The last ever Gallery TS1 is now open for business until Saturday March 22nd – this time offering unique hand-made gifts with a Spring and Easter theme.
Gallery TS1 Middlesbrough is a pioneering Creative Apprenticeship Scheme for young people not in education, employment or training. Modelled on a programme initially developed in Chicago and Birmingham, Middlesbrough Council have worked in partnership with Tees Valley Arts in order that the programme can expand its remarkable success in turning around young people’s lives.
Gallery TS1 has been funded through the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund through Middlesbrough Partnership but unfortunately the funding ends this financial year. Tees Valley Arts and Middlesbrough Council are currently exploring ways to continue the scheme in the future but this could be the final Gallery TS1 in its present format.
Based in a commercial shop/gallery space with workshop facilities, Gallery TS1 offers 12 young people the opportunity to work with three professional artists, Adrian Moule, Kim Thomson and Amy Readman, to create high quality, saleable products, and then sell them to the public.
Gallery TS1 also works in association with Trinity Guildhall and the Young People’s Arts Award.
Based at 57 Corporation Road, Gallery TS1 targets hard-to-reach groups of young people who have been referred by agencies such as Connexions, Youth Justice, Youth Psychiatric Services, Teenage Pregnancy Support and the Safer Middlesbrough Partnership.
Rowena Sommerville, Director of Programmes at Tees Valley Arts said “Approximately 250 young people have passed through Gallery TS1, all of them in some way vulnerable or disengaged, and over 90% have gone on to re-engage or to enrol with mainstream provision, making it one of the most successful projects of its kind. To see trainees go on to bigger and better things is absolutely fantastic. I’d urge members of the public to visit Gallery TS1 for what could be a last opportunity to purchase some brilliant artwork.”
Gallery TS1 is open until Saturday March 22nd, 10am – 4pm, Closed on Sundays and Mondays and Good Friday. (57 Corporation Road, opposite Middlesbrough Empire).