LU Arts plays an important role in supporting our University community, whether this be staff or students. It offers opportunities for individuals to come together over a shared interest, it supports the student experience and it provides a space for staff and/or students to meet.

It is good for the wellbeing of our Loughborough family. At the present time these benefits are more important than ever. While we are physically dislocated there is an opportunity to create a virtual community through an engagement with the arts. Over the coming period we intend to embrace technology to offer a new arts programme that we hope will inspire you, amuse you, stimulate you, calm you and entertain you.

How will we do this? We will continue to provide a platform for students to present their work through online exhibitions, performances and writing. We will run online workshops that offer staff and students opportunities to learn new creative skills. We will celebrate creativity at Loughborough by running features on individual students, societies, and our sculpture collection. We will organise competitions and engage professional artists to add to our offer. We are already embracing new ways of working. On Monday, the University choir used Zoom to meet and sing together and next week the Book Club will have its first virtual meeting. We have also set up a Creative Distancing Facebook Group, which provides lots of creative ideas and links to imaginative content. We hope that although we are physically separated, the programme will be much more personal, one in which you will have a direct input through content, communication and ideas. The arts should never be regarded as something for just a few people who are particularly talented; while it might sound cliched it is very much about the taking part and the various benefits that an engagement with the arts can bring. There really is no better time to do it, to challenge yourself to do something new and explore what type of art might be of interest. It could lead to a lifetime of enjoyment!

We are currently pulling together an interactive online magazine, which will have interviews, filmed content, features and articles, workshops, games and competitions. It will embrace technology so that we can include live streams of our student musicians, podcasts and photography from our talented students working in media, features and creative writing and interviews with academics and artists. We will also be writing a weekly feature reflecting on creativity at the University and further afield. We hope that in this way we can support the arts and ensure it continues to play a vital part in our lives.