This week we are heading towards International Womens Day – 8th March, thus is an apt time to talk through some female visual heroes. Here are three of the 20th / 21st Century heroes that you can continue to be inspired by. You know, the ones that are still working hard on putting female artists on the map – this way, if any of them tickle your fancy you can follow them on social media and join them in their feminist arts crusade: 1. Bobby Baker: Domestic Performer & Celebrant of Humble Female Power – Bobby Baker’s artwork draws from her personal and family experiences, exploring the relationship between art and lived experience while addressing the splitting of women's domestic and professional lives. While creating artworks domestically for years (and a lot of the time out of cake! - e.g. her performance piece at the beginning of her career - An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976) Baker has over the years become more involved in social activism. In 2009 Baker exhibited i...

  Given the increase of natural disasters in places such as Australia, Asia and more recently the South of Europe as well as the overall 'weird' weather that the UK has been facing in the past months (i.e, the supposed tornado of London from a few weeks back), now more than ever are people aware of climate change and the need to stop it.  But how can we? That is the average human being. The main perpetrators of excessive emissions of greenhouse gases is not the average person but large corporations. With certain billionaires at the helm of these corporations, who place a thrill ride to space over saving the planet, it seems that our plea to prevent the earth dying is being ignored by those who have the most power to stop climate change.  Whilst things look bleak on this front there is still much that we as individuals can do to prevent even the smallest amount of harm being done to our planet. Importantly if we, the average human beings, all chip in as much as we can, we ...

Press Release: 20 November 2020   Illusionarium, the Havering festival of illusion and light will return for 2021 and there is up to £3,000 available for commissions in Romford Town Centre! Romford BID, Havering Changing and The Mercury Shopping centre have joined forces to support a festival for the borough in January, come rain or shine and they are asking local businesses and residents to be part of the fun.   The first opportunity in the build up to the event includes the opportunity to create a public artwork to be displayed as part of a family trail in Romford TownCentre, and the festival team are urging local businesses and creatives to apply.   “A light festival is a great opportunity to celebrate during the dark months of January and February and we would love to see as many local people and businesses to get involved as possible. We know that we have a huge community spirit in Romford and Havering and would like to help make that truly grow in the new year!” say...

The 4th annual Romford Film Festival kicks off today with 'Kings of Mulberry Street' - a feel good film from South Africa where two local boys try to defeat local crime lords through Bollywood charm and 'Puppet Killer' a pseudo horror comedy that cleverly utilises every classic Horror Movie in its screentime to have you rolling in your seats! We are really proud that the festival is going ahead in its physical form and showing almost 200 films from around the world in 5 days. It could posibly be the first one since the covid-lockdown in March. It is so important that we do not let the pandemic collapse the great independent film networks that are created through festivals and we hope that the independent film industry is robust enough to prevail! We have been working with the festival since its creation, voluntarily supporting the brand, design and student volunteers that usually run the day to day festival - we also support the running of the ECG Film Festival that run...

It’s been bubbling up in the background for a while, but we can finally announce the creation of a ‘brand-spanking-new’ social artists network in Havering ! Created by the self-proclaimed-uber-social local collectives Brennan and Burch, Bluerskies Mindful Creatives & The NO Collective. Our first socially distanced gathering will be in two weeks where we will watch some short films at The Romford Film Festival and have a chat! Simple but effective! Wednesday 18 August 5:45pm (films start at 6pm) to 8:30pm Premiere Cinemas The Mercury Shopping Centre Mercury Gardens Romford RM1 3EE We have been craving a creative network locally for a long time, and hopefully we will do our local artists justice. Booking is essential, but payment is not! For now our network will be ran voluntarily, and we will always do our best to keep it cheap and cheerful! Especially considering our creative economy at present! You can find more about YAYmates in our community page on our website click HERE #com...

Natalie, our co-founder was interviewed as an Alumni of NCC Havering Colleges - now the largest further education institution in East London! The NO Collective work with NCC Havering Colleges regularly finding work experience placements for creative students (of which generally placements are lacking!)  the work placement team are hugely passionate and caring and we always feel it is right to help out where we can in helping the educators who educated us! Hopefully this interview along with dozens of 'where are they now' pages will help to inspire young adults to find the right path for them! In the interview she outlines what she loved about college and how to progress your career in an organic and passionate way! “I found my calling when I was at the college and I truly found my independence. Up to this point I had followed the average academic path through GCSEs and A Levels, but college was a very different place that gave me passion for what I was doing and taught me that ...

Thank you to everyone who has so far logged into view our 'Digital Decapod Exhibition' - celebrating our members work and ten years of our humble collective.  "launched on 01/07/2020, our organisation's 10th anniversary, Digital Decapod is the first virtual exhibition curated by The NO Collective. Named after the family of multi-legged crustaceans, this group exhibition is celebratory of it's members strength in individual practise and stability in shared ethos. Our members bring huge support to the organisation's endeavours ,and in their combined sterength, continued momentum and dedication to creative practice, we are continually proud" - Natalie Bays, co-founder The NO Collective We also had our very first 'Private Zoom' as a collective where we spoke about the work exhibited, the collective's jouney over the past ten years and also the upcoming activities that NO are producing.  The Exhibition includes works from: anika manuel // char...

On June 17th, Natalie, our co-founder and MD was asked to host an international conference on the importance of cultural regeneration and creativity in public spaces. Organised by OCA Magazine and The Eurasian Creative Guild, 11 countries were represented in the call with over 25 participants joining to speak about their work and to gain inspiration for post-COVID-19 projects from each other. The main discussion points meandered around how although artists are innately flexible to their working conditions, our inspiration within public art is the positive change for its audience (the people) and members of the public should be central in reviving a creative presence in towns and cities around the world. Whether this be by online discussions, postal activities or socially distanced gatherings, the people are the beating heart of the city and there is duplicative and catalysing power between residents and artists working together. You can watch the full conversation at ‘ECG TV’ the offic...

Today, Natalie, co-founder of The NO Collective was invited to speak in an international conference facilitated by The Council on State Support to NGO's under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (CSSN). The conference,  "Coronavirus Solidarity, International Experience" was attended by over 120 participants which represented NGO's across post soviet countries and invited political guests.  Guest Speakers included Professor Ilyas Topsakal on behalf of Istanbul University, Yekaterina Alekseeva, a member of the Russian Federations Civic Chamber, Jedrzej Chodzinski, a member of Krakow City Council, Ajna Dizdarevic from the EU's youth parliament and other key members of society from 10 different countries.  The conversation, led by CSSN's Nargiz Khalaf ranged from mutual problems in civil society caused by the pandemic, singular problems associated with the speed of infection within individual countries and optimistic happenings of internati...

The NO Collective were commissioned to organise a 'Havering Changing' test event in January 2020. Havering Changing is a new programme funded by 'Arts Council England' and aims to revitalise engagement in culture and creativity in Havering under it's 'Creative People and Places' national programme. We created and facilitated eight light & illusion themed artworks for the festival which lasted for the whole of January. The sculptures (many interactive were made alongside local artists, art students, local people and staff of The Mercury Shopping centre, where the sculpture trail was based.  Here are some images of some of the works including 'Romford Consellation' which was produced collaboratively by members of the public at a special family ' Make Day' hosted by The NO Collective's Gill, 'The Cloud' w hich was designed and conceptualised by Havering College students, Bluerskies Creatives and collaboration facilitated by ...

The NO Collective based in Romford ventured near Czech Republic’s capital city Prague for a seven day workshop for a funded trip to learn tools and methods to teach young people how to cope in a world of fake news and social media overload. The seminar, funded by the Erasmus+ programme, featured participants from eight different countries, including Denmark, Romania, Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal. During the trip, the three person UK delegation, (represented by the Havering team), were not only taught by industry professionals in critical thinking and signs of fake news, but were also tasked with talking about the country’s social media cultures. Member of The NO Collective Hannah Wilkes said: “Children use the internet and social media from such a young age nowadays, it is important for us to be able to tell them how to know what is true and untrue online. “It was also inspiring to speak to people from different cultures and backgrounds about their exp...

So as you guys know - whether it's because you've seen the ridiculously attractive photos of us, or because you were one of those ridiculously attractive, manly princesses - this course was all about building your confidence and feeling comfortable doing something that doesnt usually come naturally to you (well, not like genocide or anything like that) y'know, like talking to strangers and being able to think on your feet. The two manliest princesses ive ever know, Noot noot and Natalie successfully blagged thier way into making us think they were "Professors of Confidence", I mean, boy, for all we know, Natalie and Noot noot may not even be their real names! The first week of the unbearably early-morning course was generally about getting to know eachother and breaking the ice, one way being called 'Call My Bluff' where you are given an artistic term and you've never heard of before and a definition that might be right or wrong. You then needed to c...