Arts Council England, North West

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This year's art08 awards, celebrating arts across the north west, was a great success.

The art08 awards ceremony, which was hosted by comedian and writer Dave Spikey, was the region’s fifth annual cultural celebration of the arts, organised by the Arts Council England, North West in partnership with the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).

The event saw a number of the region’s best artistic talent recognised for their excellent and innovative work in five set awards categories: Unsung Heroes, Putting the North West on the Map, Creative Sparks, Inside Outside Online and Individual Artist.

The shortlist was as follows:

Putting the North West on the Map Award

• Shisha for the Asia Triennial 2008


• Manchester International Festival for Monkey - Journey to the West


• Artichoke for La Machine


• Lewis Biggs for his work to establish Liverpool as the UK’s centre of the contemporary visual arts


• North West Disability Arts Forum for DaDaFest International 2008

Winner: Manchester International Festival


Creative Sparks Award

• Royal Exchange and Bruntwood for The Bruntwood Playwriting Competition for the Royal Exchange


• The Bluecoat and Yorkshire Bank for Shine at The Bluecoat in association with Yorkshire Bank

Winner: The Bluecoat and Yorkshire Bank

Inside Outside Online Award

• Jane Davis for The Reader Organisation


• The Nuffield Theatre for its programming experiment 2007/2008


• folly for the VELOCITY festival of digital culture

Winner: The Nuffield Theatre

Unsung Heroes Award

• Paul Hartley – for developing and delivering inspirational, sustainable and creative young people’s engagement programmes in Lancashire


• James Hoy and James Furnell - for designing and building The Engine Rooms music and arts centre, Skelmersdale


• Yvonne Tennant - for young people’s arts activities in Pendle and establishing Fusion Community Arts


• The Volunteers of the Northern Rural Touring Consortium – for their value and contribution to the arts sector in the north west

Winner: Paul Hartley

Individual Artist Award

• Artist Naomi Kashiwagi


• Artist Rachel Goodyear


• Artist Wendy Hesketh


• Artist Steve Messam

Winner: Naomi Kashiwagi

One winner on the evening also walked away with the Arts Council England, North West Award for Outstanding Achievement and £10,000 to put towards a further project.

Paul Hartley was unanimously voted as the winner, after devloping and delivering inspirational, sustainable and creative young people's engagement programmes such as Channel 4's The Big Art Project in Burnley.

Paul said:“It’s amazing to win this award, I’m overwhelmed. It’s the young people though, who are the stars, they made this happen. It’s their experiences that make me passionate about what I do because I can see the difference projects like Big ArT make to them; it raises their expectations and aspirations in life and breaks boundaries for them. The prize money will allow me to continue working with the young people from Big ArT and they already have plans to spread the word to other young people through visits to schools.”

Aillen McEvoy, Interim Executive Director of Arts Council England, North West, commenting: "Paul is a truly deserving winner; he is an inspiration to all that work with him and has proven his dedication and commitment to furthering arts in the region. Indeed all our art08 award winners have demonstrated their dedication to delivering the kind of fantastic work that inspires us and brings us together, making the North West a better place to be.”