Ruby Sant's Community Projects
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Bath Spa’s Inclusive Communities Development Officer spearheads community projects
Thursday, 25 January, 2024Bath Spa University is committed to encouraging students from all backgrounds to study and thrive in higher education, helping people develop skills today that will set them apart in the future.
In September 2023, the university was named as Sunday Times University of the Year for Social Inclusion and is considered sector-leading in its inclusive approach to higher education, with nearly one-third of entrants in 2020-21 identifying as disabled or neurodiverse.
Ruby Sant is Bath Spa University’s Inclusive Communities Development Officer. She is tasked with strengthening relationships between the university and its students with the wider community. She does this by including students in community projects; and helping students, artists and creatives access commissions and funding that will help them develop their arts practice in a way that is financially viable and sustainable.
Ruby is also Creative Director at Little Lost Robot CIC, a collective of social practice artists who create immersive and interactive, digital and playable art that strives to bring visibility to the risks to the standard of living for othered communities. Some of their stand-out commissions include creating large, outdoor sculptures for Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace and Glastonbury Festival.
Bath Spa University recently announced the successful bid for a £1m grant from WECA and Arts Council England’s National Lottery Place Partnerships Fund for Culture West. This project will enable every child and young person to access a cultural experience each year, commission two new festivals, support and provide work for 425 creative freelancers and engage over 109,000 people in arts and cultural experiences with live audiences of more than 270,000. Ruby was an integral part of the team who applied for this grant.
In November 2022, Creative Twerton was launched by Little Lost Robot CIC in partnership with Bath and North East Somerset Council High Street Regeneration Team, Creativity Works and Youth Connect South West. Two long-term vacant and boarded-up shops in Twerton, Bath were redeveloped and turned into a creative hub for the local community. Ruby was at the forefront of this project too.
Ruby said:
“I was fortunate to get a Fellowship in automation from the South West Creative Technology Network. I worked on creating reactive and people-safe soft robotics, and my key academic partner was Bath Spa University. This led to the launch of Little Lost Robot, and we are now part of a community of creative tech startups at The Studio in Bath - Bath Spa University’s city centre home for enterprise and innovation. Having expertise in community driven work, creative tech and working as an artist has meant that I’ve been able to work on regionally significant projects.”
The next impactful project on the cards is a brand-new arts centre in Radstock. It will include open access arts, community and warm space provision for families and young people, a range of artist residency spaces, community and teaching space and an indoor Skatepark, with free skating sessions and classes. It has been funded by WECA’s Mayoral Priority Support Fund and the WECA funded B&NES high street regeneration programme and is a partnership project with Radstock Town Council, B&NES and Little Lost Robot. The opening date will be announced very soon so watch this space.
Ruby understands the challenges young people face in education and business. She said:
“I come from a traveller background so my childhood involved quite long difficult winters where I would be in school and do my best to 'act normal' followed by brilliant summers where I would be living in a field, alongside my band of adopted brothers and sisters."
She continued:
"As a child, I always wanted to be an artist. Art has always felt like a safe place for me. I didn’t realise until I was older that the more difficult parts of my childhood such as extreme poverty, exclusion, prejudice, drugs and alcohol, and some abusive adults in the community, would not only feed into my own artistic practice but also support me in my equally long career of teaching and co-creating work and community experiences with people who experience that sense of 'otherness'. There is community in being othered!”
Find out more about Ruby Sant’s community projects on the Little Lost Robot website.