Art | Columbia Threadneedle Foundation | Columbia Threadneedle Investments

A vibrant arts sector brings a wide range of social, cultural and economic benefits. For more than 10 years, Columbia Threadneedle has been a major supporter of the arts in the UK through partnerships that span visual arts, art as therapy and art-based education programmes for diverse groups and communities from London and around the UK.

Take One Picture...

Clean Break women’s theatre company

AT The Bus

Swindon Children’s Scrapstore

Take One Picture at the National Gallery

Columbia Threadneedle Foundation has partnered with the National Gallery in London since 2018 to support the Gallery’s ‘Take One Picture’ learning programme and exhibition. Complementing the Foundation’s support, Columbia Threadneedle Investments is the exclusive corporate sponsor of Take One Picture.

Take One Picture is the National Gallery’s flagship primary schools programme. Each year the Gallery chooses one painting from the collection to inspire primary classrooms countrywide. The programme aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning, inspiring a lifelong connection with artists, museums and galleries.

Henri Rousseau, ‘Surprised!’ 1891 © The National Gallery, London.

A display of work produced by schools based on the painting is then shown at the National Gallery in a dedicated exhibition and a selection is published on the National Gallery website. To be considered for the display, schools submit examples of how a whole class or school has used the picture in a cross-curricular way. Explore Take One Picture here.

We are proud to sponsor the Take One Picture learning programme and exhibition for the seventh consecutive year. For the first time, the exhibition is being displayed outside the walls of the Gallery and on Trafalgar Square, running as part of the Gallery’s Free Festival of Art. This year the National Gallery has selected ‘Surprised!’ (1891) by Henri Rousseau, one of the Gallery’s top 20 most popular and visited paintings, as the source of inspiration.

Clean Break women’s theatre company

In 2018 the Foundation began a multi-year partnership with Clean Break, a thriving charity and theatre company doing vitally important work with women in prison or with experience of prison in the UK. The Foundation will donate £90,000 over three years to Clean Break and will provide further support through volunteering, pro bono assistance and advocacy.

Women’s offending is frequently underpinned by a range of complex and gender-specific needs. Clean Break was set up in 1979 by two women prisoners who believed that theatre could bring the hidden stories of imprisoned women to a wider audience. It produces ground-breaking theatre which puts women’s voices at its heart. Through theatre and tailored support, Clean Break builds women’s resilience, skills and creativity and gives them a voice.

The Foundation supports Clean Break’s Members Programme, which is open to women aged 17 and above who have lived experience of the criminal justice system or are at risk of entering it. It offers a foundation of learning and skills in theatre performance, creativity and wellbeing, as well as opportunities to engage in professional, public facing performance projects. Through a unique repertory of new plays and theatre-based creative learning, Clean Break raises difficult questions, inspires debate, and helps to effect profound and positive change in the lives of women with experience of the criminal justice system.

Learn more about Clean Break.

AT The Bus

The Foundation is proud to be a founding supporter of AT The Bus, an innovative art-based charity that offers young people access to a high quality provision that seeks to improve their mental health. It offers a school-based programme of art as therapy to support the mental wellbeing of children and young people aged 5 -18 in Oxfordshire and London.

Group sessions take place during the school day in a purposely designed therapeutic studio space in a double decker bus located on school grounds. Students work in small groups led by experienced facilitators trained in the Beattie Methodology, a creative therapeutic intervention that supports mental wellbeing, alleviates anxiety, develops resilience and helps young people build their self-esteem, self-confidence and independence. The double decker bus offers a calm, safe space within the school site for students to access.

There is no doubt that what was already a crisis in children’s mental health has been dramatically exacerbated by Covid-19 and the associated constraints for young people. In September 2021 The Royal College of Psychiatrists reported record levels of referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), with 200,000 referrals between April and June 2021, up 134% on the same period in 2020.

Learn more about AT The Bus.

Swindon Children’s Scrapstore

Scrapstore is an environmental charity, social enterprise and community resource centre providing the Swindon community with low cost, environmentally friendly resources for use in recreational, educational and leisure time activities.

Columbia Threadneedle has a large office in Swindon and our employees support Scrapstore’s Creative Art & Craft workshops, which use scrap materials for innovative arts-based projects that encourage local communities to be actively involved. Facilitated by local artists, the workshops develop the children’s abilities, whilst demonstrating that all kinds of materials can be used in creative and practical ways. Many of the children involved are disadvantaged and from hard to reach sections of the community. The ethos of the workshops is to promote children’s creativity, to experiment, risk take and not to have predetermined outcomes.

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