1.1 Mission //

bloc seeks to build on its expertise in creative technology in Wales towards the development of an innovation ecology - mapping, networking, advocating and developing new opportunities for innovation - across the fields of creativity, society and technology in Wales. We seek to position innovation in Wales at the forefront of international developments in these fields.

We proudly bridge the traditional islands of art and business – a place where innovation, new models and processes emerge. We preference development and doing over listening and seeing. Through our programme we create an ongoing 'laboratory' of research, clinics, peer-to-peer mentoring, workshops, 'sandpits', commissions and festivals.

bloc is an agency and works together with a range of partners and participants across different disciplines and cultures to deliver its programme.

bloc cuts across artforms and places creative practice at the heart of what it does. The organisation is 'practice-led', contracting creative practitioners based in Wales to conceive, develop and deliver our programme of work. We champion ambitious creative entrepreneurs and support high-quality emerging forms of creative practice.

1.3 Our aims

bloc's main aims for the next four years are:

1. To place innovation and new forms of creative practice at the heart of what we do and to take risks in new models of presentation and distribution;
2. To engage with schools, colleges and universities and promote lifelong learning, in the areas of innovation and development of ideas;
3. To find imaginative and challenging ways to engage society, touch people and encourage new ambition regardless of race, ethnic background, disability or age;
4. To raise awareness of Welsh innovation ecology and help to promote Wales as a modern country with a professional community of creative practitioners, doers and entrepreneurs working across creativity, society and technology;
5. To affect and inform creative and cultural policies and strategies in Wales, in relation to innovation;
6. To increase the number of users of bloc's online resources and the number of attenders of our ongoing programme of events;
7. To create financial stability for bloc and diversify our income base;
8. To strengthen the organisation's management and to build systems in anticipation of the introduction of PAYE staffing;
9. To enhance awareness of environmental issues within the organisation and across our programme.

`Hundred A Day Harry` oil on canvas 2006
Iwan Lewis
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