Community & Outreach
Our community work supports people to engage creatively with libraries and our outreach work aims to change perceptions of libraries by popping up in unexpected places and taking the library, outside of the library to those who need it most.
Read about our community and outreach work, including past projects and upcoming programmes.
Let's Get Creative
The ‘Let’s Get Creative' website is an online resource to make it easy for people to find arts and culture experiences across Suffolk.
Hosted by Suffolk Libraries, this project has been developed in partnership with Arts Council England, Suffolk County Council, Britten Pears Arts, DanceEast, Suffolk Artlink, Marketplace: Creative People and Places, and the former Norfolk and Norwich Festival Bridge.
Curious Minds
Curious Minds is a mental health wellbeing project, delivered in partnership with Suffolk Libraries and the Association for Suffolk Museums. Its purpose is to support the Primary Care Personalised Care Programme and participation is by referral through Ipswich and East Suffolk Primary Care.
The first programme took place at Stowmarket Library and the Food Museum in Stowmarket, where photographer Gillian Allard and visual artist Alice-Andrea Ewing encouraged participants to explore aspects of the collections using techniques as varied as cyanotype printing, still life painting and digital photography.
“The project introduced participants to new ways of experiencing some of the Museum exhibits,” explained Gillian. “Then there was this spontaneous mixture of our practice as artists and the skills, talents and interests of the participants – it resulted in some very exciting, and surprising, work. It was inspiring to see how their confidence grew and the pleasure they got from talking about their work.”
Future courses are planned for autumn 2023.
WordCup 2023
In 2023, Suffolk Libraries partnered with Apples & Snakes and participated in the Wordcup project. Five young people worked with a professional poet - in one of our branch libraries in Ipswich - to create spoken word pieces and performed in a National Showcase at Manchester Poetry Library.
“I knew I wanted to make work like this, celebratory, life-affirming, the work that gives a platform to voices that aren’t represented nearly enough.” – Rebecca Abbott, Senior Creative Producer
The Stowmarket Garden Project: Stitching Stowe
In 2021, Suffolk Libraries worked collaboratively with Fox Yard Studio, Modece Architects and their Kickstart team together in partnership with The Mix and Red Gables to develop a community garden.
The vision for the project was to develop a space which was environmentally sustainable, whilst also encouraging wildlife and providing a space which nurtures creativity.
The 'Stitching Stowe' design was heavily rooted in the history of Stowmarket with artworks created throughout the garden inspired by the town.
Around Suffolk in 40 Stories
In 2021, Suffolk Libraries partnered with BBC Radio Suffolk to launch a new ‘human library’ of 40 personal stories from across the County.
In collaboration with award-winning storyteller Glenys Newton, Around Suffolk in 40 Stories aims to promote intercultural understanding, empathy, listening and relatability, welcoming difference and encouraging dialogue between people from all walks of life in Suffolk.
Pop-Up Libraries
Our outreach programme takes us to non-traditional places, offering free book giveaways and creative and cultural activities for passers-by, festivalists and beachgoers!
As part of our outreach offer, we attend Latitude Festival and First Light Festival in Lowestoft every year where we programme performance-based artists. If you are an artist interested in featuring on our line-up, we’d love to hear from you.
Watch our YouTube video from our pop-up library at Lowestoft South Beach →
Exhibitions
We work with schools, universities, and charities to transform libraries into exhibition spaces to display community artwork for the public to view.
Watch our YouTube video featuring a previous exhibition at Ipswich Library →