A special festive thank you to all our participants who attended our Breaking Bread Christmas Special at Chapter Arts House this Friday. The team hosted their second official workshop and in partnership with the Trinity Project, Splott, Cathays Community Centre and the Dalton Street Centre. We were part funded by the Tesco Charity Trust which enabled us to host a truly special workshop. Focusing on the mobility of the service we set up in a ‘white space’ with an oven hired from M&M Catering Wales. The recipe was a simple cinnamon loaf divided into mini tins for sharing. We also provided icing materials to let the group add festival decorations.
The workshop focused on testing what was possible with very limited facilities, cooking times with a hire oven, health and safety, practical issues, as well as continuing to establish key links with Community Services and key protagonists across South Wales. The degree of ‘sharing’ provided by the workshop and the possibilites to connect with people in creative and exciting ways was also monitored.
A massive thank you to everybody who helped make the event possible, Happy Christmas from the team and looking forward to seeing everybody in the new year for more events and workshops.
This celebratory event will showcase Somability, an accessible software application, created by designers from Cardiff Metropolitan University and Cariad Interactive in partnership with Rhondda Cynon Taf Skills for Independence day care service and Artis Community. The project uses game technologies to capture movement and generate beautiful, graphic imagery. A compelling preview of Somability will be performed by adults with profound and multiple disabilities and their support workers on the Glanfa Stage. This will be followed by an explanation of the project, panel discussion and an opportunity for the audience to join in and explore the software. There will opportunity to see other recent work being undertaken at CARIAD, to meet participants, researchers, organisations, charities and businesses improving people’s lives through the arts.
We are looking forward to seeing how the projects develop especially since so many important issues were raised. Questions asked included ‘what is classical music’, ‘why is it called classical’. The elitist attitude and the accessibility of classical music for all demographics was also on the agenda, certainly some meaty food for thought. Thanks to all involved for hosting such an interdisciplinary day and facilitating in bridging gaps between academia and the media. Take a look her for details of the pilot projects 
Our second workshop was last of Cathy’s OPAN funded sessions, we invited John Killick from Dementia Positive to come and run one of his infamous ‘invitation to have fun’ events, and fun it was. We made human statues, described objects through touch and even had a puppet show! While the sound of laughter was echoing from the building throughout the day the message was poignant: Dementia is not something to be frightened of or to shy away from. We need to find ways to engage with it and adopt a more positive and responsive attitude towards investigating and understanding some of the underlying features of the condition and ‘we must not be afraid to laugh’! You can read more about the day’s events and see more pictures here on Cardiff Met’s main page: http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/English/News/Pages/CardiffMetlaunchesinteractiveandinclusiveartsresearchfacility.aspx