Artist(s) in Residence: one year on
- Helen Patuck
- Jul 31
- 4 min read
As summer 2026 begins, it's amazing to reflect back on the year past. In my last post, Arts Council England: standing with you, it was summer 2025, and I was embarking on a new adventure as an artist: facilitating creative writing workshops with an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant.
This led to connecting with extraordinary organisations, including Save the Children Netherlands, Women for Women International, Dla Ziemi "For the Earth" in Poland, CNRR The Romanian Council for Refugees, Lowering the Bar supporting Afghan women resettled in England, and Reclaim the Sea supporting newcomer women to south-west England with outdoor swimming and surfing skills. After our workshops, which took place across Europe, we developed beautiful outcomes. I have created a dedicated page to them on my website, here.
Facilitating workshops with such a wide range of participants gave me the courage to apply for funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support a new Kitabna - Our Book programme of informal ESOL classes combined with wellbeing activities. This series of 18 workshops, which we called The Language, Belonging and Women in Action Programme, was designed to offer conversation club-style ESOL classes to Ukrainian, Afghan and Hongkonger women living in rural south-west England alongside new skills. The format was similar to Conversation Clubs I had volunteered at and delivered in 2025: Creative consulting... and conversation clubs? The only difference was that we added:
swimming
exercise
dance
creative writing
book club with Penguin Easyreaders
To facilitate this, I had to undertake an eight-week Swim England Level 1 & Level 2 Swim Teacher qualification, giving me the skills and qualifications to deliver classes for adult learners. Some beautiful results of our programme can be read about here, with some testimonies in the video below.
I was able to reflect deeply on this meaningful year in my role as 2026 Creative Practitioner in Residence at the Institute for Languages, Cultures and Societies, part of the University of London. I delivered a series of workshops called Resonant Tongues: The Art and Practice of Listening and wrote a small blog piece about my time there, Journal of a Creative Practitioner in Residence, and share an extract:
"Every meaningful conversation, like every workshop I hold, feels alchemical. It’s made up of exactly who is having it. What strikes me ever more is this: if both, or more, people weren’t there, it wouldn’t be the same. The conversation is impossible to repeat and therefore imperative to treasure."
The role not only helped me reflect on this past year of learning as a community-centred artist. It also gave me the time to work on my own creative projects: unfinished novels.
The residency also helped me consolidate in my own mind the path I am on as a Creative Consultant. Wearing several artistic and operational hats make it hard to define sometimes, but with every year that passes, it becomes clearer: it's finding balance between bluesky thinking and holding complexity in ways that lead to true innovation.
Further to this, and looking ahead, I am very proud to be able to offer Artist Residencies in Kitabna's next project in Northern Ireland: Mapping the Mournes: Exploring our shared heritage through place with Irish, Ulster Scots and the languages of the mountains. This marks a beautiful new step for Kitabna, bringing arts, peacebuilding and treasuring our natural world into the hands of communities. Part of the project involves the recruitment of local artists to residencies.
I have worked with the Northern Ireland Education Authority's inter-cultural education service since 2019, on the book series, When the Lights Go Out, and The mountains in our hearts. This summer project across the Newry, Mourne and Down area is part of Newry Mourne and Down Districts Council’s Local Action Plan’s Thriving Together initiative, which is supported by PEACEPLUS, a programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). In case you have not encountered it yet, PEACEPLUS is a cross-border funding programme supported by the European Union, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Government of Ireland, and the Northern Ireland administration.
Mapping the Mournes is a series of indoor and outdoor workshops taking place from summer to winter celebrating the past and future of Irish, Ulster Scots and the languages of the mountains, in collaboration with Queens University Belfast and local artists. Participants will join us for a series of:
Walks in the Mournes
Creative mapping workshops
Exploring the Mournes by boat
Arts workshops celebrating Irish and Ulster Scots
Take a peek!
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