This summer marks CAST’s tenth anniversary. On 12 August 2012 a small group of benefactors completed the purchase of the former Passmore Edwards Science and Art School at 3 Penrose Road in Helston and started the process of creating the Cornubian Arts & Science Trust.
The building now provides studios for some twenty artists and accommodates a wide-ranging programme of events and activities. Since the creation of our black box screening space for Groundwork in 2018 we have showed moving image work by numerous world-renowned artists including Steve McQueen, Francis Alÿs, Andy Holden, John Smith, Elizabeth Price and Laure Prouvost. A wide variety of creative practitioners have selected and introduced a diverse range of feature films for our ‘Artist’s Choice’ series, and more recently the generous support of the Garcia Family Foundation has enabled us to greatly expand our learning programmes to include Art Lab workshops for primary schools and a Saturday Club for young people aged twelve to sixteen, as well as CAST-Off and other free creative holiday activities for children and families. CAST has also initiated special projects such as the Cornwall Workshop (a weeklong residential workshop for artists, hosted by Kestle Barton) and the recent Music & Video Lab for young people, led by Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey (organised in partnership with Auction House, Redruth).
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, a series of portraits by photographer Martin Howse has been hung around the building. Downstairs are pictures of some of the former teachers and pupils who contributed to an oral history project entitled ‘Green School Revisited’, with oral histories deposited on the website, cornishmemory.com.
Upstairs are portraits of past and present studio holders, an insight into the variety of work created in the building and the many artists who have contributed to CAST’s development over the past decade.
CAST’s team has raised support from local, regional, national and international funding bodies, and from generous individual donors, over the past decade. We are deeply grateful to Arts Council England, the Garcia Family Foundation and to all who have supported our work so far.