Our creative hub in Newport is open!
Creative Chronicle
The Creative Chronicle is our new Arts Council funded three-edition magazine designed for people over 55 and is packed full of local history, arts and creativity. Click here for details on how to read your free copy.
Looking Out From Lockdown
Looking Out From Lockdown is an Island-wide project celebrating the creativity of Island people during lockdown, both in 2020, and again now in 2021. In collaboration with Lord-Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight, Susie Sheldon, Independent Arts is offering people the chance to exhibit their lockdown creations, be it painting, photographs, poetry, music, speech, pottery, writing, crafts, projects, inventions, baking, gardening or anything else creative completed to keep spirits up during lockdown. Read more…
Join us online
We are pleased to be offering creative activities online while Covid-19 social isolation rules continue.
More video sessions are being added every week – please check out our YouTube channel:
Join us on Zoom
We will reintroduce face-to-face sessions of our popular community groups as and when Covid 19 restrictions ease. In the meantime, we can also offer you the opportunity to socialise from the safety of your own home by joining one of our free Zoom groups. SingAbout, Anxiety Café, Singing for Breathing and Creative Café will all be meeting on a weekly basis.
If you would like to talk to us about joining one of these groups, please get in touch and we will be happy to get you started. Don't worry if you are new to Zoom, our team will talk you through the free sign-up process.
Message about our service delivery
Since the beginning of March 2020 we’ve been monitoring Public Health advice regarding Coronavirus and responding to changing circumstances.
Please be assured that the Independent Arts team are still here for our supporters and participants and will continue to serve those who are vulnerable and isolated in our community. If you know of someone, or if you, would benefit from weekly contact from someone in our team please do contact us on 01983 822437 or email [email protected].
We can provide a friendly voice to chat to and can help to link those in need to any services which may benefit them in these trying times.
Creative solutions
Our small team are mainly working remotely from their homes, maintaining regular ‘virtual’ contact with volunteers and arts practitioners to creatively develop alternative programmes that can support isolated and vulnerable Island residents of all ages.
As experts in tackling social isolation through the arts, we are widening our thoughts to include all residents on the Isle of Wight, who may be reacting to the new circumstances we all find ourselves in.
We will incorporate face-to-face sessions community sessions when safe to do so and in line with government guidance.
Keeping in touch
You can keep up to date with our new, virtual programmes and community support work by checking this site regularly and following our Facebook page.
If you need to speak to one of the team, our office number will be automatically forwarded to a member of the staff by rotation. Simply call us on 01983 822437 during office hours, or contact us via email, or chat to us via live chat, by clicking on the Chat icon bottom right of the website.
Thank you
We recognise that our services are needed now more than ever and we are extremely grateful to our principle funders for their continued support and their encouragement. We are a small local charity working exclusively for the vulnerable residents of the Isle of Wight. You can help us keep going by making a donation – and if you are a UK tax payer, gift aid can be added, which tops up your donation by a further 25%.
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Independent Arts is an Isle of Wight charity founded in 1987, using the arts to improve wellbeing, quality of life and to reduce social isolation.
Thank you to our supporters, including
