Our vision is of a community with creativity at its heart, where art matters, where people are enriched and artists work.

Mission

Our mission is to provide excellent opportunities for people to experience the enjoyment, entertainment, reflection, questioning and individual and communal expression that the arts provide.

The arts are essential to the renewal, development and day-to-day life of any community, particularly places like the Canal Communities that are undergoing huge change.

Common Ground, working directly or indirectly with partners, will continue to create exciting connections between artists and community groups and ensure that the resulting exchanges are the best that they can be.

Values

The arts provide a set of languages for understanding the world in ways that offer possibilities rather than limitations, inclusion rather than exclusion and diversity rather than uniformity.

Common Ground believes that the languages of the arts can be learned and enjoyed by everyone. They can also be a powerful means of viewing and altering the circumstances in which people live.

Common Ground believes this engagement with the arts can only be achieved through building and sustaining relationships with partners over the long term. It follows that Common Ground believes in the importance of working closely with artists; to identify the transformative power of their own practice and to support them in sharing their knowledge and experiences with others. In addition, Common Ground believes it is essential to resource the communities in the Canal Communities area, so that they can actively work with artists to advance meaningful change.