Our mission

To make creative arts, culture and heritage part of everyday life in Sedgemoor by growing new opportunities for its people to participate, create and celebrate.

Seed was created by a consortium of organisations doing work for communities living and working in Sedgemoor. Our ten-year vision is to ensure that everyone living and working in Sedgemoor has a chance to experience more creative arts and culture. We know that within our communities there is a wealth of knowledge, skills and creativity, some of which is hidden or undervalued. We want to tap into this rich resource and  to meet and work with people who might not otherwise have had the chance to explore their creative ideas and passions. As the programme grows, we want to encourage and enable more and different people to take a lead in commissioning creative activities for the future.

Our Vision

By 2030, everyone living or working in Sedgemoor has new and accessible opportunities to engage with, participate in and appreciate creative arts, heritage and culture in all its many forms, and many more people take advantage of those opportunities. The creative culture of the community is exciting and inspiring. It has been nurtured, and there is a sustainable platform for further growth.

Our Services

Seed is a community-based arts organisation that puts local communities at the centre of designing and running creative activities to bring people together. We do this through helping communities to develop their own ideas and make their own decisions.  Community members work with us to commission artists to work with them on ideas that matter to the community. We also provide skills development opportunities and run public events across the district of Sedgemoor.

Our Values

Across our activities we seek to:

  • be sustainable and to promote the sustainable growth of opportunities for people to participate in creative arts, heritage and culture in Sedgemoor
  • embedding a participatory action research methodology in all of our activities in order to empower the people of Sedgemoor to lead our project
  • achieve the highest possible standards are achieved through our programme in excellent artistic output and participatory processes
  • recognise and promote the strength that comes from the diversity of the communities we work with.

Seed Stats

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A climate and biodiversity emergency

We join a growing number of local councils and businesses declaring a climate and biodiversity emergency. We pledge to consider the impact of every commission we make, event we organise, and item we purchase.

We will commission works which are honest about the situation,  that build community and that foster the imagination necessary to create solutions. We will do what we can so that we don’t add to the problem and so that our work helps to build some community resilience in the face of the challenges of extreme weather, rising sea levels, loss of nature and the societal impacts of climate change.

Seed commits to paying all of our employees and contractors including artists fair pay for their work. We achieve this by paying the living wage or higher rates of pay. We also commit to paying artists in line with the recommended rates of pay provided by their professional bodies including, but not limited to, Artists Union England, the Musicians Union, Equity and so on.

Seed does rely on the efforts of volunteers and community participants in order to deliver our programme and appreciates that the value of this work far exceeds our capacity to pay.  Volunteers and community participants’ labour and intellectual property is provided freely and in the knowledge that Seed acknowledges, appreciates and reports it’s value to our core funders. Seed commits to NOT utilising artificial intelligence to generate artworks or other material that a human being could be paid to create

What is Creative People and Places?

Creative People and Places is an Arts Council funded project offering communities new opportunities to access and participate in creative arts and cultural activities. Community members are offered the opportunity to choose, create and take part in arts and cultural activities in their area, and many of our events are free.