Wow! What a year we’ve had here at Brave Island, we’ve had trips to London and Portsmouth, eleven fantastic Young Creatives of the Month, monthly skills workshops, placements at the Isle of Wight Festival and Ventnor Fringe and even single recording sessions at a professional studio! Now with We’re already hard at work planning even more fantastic opportunities for 2025 but first, let’s take a step back and revisit some highlights of this year.

Ventnor Fringe Placements

In July a number of Brave Islanders learnt about the running of Ventnor Fringe Festival through a series of placements including working at the box office as well as within the venue management team.

Here’s what one young person had to say about their experience on a venue management placement:

“I feel I have grown so much in terms of experience and I would love to explore further into this industry…I especially enjoyed being the connection between the tech/artists and the stewards where I got to keep both sides updated. I also really enjoyed helping the technician with lighting.”

Large Scale Mural Painting

A small team of Brave Islanders teamed up with local artist Alice Malia to create an incredible 12 metre by 65 metre mural highlighting the important white tailed eagle reintroduction scheme on the Isle of Wight alongside a visual history of the Columbine Building.

Here’s a few comments from the young people involved in creating this piece:

“I definitely benefited from this experience as I met a handful of Island based artists. It was a great insight into the creative community and allowed space for conversations about funding and opportunities for people like me who are looking to become self employed artists one day!…Now that I have experienced painting professionally, I feel empowered to initiate and direct my own projects”

Free Single Recording at Professional Recording Studio

This year local musicians Romy Helen, The Missing and Keetan Daish were able to spend time at Calliope Studios. They each applied through Brave Island and received a free session to record their own music in a professional studio.

Trip to London for TheatreCraft

We took a group of Brave Islanders to London for “TheatreCraft” an event for young people to learn about all the various careers available in the world of theatre, especially “off-stage” roles including stage management, prop design, sound and lighting. Throughout the day we attended a Q&A with Deputy and Assistant Stage Managers and even a behind the scenes tour of the Lion King!

Here’s what the young people had to say about the trip:

“I really enjoyed spending a day in London and particularly seeing the costumes at the Lion King. It was interesting hearing from industry experts too…Gained insight in to how the technical side of theatre works on a large scale.”

Monthly Skills Workshops

This year saw the official start of our Monthly Skills Workshops, where each month we run a different creative workshop on a weekend, and this year we’ve had wood whittling, aerial, glass making, life drawing, pottery and more! These sessions are all beginner friendly and totally free so it’s the perfect chance to try something new in a welcoming and friendly environment.

One young person had this to say about what they felt they gained from our life drawing workshop in November:

“Improved on my drawing of the human form, and walked away with lots to add to my portfolio and new ways of tackling life drawing.”