CEO of Community Arts by ZK, now based at Business First, Northlight, Pendle
Community Arts by ZK is a business that uses creative projects to help the local community flourish and thrive, using art workshops as a tool to bring people together and help build resilience.
We’ve been using the facilities at Northlight as a central base for the business and also as a location to run workshops. We invite artists in residence to work with the community in Pendle exploring a range of textile techniques so there’s a link there between my business and the historic use of the building.
We deliver workshops to help the community thrive and flourish. That includes a lot of work around mental health and wellbeing, using art as a tool for people to express themselves. Sometimes it’s difficult to put feelings into words, and art can help with that. It’s cathartic, in a creative way.
Northlight is a very special place, it’s got the Wow factor. It’s a beautiful historic building, surrounded by nature. It helps you relax, and it’s great for your mental health so that’s a big plus for Community Arts by ZK.
“At Business First Northlight you can make the space your own…”
Our office is 500 square foot and we’ve had everything made bespoke. That’s one of the great things about Northlight, you can make the space your own. We’ve had all the furniture made and designed to match our brand colours especially for us by Bevlan Office Interiors in Accrington.
At Northlight, the office becomes your own space which you can customise to suit your own business, and that’s very important to us because of the work we do. We’ve got our branding on the walls, and our company colours. In other shared workspaces you simply don’t get that level of flexibility.
For a creative company like ours, with resident artists, it’s so important to be in an attractive building and one that reflects who we are as an organisation. Here we’ve got views of the canal on one side and the hills on the other, blended with a historically and culturally important landscape. It’s perfect.
Everyone’s really friendly here, and we’re proud for our clients to see where we are, where we operate. It’s a fantastic location, with the canal and the countryside around here. It’s perfect and I’d recommend Business First at Northlight to any business.