A word from Liz Hill, Director of Daisi
Daisi Closure 2026
“Imagination is the foundation of everything that is uniquely and distinctively human. It is the basis of language, the arts, the sciences, systems of philosophy, and all the vast intricacies of human culture.” – Sir Ken Robinson, Author, Speaker, Expert on Creativity and Education
Daisi will close its doors at the end of this financial year, having successfully delivered over £6.25 million of activity, support, promotion and exploration of young people’s creative and cultural education in Devon and Torbay since 1995. Daisi has unfortunately found that we cannot secure the funds needed to make 2026/27 viable, therefore as a diligent charity the Board of Trustees have agreed that Daisi must close.
As many will know, the funding climate has become increasingly challenging over this time frame, and particularly since COVID, with many arts organisations being unable to continue, and unfortunately at the end of March 2026 Daisi too has succumbed. We are of course devastated that our charity of 31 years, and holding so much intellectual property, cannot continue, in a world where we all know how desperately our children need inclusive opportunities to explore their creativity, self-efficacy and role in the world’s cultural life. And yet we must recognise and celebrate that Daisi has successfully run for 31 years, and it has created 31 years’ worth of public benefit, especially for our region’s most vulnerable young people.
“Here I can be free and show what I can do unlike art class at school. Here I like to show what I can do. I like the small Young Carer group because we get quiet time and time to think. I never knew my friends like Robin and Josh could do amazing art and I never knew I could too!” – Emily, Young Carer
All those who have been involved will take away their experience and their internalised learning, as well as what they have and will continue to share with others. Daisi has in its time collaborated with many fabulous, local, professional artists – all unique, inspiring, skilled individuals dedicated to sharing and exploring their processes with young people. Adding up our artist partnerships across the 31 years we reach just under 2,000 (some/many of these will be artists repeatedly engaged each year). The staff team, always diligent, creative and highly skilled, with many staying for a significant number of years, has numbered over 20 staff employed by Daisi. And over 235,000 of Devon and Torbay’s children and young people have had direct Daisi project workshop experience (not counting those attending as audience members or attending festivals or looking at online exhibitions etc.) Over 50 Board members have volunteered their time, perspective and team work to Daisi, from the highly experienced to those new to the role or the area, and Young Trustees developing their board skills and now going forward as an asset to the region through further positions that I’m sure they will take up. Partnerships with schools, youth settings, cultural settings and other sector settings such as social care, housing, local authority etc. have reached 3,000 (with some/many of those being repeat or ongoing partnerships).
“…we want to provide our young carers with different materials and help them see that art is not just drawing…working with Daisi artists has had an emotional impact on some of our young carers that they will carry with them forever.” – Christine Franklin, Lead Practitioner, Westbank
Daisi has always been about partnership, about action research in schools, youth and community settings: What creative arts activity do children really enjoy and find relevant? What supports the vital educational learning that they need to grow up confident and assured, creative, and happy, in the current and future world? How can teachers work effectively with artists so that both can bring their professional skills to the table at the same time as expanding and learning from, and inspiring each other? And how can each be supported creatively and effectively in their challenging roles and future arts education partnerships? How can a project be best set up in each individual setting so that it adds and is integrated, rather than causing stress or a sense of add-on or extra-to? How can we document people’s voices to really understand the impact of the work, and how can we share that so that others can learn and try?
“Can I just take this opportunity to say thank you. This has been such a great development opportunity for myself and is really evolving my practice. I am excited to see how my new class engage next September.” – Teacher, Haytor View Primary
This could look like, in an individual school; a teacher, a class, an artist and Daisi collaborating in conversation to design a workshop that will support the teacher in the school objectives for that class. They may be specifically creative arts related, or connected to the wider curriculum, such as personal and social skills or indeed any subject material – which Daisi’s feedback tells us once physically and artistically explored feels so very meaningful to the children and enriches the learning so much.
“I had a parent nearly in tears the next morning, as she spoke about how much her child had loved it and how it had boosted her confidence. This makes a huge difference to our families.” – Assistant Head, St Leonards Primary School
In a larger project, it could look like: 8, 10, 15 or more schools, a raft of collaborating artists from different art forms, individual experts such as evaluators, senior management teams, opportunities for workshops in the participating schools, opportunities for the professional group of collaborators to come together and share and push their own learning – fantastic opportunities (in school halls, on hillsides, in woodlands, in museums, in a cathedral festooned with children’s art work banners celebrating the Olympic values, and all sorts of other exciting venues) that are not readily available elsewhere.
Or it could be collaboration with an outdoor or wider cultural venue or youth service, such as a National Trust home or a volunteer-led museum, or a stretch of coastline, or Dartmoor National Park, Library services, a festival, YMCA or Space Youth Services, bringing in those experts again to collaborate with artists and communities around enriching the learning and experience of young people – be that led by visual arts or poetry and writing and literacy, or digital art, drama, music or many other means of artistic expression.
“I saw people smile while working on the project who I had never seen smile in the sessions before” – Meghan Reed, Devon County Council
Daisi began back in 1995 when the then advisors for Art and English at Devon County Council, joined by other local inspirational and avant-garde creative thinkers, school governors, local artists and the arts community came together to ask “What can we do about the squeeze on the arts in the curriculum?” Their idea and decision was to run a three-year project Groundswell where artists from a range of art forms would go into schools and a team would document and observe the findings. What exactly is the Impact of Artists in Schools? These learnings and writings, showing strong, positive impact across a range of artistic, cultural, personal and social learning, have been at the very core of Daisi‘s work ever since. After Groundswell, it was realised that there was a growing appetite and need for this intervention across Devon and Torbay, and Daisi should become an organisation, so it registered as a charity in 1998 and soon after attracted Arts Council attention and funding. Another project encompassing multiple schools, and recognising the impact of arts partnerships on the whole school community, soon followed – Strengthening School Communities – and then 3 decades of projects targeting a wide range of geographical areas, art forms, and most importantly young people’s identified needs, the most recent large-scale partnership project being Talking Turns – increasing children’s oracy through arts-based teaching and learning in Torbay.
“What seems to be most interesting in terms of the pupils’ learning, is that this pattern of activity [workshop and producing art work] involves moving between roles – both for the artist (who also acts, for example, as audience and critic), and for the pupils, who may begin as spectators, before becoming makers and performers themselves. And it’s the flexibility of the role that helps the pupils to see how one part of the artistic process relates to another.” – The Impact of Artists in Schools, Daisi and Nick Jones, 2000
Always as an independent charity, Daisi has ridden many, many political landscapes, funding contexts, partnership opportunities, local authority changes, contract opportunities, educational policy changes, public health and wellbeing crises. Daisi has always found a way to financially support deep, reflective work, which not only creates wonderful experiences for young people but also unique opportunities for professional development and collaboration for their teachers and local artists.
The Daisi community would like to thank the many funders who have believed in and encouraged our work, supporting us with the vital resources required to deliver high quality work where it’s most needed. There are too many to mention here, but in particular we thank those who have supported multi-year projects, allowing us to build our impact and have some ability to plan ahead. For example: Paul Hamlyn Foundation; Arts Council England; Youth Music; Devon County Council; Torbay Council; National Lottery Heritage Fund, Dartington North Devon Foundation, The Helen Foundation and many more.
“Children in the classroom, who struggle to express their learning in the written form, suddenly become highly motivated and really shine when given different opportunities to demonstrate their learning through the arts.” – Mark Brudenell, Creative Practitioner and CPD Lead, on Talking Turns, a Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded project
It’s been an absolute privilege to be part of Daisi’s story, and to work with the inspirational, creative, energetic and forward-thinking artists, staff, young people, partners and collaborators highlighted above, and many more. I wish everyone all the very best for their ongoing journeys and thank you, all, for the enormous contribution that you have made to Devon and Torbay’s youth in the past, present and future. May the legacy of your Daisi days be taken onwards with you and scattered positively on new ground!