Born in Lagos, Nigeria
Community Cohesion & Communications Officer, Artist (Dance, Drama, Vocalist), Chair of Liverpool Arts & Culture Network
Artist's statement
Over the past 10 years my experience of working in the North West has been wide and varied. I originally trained for three years as a community artist at LIPA and I am very thankful for this great opportunity as my mentors really believed in me, helping me to believe in myself and my ability to achieve great things.
I am never really satisfied to sit and be the same as anyone else, I strive for excellence and try to find more unique opportunities to work in collaboration with others so I can learn from them and grow as an artist and as a person.
I see myself as a bit of an anomaly, I currently (try to) straddle both my Local Strategic Partnership role as well as the third sector development interest that I have inherited from my community arts training. I love where I am at the moment. I feel as though I have a real opportunity to positively affect the lives of many people and as a community artist, what more can I ask!
Adeyinka’s Career Information
I have worked in varying contexts, within a wide range of institutions in Liverpool (and across the UK) including many mainstream & 'specialist' schools, lecturing in universities and colleges and providing specialist training for teachers as well as working with various academics and practitioners wishing to develop different arts-based training initiatives.
As a trained community artist I am acutely aware of the necessity to be able to communicate with a wide range of people. With this in mind I have spent a significant amount of time working across the business, private and community sectors using my skills and experience and have more recently took the post of Community Cohesion & Communications Officer at Liverpool First - the Local Strategic Partnership for Liverpool.
I am also currently Chair of Liverpool’s Arts & Culture Network and in this role I have a responsibility to strategically develop the profile of this third sector contributor. To this end I have recently been working with strategically important partners, informing Liverpool’s cultural strategy process and helping develop the role that arts and culture can play in the socio-economic renaissance that Liverpool is currently going through.
On top of this, in my spare time I have worked with Liverpool Football Club as a member of their ‘community coaching team’ and am member of BURA – the British Urban Regeneration Association – a nationally recognised forum and think-tank developing models of best practice in regeneration. I am also currently an ‘advisory member’ on the City Council’s Culture and Leisure Select Committee and scrutiny panel – which has a remit to scrutinise Liverpool’s mainstream leisure services as well as the Capital of Culture events for 2008 (and beyond).
I have had the opportunity to experience much during my developmental stages as a community artist, travelling Europe, Africa and Brazil. I still try to keep one foot in the practitioner’s world - singing with a nationally recognised gospel choir and having had the opportunity to take part in several high profile events such as Live 8 with Madonna (as both a singer and dancer).
My greatest achievement is that I am very happily married and have a beautiful little daughter.
Contact details
Adeyinka Olushonde
Emails: zionpele@yahoo.com
Adeyinka.olushonde@liverpool.gov.uk
