Sunderland Culture is a registered charity created in 2016 that aims to showcase Sunderland's culture through various art exhibitions, films, and events held at multiple venues throughout Sunderland and the Northeast region. Their goal is to improve life for Sunderland residents through culture. They receive funding from various sources, including the UK government and National Lottery. Sunderland Culture hosts a variety of cultural events and provides opportunities for local artists, as well as jobs, education, and volunteer work for Sunderland residents. They operate 20 venues in the Northeast and offer arts awards for participation in workshops at different award levels. The venues are also used to host concerts and further cultural engagement in the community.

1. RESEARCHING
THE CLIENT

2. ABOUT OUR
CLIENT
Sunderland Culture is the client for this Project. Created in 2016, they are a registered charity whose aim is to
showcase Sunderland Culture significance through different conventions that display art pieces or short films
and the overall creativity of the City. They do this through different conventions in different locations throughout
Sunderland. These locations include The Fire Station, The National Glass Centre and Winter Gardens as well as
other locations in the Northeast in general. Sunderland Culture was founded by Sunderland City Council MAC
Sunderland (Music , Arts and Culture Trust) and University Of Sunderland. They receive funding from a lot of
different places with some of the most notable being HM Government, Great Exhibition of the North, and The
National Lottery. In their Annual Review, They state a five-step plan on how to achieve their mission of improving
"life for everyone in Sunderland through Culture". This plans steps include an Improved profile and reputation of
the City, a more vibrant creative economy, raised outlook and aspiration of young people, improved health and
wellbeing, and a more socially cohesive City. This shows there willingness as a company to improve Sunderland
as a city as well as the Cities inhabitant's lives.
Sources: Home -
Sunderland Culture

3. OPPORTUNITIES
AND EVENTS
3
As previously mentioned, Sunderland culture hosts a lot of
different events at different venues. The events themselves
can involve a lot of different things like Exhibitions, Music,
Films etc. These Events are useful in cultivating the creative
scenes in Sunderland forward. For local artists or content
creators, it gives them the opportunities to show off their work
and talents to larger audiences but for those not directly
involved with the art displays they offer volunteer work and
jobs to do with customer service within some of their locations
(example: The Fire Station). As well as offering work for the
people of Sunderland, Sunderland Culture offer education in
the form of courses or University internships. With their
mission being to improve the lives of the people of
Sunderland through culture that hasn’t stopped them from
impacting peoples lives in more traditional ways too.

4. VENUE LOCATIONS AND
HOW THEY OPERATE
Despite mainly operating inside Sunderland, they have ventured outside
of the city itself as they now in total utilise 20 venues in the Northeast. To
the right is a map of all the locations that Sunderland Culture uses/has
used. Sunderland Culture offers different awards, They are nationally
recognised and are called "Arts Awards". For example, the Arts Awards
for The National Glass Centre go up in three stages. These being
Bronze, Silver and Gold, To achieve these awards you have to
participate in workshops and volunteer work in which you'd have to work
with glass and do such activities as glass cutting, fusing and screening.
Having these awards allows for the creation of different experiences and
opportunities for people which can then lead to the creation of art which
then furthers culture. These awards are venue-specific and there are
other awards for other art forms at the Northern Gallary of Contemporary
Art and Arts Centre Washington. The Venues are also used for events
like concerts for example local artist Tom A Smith is performing at The
Fire Station on December 8th and 9th as part of his UK tour. Having the
venues function this way is a positive for the City as it allows for further
funding for Sunderland Culture and can inspire people from Sunderland
to become more involved in culture.

5. IN SUMMARY
Overall, what I’ve learned about Sunderland Culture is that they host
art exhibitions as well as classes to help educate people in the
northeast through culture. Knowing this helps with going to the
planning process of the project as I could introduce not only local
places in the project, like I was going to originally, but a take an
informative and slight educational angle to fit their mold of what they
want from me. I could also maybe use their locations to film too with
permission of course. Also learning the basis of Sunderland culture
and what their aim is has helped me have more direction with the
project. there is a lot of creative freedom in this project which is great
but having some extra guidelines to make a better project is always a
useful tool to have.