ABOUT US

Young Norfolk Arts is a charitable organisation that provides opportunities for children and young people to create and engage with creativity and culture across Norfolk. What started as the Young Norfolk Arts Partnership between local organisations committed to providing creative opportunities to young people has developed into the charitable organisation the Young Norfolk Arts Trust. The Trust champions the rich cultural and artistic heritage of Norfolk and works to ensure that local young people are presented with a multitude of ways to explore it in a way that enriches education and enhances aspirations.

Every July, we hold the Young Norfolk Arts Festival (YNAF) – a celebration of creativity and performance by and for young people in Norfolk. The first YNAF was in 2013 and the Festival has grown and evolved each year.

The YNA Collective engages and provides support to young people aged 16 – 25 years old. Through regular meetings, training sessions, practical hands on workshops and collaborative sessions with our partners, the Collective develop skills to enable them to produce, promote and evaluate events and exhibitions with Young Norfolk Arts.

Young Norfolk Arts also hosts a year-round programme of activities, including a
Literary Roadshow in partnership with the National Centre for Writing. We also enjoy
collaborating with Partners and organisations in all sectors to help them encourage
youth voice and creativity within their sphere of activity.
In 2023 we were proud to partner with the LCEP, Norwich Arts Centre, The National
Centre for Writing, The Forum Trust, UEA and NUA to launch and deliver the
inaugural Young Norwich Creative Awards. We are looking forward to working with
all the entrants to that Competition as the year unfolds and to building on this year’s
success in 2024.

YNA Festival

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YNA Collective

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Our Latest Report

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SUPPORT US

Young Norfolk Arts Trust is a charity which uses all its income to provide life changing opportunities for young people across Norfolk. Every project and activity is offered to children and young people for free, including our yearly festival programme. Support us by donating what you can…

MEET THE TEAM

 

Lucy Farrant | YNA Director

Lucy put together the inaugural YNAF programme in 2013 and became Director in 2014. Her hard work and determination has expanded Young Norfolk Arts from a small project to an incorporated charitable trust, running year-round activities. Lucy is also an independent creative producer, working on theatre projects across the UK, as well as coordinating True Stories Live and Balloon debates.

Emily Thomas | YNA Youth Engagement Assistant & LCEP Coordinator

Emily joined us in the beginning of 2021. She is passionate about working with young people through the arts. Since graduating from the University of Surrey Emily has worked with Les Enfants Terribles, Mercury Theatre Colchester and Project 21 and is a freelance dance teacher and facilitator. She strongly believes in making art more accessible, mainly due to her having spent a year as an intern with Stopgap Dance Company during her degree.

Rosa Torr | YNAF 2023 Festival Producer

Rosa is a writer and producer for theatre, radio and community projects. Her work aims to resonate with the peculiar experience of being human, exploring relationships and identity within the context of a chaotic socio-political landscape. Credits include: BBC, Soho Theatre, VAULT Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Waterstones, Battersea Arts Centre, Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

Sarah Adams | Finance Manager

Sarah is our new Finance Manager who has just joined us this year. We look forward to working with Sarah as we look to the year ahead.

Jade Anderson | YNA Coordinator & Communications

Jade joined us in early 2020 as administrator for the YNA Collective, moving into the role of coordinating the programme and communications in January 2021. She is also a freelance Artist, Community Curator and Facilitator going by the name JMCAnderson, graduating from Norwich University Of The Arts with a degree and masters in 2017.

Working across East Anglia, Jades practice is underpinned by her socially engaged practice; to share individual and group experiences, and to co-create with communities to explore collective thinking, identity and belonging. She has worked with Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Collusion, Festival Bridge, The Art Station, Norwich University of the Arts and more!

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

If you would like to contact a member of the YNAT Board please click here

Steffan Griffiths | Chair

Steffan Griffiths joined Norwich School in September 2011 and has since introduced initiatives such as the Young Norfolk Arts Festival and Young Norfolk Sports Academy. After reading Classics at University College, Oxford, he taught at Tonbridge School (1995-1999) and Eton College (1999-2006). In 2006, he was appointed to the role of Usher (principal deputy head) at Magdalen College School, Oxford. Steffan also holds a first-class honours English Literature degree from the Open University. During his school years at Whitgift School, he acted with the National Theatre, both on the South Bank and in European tours. He maintains an active interest and involvement in drama.

Naomi Palmer | Trustee

Naomi is Principal at Ormiston Victory Academy in Costessey, which serves 11 to 19 year olds. She also supports Ormiston Academies Trust nationally in running competitive scholarship programmes for students to access independent schools for their sixth form studies. Naomi is proud to lead developments in Ormiston East in the Arts, such as the regional art exhibition of students’ work.

Robbie Maloney | Young Trustee

Robbie is the Communications Manager at First Light Festival Community Interest Company (CIC), which runs a free multi-arts beach festival in Lowestoft, as well as the newly opened East Point Pavilion on the town’s seafront. He moved to East Anglia in early 2019 to take up a traineeship with Norfolk & Norwich Festival, and has subsequently worked at National Centre for Writing, SPILL Festival, and on the Collaboration: Place: Change project as part of Arts Council England’s Transforming Leadership Programme.

Robbie has a master’s degree in Sexual Dissidence/Queer Theory from University of Sussex, and prior to living in Norwich, worked for a marketing start-up in Hong Kong. Both of these ventures have, in very different ways, informed his approach to arts marketing.

Nina Nannar | Trustee

Nina is the Arts Editor of ITV News which she joined in 2002 from the BBC. The job involves specialist arts and media coverage for ITV, including covering the Oscars every year and interviewing the biggest names in film, music and TV. She is also a regular contributor to ITV programmes on entertainment, and popular culture.

Nina started out at the BBC as a trainee, then working on regional and national television and radio, including presenting Asian Perspective for 3 years, a live news and current affairs programme on BBC Radio Five Live. In 2007 Nina was awarded an Honorary doctorate for Services to the Media.

She is an Ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, chairing events for the charity, and for the British Asian Trust. and is a Governor of Norwich University of the Arts. Nina is also a Trustee of the National Centre for Writing, and patron of the domestic abuse charity Leeway.

Rachel Quick | Trustee

Rachel is currently the Principal of The Wherry School in Norwich, following a career in Norfolk Primary, Middle and all through schools. Throughout her career she has sought to promote the Arts with pupils, seeking opportunities to visit galleries, work with artists, embedding art, the history of art, dance, music and drama into the curriculum. Her own passion and interest in Arts Education stems from my own early education in drama, dance, art, going on to complete a BA in History of Art at Warwick University.

Rachel came to Norfolk to continue studying at UEA, completing an MA at the Sainsbury Centre and further postgraduate studies at UEA, researching the use of visual art to promote learning amongst primary aged pupils. She continues to be inspired by the pupils she works with, and how Arts Education can make such a positive impact on mental health, anxiety management and regulation, as well as providing excitement and challenge.

Ellie Reeves | Young Trustee

Ellie Reeves is a poet, arts practitioner and YNA collective alumni based in Norwich. She is currently the Programme Assistant at National Centre for Writing where she managers commercial mentoring and supports writer development. After co-founding the arts & culture website rrramble in 2020, she has taken on the role of Head of Creative Development and Partnerships. rrramble is a unique platform designed to diversify the creative and critical voices in the arts.

Her poetry has been long listed for the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize and she has headlined Toast Poetry. Ellie’s work casts a sometimes comical, sometimes cynical eye on queer dynamics and the body in place. She has a longstanding love of performance; as well as encouraging others to take the stage, she recently performed in Wasp at Camden Fringe and Maddermarket Theatre.

Lewis Buxton | Trustee

A white man with short hair and a denim shirt is looking wistfully at the camera

Lewis Buxton is a poet, producer & workshop leader. Coming from a family of teachers, his work is concerned with fathers and sons, how we learn gender roles, and how young men’s image of their bodies fit into the modern world. His poems have appeared in Ambit Magazine, Oxford Poetry and Ink, Sweat and Tears. In 2017 he was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize, judged by Helen Mort. He has headlined stages at The Roundhouse, The Olympic Park, The Royal Festival Hall and the Norwich Arts Centre.

Lewis is the director and co-founder of TOAST Poetry, an organisation dedicated to the professional development of poets. He teaches creative writing in schools, libraries and universities around the country. In 2017 he was one of The Poetry School’s Mixed Borders Poets and was poet-in-residence at Alexandra Road Park in London.

Alanna Mound | Trustee

Alanna is a Financial Reporting Manager at Aviva Plc. She has previously held the roles of Finance Manager and Professional Services Staff Representative at Norwich University of the Arts. She trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) in the Norwich office of Grant Thornton UK LLP, where she spent 7 years working closely with many of Norfolk’s leading businesses and charities.

Alanna is passionate about the role which the arts play in society and their importance to the local and national economies.