Community & Change

Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange has always been shaped by the needs of the communities it serves. This mission has been sharpened in recent years by national and global events that have long-lasting impacts on those communities, particularly the most vulnerable and marginalised.

We recognise that to to be relevant and useful to our communities, including the least represented, we must invite them into the organisation to shape our programmes, to devolve decision making and to learn from and work with organisations that champion them.

This social change agenda has urged action. We’ve invited community curators to bring fresh perspective and insight to our exhibition programme, supported communities in crisis and rigorously explored what successful creative health can offer the most excluded. We have intervened directly to support the teaching of art in schools, and invited artists to ask contemporary questions about the biggest issues we face. The result is a more resilient and representative organisation able to offer a rich participative and engaging programme to our entire audience.

Wellbeing & Creative Health

Image shows a group of people standing on rocky beacj with large bags of marine rubbish in front of them

Hyper-Local / Internationally Connected

Artists' Activism

Creativity in Education

Key Statistics / Our Impact

10% of staff identify as part of the global majority (compared to 2% of the Cornwall population). People from lower socio-economic backgrounds and younger people are also now more strongly represented. D/deaf disabled people are less well represented, at 2% of our workforce, but through initiatives such as Future Curators, we have taken action to address this.

Our board, leadership, and wider staff/volunteer teams work effectively together within a collegiate culture. Our Mission, Vision and Values underpin all our work and were shaped through whole-team working and are owned and embraced by all. Our decision-making is increasingly data-driven; an approach we will expand in the coming years.

Equally, those we engage as audiences/participants are becoming more diverse.

Since 2017, we have seen increases amongst four of the five least-engaged audience segments. IMD19 postcode analysis shows improving engagement trends with residents of the 20% most deprived wards (up from 11% to 18% of visitors – 16% of Cornish population).
Visitor age profiles have moved too. In 2017, 15% of visitors were under 45yrs. By 2022, this increased to 40%. Global Majority audiences more than doubled, from 2% to 6% (Cornwall 2%).
8% of our audiences describe themselves as disabled compared to 21% in Cornwall. As with our workforce, more targeted work is required.
While our in-gallery visitor totals fluctuated, we see in 2024/25 a return to pre-pandemic figures and our online user figure has more than doubled in five years to 58k.

What Success will look like

Building on our previous successes, delivering Let’s Create for Arts Council England will mean communities not previously engaged with the arts will feel ownership of the gallery and part of our team.

We will have inspired and equipped young people, older people, and young families through access to creative education.
Our ambitious and dynamic programmes will centre diverse voices, particularly those reflecting intersectional protected characteristics, increasing their representation amongst staff and board.
We will have reached more people, increasing the numbers we engage on-site, and bolstered by off-site programming, and through this work, provide vital support and access to creativity to those underserved in our local communities.

Through intelligent data-driven targeting and evaluation, our work will be relevant to the lives of a much broader cross-section of people, providing material support and enriching lives. We will have continually challenged ourselves to think and act differently, to achieve this goal.