Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village is located in Surrey; a county that is perceived as wealthy. In fact, Surrey has significant areas of urban and rural deprivation with high levels of child poverty, low income, and poor mental health, for example: 10% of children in Surrey live in poverty; the population of travellers and gypsies is the fourth largest in the UK; there are 5 prisons including 2 women’s prisons and 1 young offenders institution; levels of domestic violence are particularly high.

We will deliver the Big Issues Project, an outreach and social enterprise programme, to prisons, and socially excluded and vulnerable community groups. The Project will offer workshops enabling participants to explore our collections, to discuss the issues painted by G F Watts, to talk about their own lives, to learn art and design skills, and to make art, craft and design. They will then be invited to exhibit and sell their work. The workshops are therapeutic and targeted at rehabilitation.