Adventures In Regeneration

NEA’s unique approach was developed over the course of a decade of pioneering work in Folkestone, a coastal town on the south east tip of the UK. The story of the Folkestone project is told in Adventures in Regeneration, available as a paperback or as a free downloadable pdf.

“Interwoven with a cogent description of many complex layers of local and national context, Ewbank’s account provides an important record of how the much-touted (but usually elusive) ideal of ‘urban regeneration’ through the arts was to emerge, in Folkestone, as a reality.”

Dr Stephen Deuchar CBE, Director, The Art Fund

In some quarters, urban regeneration through the arts has come to be seen as a panacea – something that will, almost miraculously, cure all the ills of communities afflicted by years of decline. At the other extreme, there are those who argue that the arts have no place on the battlefields of regeneration: in economic development; in enhancing health and well-being and in tackling social issues.

In Adventures in Regeneration Nick Ewbank provides new fuel for this debate by offering an illuminating history of the first decade of the ground-breaking experiment in regeneration through the arts that began in Folkestone – a medium-sized town at the south east tip of Britain – at the start of the new millennium. Focusing in turn on the physical regeneration of Folkestone’s Old Town, the transformation of Folkestone’s educational landscape and the development of the town’s cultural life (including the launch of the Folkestone Triennial), Adventures in Regeneration sheds light on the personalities of some of the key individuals involved in the project, including the philanthropist Roger De Haan, whose personal quest it has become.

Featuring many colourful, informative and often entertaining images, Adventures in Regeneration is a thoroughly readable and visually fascinating account of a cliff-top town brought back from the brink.

Adventures in Regeneration by Nick Ewbank (Published June 2011, NEA Publishing; 135 pages).

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