About
Artmoor Haven is a community creative hub promoting creative wellbeing based at The Clay Factory on the edge of Dartmoor and Ivybridge. It offers a variety of weekly, monthly and annual events for people of all ages to come and experience the benefits of creative living. These include a monthly 'Walk, Meditate, Create' day retreat, a monthly Art Playground with Creative Cafe, a weekly Art Club and a monthly Tech Club as well as individual art tuition.
Artmoor Haven was set up as a non-profit community interest company by local artist and activist Jamila Hanan. Following an intensive decade campaigning to stop serious human rights abuses and coordinating crowded funded aid efforts to bring relief to survivors of genocide, Jamila turned to art, meditation and spending time on Dartmoor to help relieve accumulated trauma that was leading to burn out.
Realising the benefits of living a creative life, Jamila decided to share her methods with others, in the knowledge that finding time to regularly restore the body and mind helps people better deal with difficulties in work and life. In addition, she has found that connecting with creativity stimulates imaginative problem solving capacities. Jamila holds an MA in Fine Art from Arts University Plymouth, a certificate in Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Training from the School of Positive Transformation, a BSc in Computing and Technology and a HND in Software Engineering.
Since Artmoor Haven's launch in May 2022, through experimentation with the community, new methods of collaborative and inclusive art making have been developed. Using recycled materials as much as possible, such as old rolls of wallpaper, cardboard and packaging paper, as well as unwanted art materials donated by the local community, the understanding that art making is accessible for all, regardless of income, is promoted.
We have experienced that when people of all different abilities make artwork in a supportive environment together, new friendships develop naturally. People grow in confidence as they develop new skills and tap into their creativity, which may previously have been blocked by earlier negative art experiences and frequently during art lessons at school.
It is always exciting to experience what group artworks evolve through the making process and to see large pieces initiated from just the seed of an idea, through to completion, within a very short space of time. Even more exciting is to witness and be part of the feeling of fulfilment when realising what can be achieved as we encourage each other to experiment and play together, without judgement and whilst having a lot of fun!