Chair and Industry here.