Welcome to INYBB...

At It’s Not Your Birthday But… we’re all about the power of connecting with others through letters, words and visual arts. 

We work in a range of community settings from care homes to schools, hospitals to hospices, prisons to wellbeing groups. We place artists in each setting to inspire others to share what’s important or helpful to them through creativity. Most of our work is with young people and young adults aged 14-21 who are in custody or not in mainstream education.

We aim to ensure everyone we work with is given a platform to be well and truly heard in the wider community.  We join up different parts of a community who would not otherwise meet. We hope this leads to greater understanding, empathy and continued engagement between people or groups who may otherwise walk past each other on the street or assume they have nothing in common. We challenge the labels society puts on us as mass groups (the vulnerable, the elderly, NEETs, the hard-to-reach, young offenders, the terminally ill to name a few) to share individual stories of the humans who have these labels and accompanying narratives put upon them. 

Our programme comes in three forms:

- artist-led: one of our team shares a skill or technique that others are invited to try

- creative wellbeing: we provide a safe and supportive space for creative expression, reflection and exploration

- co-creation; we work together to create an artwork through a collaborative process

We give people space and support to engage with their own creativity, imaginations and words and share the results with others. Words and images that enable them to share what’s important or helpful to them, connect with others, build imaginary worlds and explore new pathways. We have a focus on using creativity to support those who come after us in any given environment, whether that is through improving a space with art or changing the culture to benefit the community in any given setting.

We run stand-alone workshops as well as programmes of work in single or linked settings. It's important for our work that it is artist-led, as we believe that arts and creativity can be a liberating and enriching experience for everyone. We work with writers, poets, visual artists, designers and theatre practitioners who share, not just their work, but aspects of themselves and their lives to inspire others to do the same. We draw out what we have in common and highlight human connections and shared values. 

We're based in Hinchley Wood and most of our work takes places in our local area across North Surrey and the London Boroughs of Kingston-upon-Thames, Richmond and Hounslow. We're focused on building sustainable local partnerships that enable us to help our community develop its creativity and come together.