Borderlands is a Creative People and Places programme working across Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. We exist to support more people to choose, create, and take part in brilliant creative experiences, particularly in places where access to arts and culture has historically been limited.
At the heart of Borderlands is a belief that creativity already lives within our communities. Our role is to listen, collaborate, and create the conditions for people's ideas, stories, skills, and ambitions to flourish. We work alongside local residents, artists, and partners to co-design creative projects that are meaningful, inclusive, and rooted in place.
Borderlands focuses on neighbourhoods where participation in arts and culture is lower, not because of a lack of interest or talent, but because of barriers such as access, oppourtunity, and representation. We aim to break down those barriers by putting community voice and choice first, supporting activity that reflects people's lived experiences, heritage, and aspirations.
Our work is about more than events or projects. It's about building long-term creative confidence, connection, and pride, ensuring that arts and culture are part of everyday life. Through collaboration, care for people and place, and commitment to sustainability, Borderlands is working towards a future where creativity is shaped by - and belongs to- everyone.
Our work matters because access to creativity is not a luxury. It supports connection, confidence, wellbeing, and a sense of belonging. When people are supported to take part in creative activity on their own terms, it can strengthen relationships, amplify local voices, and help communities tell their own stories with pride and authenticity.
Borderlands challenges the idea that culture is something that happens to communities rather than with them. By putting local people at the center of the descion-making, we help shift power, build trust, and create creative experiences that reflect real lives, places, and identities.
We also believe in the importance of long-term change. Short-term projects alone cannot address deep-rooted barriers to participation. Our approach focuses on sustained relationships, local knowledge, and care for people and place. This lays the foundations for a creative ecology that can grow, adapt, and be led by communities themselves.
Ultimately, our work matters because when creativity is accessible, inclusive, and locally shaped, it becomes a tool for hope, agency, and collective possibility.
We're looking for volunteers who are curious, open-minded, and care about the places they live in - not just people who love arts and culture!
You don't need formal experience to get involved, what matters most to us is attitude, values, and a willingness to take part.
We're keen to hear from people who:
- are interested in creativity, community, or making things happen locally
- enjoy working with others and meeting people from different backgrounds
- are open to listening, learning, and sharing ideas
- care about fairness, inclusion, and giving people a voice
- are reliable, supportive, and happy to get involved in different ways
We welcome volunteers of all ages, backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, including people who may not have volunteered before. Your lived experience, local knowledge, and perspective are valuable, and we believe creativity grows stronger when many voices are involved.
Above all, we're looking for people who believe that culture should be shaped by communities, not imposed on them, and who want to be part of something fun and positive!
Borderlands is not a traditional arts organisation. We don't start with a fixed programme, a set of venues, or assumptions about what culture should look like. We start with people, places, and lived experience.
What makes us different is how we work:
- Community-led - local people help shape what happens, where it happens, and why. Creativity is co-designed, not delivered.
- No 'right' way to be creative - we value everyday creativity just as much as formal arts practice. Making, talking, sharing, storytelling, and experimenting all matter.
- Rooted in place - our work responds to the history, challenges, and strengths of specific neighbourhoods. We build long-term relationships rather than short-term projects.
- Access comes first - we actively work to remove barriers, whether that's cost, confidence, language, time, or feeling like 'I'm not creative!'
- Caring and inclusive - we prioritise respect, listening, and wellbeing. People's voices, time, and experiences are treated with care.
Being part of Borderlands means being part of something that values process as much as outcomes, learning as much as success, and people as much as projects. We believe culture is strongest when it grows from the ground up, and is shaped by the communities who live it everyday.
Our Opportunities
Borderlands is on the look out for flexible volunteers to help us deliver our creative and cultural programme across Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. The roles we are offering will be events-based, at different venues around the local area.