Creative Break Time

This short documentary film documents the uniquely collaborative project Creative Break Time. Created by Focal Point Gallery, Metal Southend and The Other MA (TOMA) the project takes place between 2024 to 2027 as they work closely with local school teachers and creative practitioners through a collaborative, active research project.

Creative Break Time explores the wellbeing of teachers whilst providing them with care and creative time to foster inspiration, collaboration and peer learning. The local project seeks to connect through supportive residencies, artist and teacher-led workshops, teacher-training resources, in-school activities, artist-teacher partnerships and ‘deep hanging out’ with special guests from educational and creative sectors.

As of 2026, the collaboration has: hung out in intensive residencies across Essex, travelled by boat to cross the Blackwater Estuary, shared our work at the iJADE 2025 Conference, hosted crits for artists and teachers, commissioned teachers to create wellbeing gifts and tools for their colleagues and co-developed new teacher training tools to ‘itch the curriculum’.

The project's co-researchers include teachers from Greenways Primary, Milton Hall Primary, Shoeburyness High and St Bernard’s High School, as well as artists from all disciplines who live and work in South Essex.

Through interviews and moments captured from projects, the short film spotlights the project’s ultimate mission to bring Southend artists and teachers together in transformative ways – weaving in its joyful yet grounding ethics of care, rest, wellbeing and meaningful collaboration. 

Creative Break Time is a collaboration between Focal Point Gallery, Metal and TOMA (The Other MA).

Focal Point Gallery is South Essex’s only public contemporary art gallery, open to all. We build a community and safe space for enjoying art and the creative process. Our goal is to inspire curiosity by presenting thought-provoking contemporary art that explores our locality, identity, and community. Since 2016, FPG has led the ‘Radical Essex’ programme, re-examining the county’s history of radicalism in thought, lifestyle, politics, and architecture. For over 30 years, FPG has championed Southend-on-Sea, attracting visitors and changing perceptions of Essex. Our learning and engagement programme collaborates with local schools to provide access to pioneering art and foster creative skills in teachers and pupils. 

Metal champions the right for artists, creatives, and curious people to follow their passions, explore dreams, and tackle problems through creativity to inspire positive change locally. We nurture artists, champion creative agency, convene cross-disciplinary networks, and produce large-scale art events that reimagine public spaces. We work in Liverpool, Peterborough, and Southend-on-Sea, invited by local authorities, Arts Council England, and other partners. Our work is rooted in practice-based research themes relevant to each area, such as urban biodiversity in Liverpool, food and farming in Peterborough, and creative learning in Essex. 

The Other MA (TOMA) is an 18-month artist-run programme in Southend-on-Sea, supporting artists facing barriers to art education and the 'art world.' Founded in 2016, TOMA offers affordable, accessible, and responsive art education, being the only postgraduate art programme in Essex since universities discontinued theirs. Unaccredited in the traditional sense, TOMA provides valuable learning experiences for artists. Shaped by austerity and the rise of tuition fees, TOMA promotes collaboration over competition and believes in collective change. 

Creative Break Time is supported by Freelands Foundation’s Autumn 2023 Grant. 

This film was made by Realm Video and includes footage filmed at Old Leigh Studios, Metal Southend, Othona Community, The Old Waterworks and Hadleigh Country Park.