Our Story
A registered charity, Kernow Education Arts Partnership was founded in 2001 as an arts education agency, championing best practice and supporting schools and artists in creating an arts rich, creative curriculum. Fast forward to 2014, and after the funding landscape changed significantly, we took the brave step to move from being a service organisation to being a producer. Using our skills, experiences and literature specialism we have created unique programmes and projects which focus on building experiences, confidence, skills and enjoyment in writing and story.
We created The Story Republic as a roving installation and performance project, being resident in schools, cultural venues and town centres. Through this project and our research into the different environments professional writers use through A Space to Write, we began to understand the impact of transformation of space on children’s creativity.
In 2017 we opened The Writers’ Block in its first home at Cornwall College Camborne. Originally designed to inspire children and break down barriers to writing, we soon realised this approach worked just as well with adults.
The Story Republic became a valuable emerging performer development programme, a bridge between drama school and the performance sector. With a repertoire of Cornish stories, songs and poems, traditional and contemporary, The Story Republic celebrates real Cornish culture and is also a mechanism for bringing new work to audiences.
We began looking for a new high street home for The Writers’ Block as we wanted to be more accessible and visible, and in January 2023 we opened in The Ladder, the former library building on Clinton Road in Redruth. The Ladder is a Passmore Edwards building which had fallen into disrepair before being taken on by Josh & Felix of RIFT theatre as a community and cultural space. Their vision and tenacity has seen the building undergo two rounds of structural and internal renovation, with a further to come. We are delighted to be founding tenants of the building and strong partners with RIFT.
