Thursday Culture Club: How Libraries Can Be Centres for Creativity and Connection

Salford Libraries have been exploring how libraries can be spaces for creativity and connection through Thursday Culture Club at Walkden Library.

The club takes place monthly, and each session involves a different activity. So far, we’ve hosted Samba sessions, Playful Poetry with local artists 6fa.maisie and Bethan Kelly, and a museum object label workshop with objects from Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

The idea of Thursday Culture Club is less about a consistent programme and more about the way that doing anything creative can calm the mind. It is about the way that connecting with others over a new activity reminds us that human interaction and shared experiences are key to maintaining our wellbeing. And all of that over a brew? Even better.

We explored this concept together by asking our lovely Thursday Culture Club attendees to check in and out the session with a word or sentence that described how they were feeling. At samba, people went from ‘dreary’, ‘low’ and ‘apprehensive’, to ‘rejuvenated’, ‘uplifted’ and ‘excited’. At the playful poetry session, people expressed feeling ‘interested but unsure’ to ‘uplifted, lighter and at peace’.

We also collectively explored what the group would like to see in the programme. Starting by unpacking the word culture and what it means to us, we agreed that the word is really quite hard to define. It can be anything from the art we see in a museum to an interaction we have in a local café. We found this to be helpful when designing the programme together, as we all considered cultural activities to be as broad as cooking world cuisines to trying still life drawing. The group was most interested in trying some more traditional modes of creativity like drawing and painting, so we are doing exactly that over the next few months. According to neurological studies, actively engaging in drawing can be attributed to strengthening cerebral structures in parts of the brain associated with critical thinking, decision-making and fine motor skills. Here’s your invite to get working these parts of the brain together!

Plus, sandwiched in the programme is the House of Books and Friends takeover, who will be bringing their chatty café from the centre of Manchester over to Walkden. They’ll also give us a bit of intel about what the charity is and how books are bringing people together at their base on King Street. This one’s for the library lovers!*  *All are welcome though.

Dates for your diary:

• Thursday 1^st October, 6-7:15pm: Introduction to drawing with local artist Jess Maher
• Thursday 5^th November, 6-7:15pm: House of Books and Friends Takeover
• Thursday 3^rd November, 6-7:15pm: Introduction to painting with local artist Jess Maher

We look forward to seeing both new and familiar faces there! If you have questions or would like to get involved either as an attendee, facilitator or both, please contact Eve at eve.oliver@scll.co.uk.