01/10/2023

Art in the Community: MBI Al Jaber Foundation supports Wells Maltings

The MBI Al Jaber Foundation recently made a donation to Wells Maltings arts centre. Wells Maltings embraces education in the broadest sense, and the Foundation’s donation builds on our previous commitments to arts in the community, through support for exhibitions and events in the UK and beyond over the last two decades.

Wells Maltings opened in 2018 following a major refurbishment and expansion project, to create a landmark centre for arts, heritage and community engagement for north Norfolk. It is open year round, and produces a mixed programme of live and on screen performing arts, visual arts exhibitions, and work specifically aimed at local community and young people. Over 30,000 annually engage with the organisation, including an increasing number taking part in workshops and participatory activities in performance, visual arts and crafts, health and wellbeing and personal growth through creativity. The Lounge, a project for 11-16 year olds in the community, includes a further series of weekly events and activities, developing confidence, skills and teamwork amongst young people, in a safe space.

Over its five years, the community has come to embrace the Maltings both as a hub for social and creative activity, and as a facilitator and incubator of ideas. The venue is also the home of the Wells Heritage Centre, and hosts regular series of talks and events based around themes of social change, environmental change, and local history. Situated in the very centre of this small coastal town, the Maltings is also an important social space: perfect to catch up with friends over coffee or lunch whilst surrounded by creative endeavour.

The donation from MBI Al Jaber Foundation allows these engagement projects to move confidently from their start up phases (disrupted as they were by the COVID pandemic), into a new phase of growth – developing more projects with drama, music and dance for both adults and young people; supporting local visual artists and social interaction through group activities; expanding the ways in which we can create and nurture personal expression through the arts using the wealth of social and local heritage themes.

Wells Maltings director Simon Daykin says, “This place is important to so many: as a hub of creativity, social interaction and wellbeing in these times of stress and demand. We entertain, we support, we introduce and we nurture – from theatre companies to artists, from young to not so young, from local to visitor. We aim to delight and surprise, and one day at Wells Maltings is never the same as the next. You might well call us an oasis: fuelling imaginations, creativity and social wellbeing. The most important bit of that is that we are here for everyone”.

www.wellsmaltings.org.uk

For further information, please contact:
Director of Public Relations
[email protected]