In 2005 Public Art - West Midlands became Longhouse.

Over the past two years Longhouse has become a key organisation in the region for advocating the role of the artists and creativity within the public realm, for supporting a wide range of artists that want to explore ways of working in the public realm and for giving artists opportunities to come together and share their practice, knowledge and ideas.

The Longhouse team is based in West Bromwich working as part of the community arts organisation Multistory which enables us to link artists to live projects and a variety of initiatives happening in the region.

Longhouse has directly supported over 40 artists over the past 2 years, many of which go on to gain commissions and produce new work as a direct result of being involved in the one of our programmes. Artists such as Shaun Morris who was commissioned to continue the body of work started as part of his action research and three of the artists that took part in the 2006 PAD went on to be commissioned to work in Stourport -on-Severn where it was held.

(Image by Sally Payen from 2006 PAD in Stourpot-on-Severn)

We welcome suggestions from artists and practitioners about their priorities and professional development needs so that we can continue to develop our annual programme and ensure that artists in the region are among the best in the country and lead the way in public realm practice.