Your Life,
In Colour
CoCreate is a community interest company based in Dorset, and working in South West England.
Led by three arts and health professionals, our wealth of combined experience, and our varied backgrounds have come together to create new projects which are about making great art and improving wellbeing.
Meet the team
We are Gemma, Rosie and Anna: three creatives who between us have many years of experience working in arts, health and wellbeing.
Individually we work in theatre, creative writing, puppetry, textiles, and visual arts.
We bring these creative skills to our work with people.
And you…. The most important member of the team!
All CoCreate projects are developed collaboratively. Together we work to make beautiful things happen; using the arts and creativity to enable people to connect, to tell their stories and transform their lives.
Anna Shiels
Co-director
Anna is a socially-engaged artist and an experienced project manager, arts fundraiser and evaluator. She started her career working in adult mental health services but has worked in local authority arts development since 2000. During this time she developed a particular interest in arts, health and wellbeing; working with numerous groups, individuals and organisations on wide-ranging creative projects.
Anna knows from her own lived experience the power of the arts to support mental health and emotional wellbeing, to aid recovery and to make sense of our experiences.
She brings her skills in puppetry and visual arts, her passion for working with people and the firm belief that inspiration and beauty can be found all around.
Gemma Alldred
Co-director
Gemma is a lived experience theatre maker, writer and community artist.
In 2008 she co-founded the award winning, York based, organisation Converge, and led the work of Out of Character theatre company.
Through this work she developed a love for working in arts and mental health, produced events, new performances, and worked across art forms to mentor community artists of the future.
Gemma is trained in contemporary theatre, and has worked professionally across the sector working with charities, venues, and with touring companies, sharing her expertise in community and participation work.
She has shared her knowledge of arts and mental health work for academic publications and conferences. Gemma is a visiting lecturer, and teaches in further education. She has a special interest in evaluation, documentation, and training for the sector.
Rosie Edwards
Co-director
Rosie is a visual artist whose work is based on place and space. Her art practice is focused on her experience of life and the world we live in.
She also has over 20 years experience of working in the arts. Including senior roles such as the International Arts Manager for the Arts Council of Wales, and freelance work, project management, research and fundraising in support of a wide range of community led arts projects. Her belief that access to arts and culture has the ability to change lives underpins what she does. Many of her projects with the community use textiles from large-scale community banners to slow stich sessions, all of which support ideas of taking time through creativity.
She has continued to combine her own personal practice alongside working as a community arts practitioner most recently becoming a co-director of CoCreate. These roles complement each other as her art comes from life with the emphasis on reflecting the everyday. She works mainly with recycled, found and natural materials and is currently investigating ways of working without creating further waste, through continuing repurposing of found objects and materials as well as film, photography, sound and performance.
CoCreate; It’s how you feel
cocreate.org.uk 