Absolutely Cultured is a cultural development organisation which is passionate about the ability that arts and culture have to be a vehicle for change. The organisation works to seek out opportunities to strengthen Hull’s cultural landscape and the connected role it can have in the city’s growth and development, for the benefit of all its residents.

By working with multiple partners locally, nationally and internationally, their work responds to place, to Hull and its communities. It brings people together to collaborate, reflect, comment and celebrate.  Their work is current and topical, relevant to the people of Hull and beyond, takes place in multiple spaces across the city and is underpinned by opportunities for engagement, learning and career progression in the arts.

Absolutely Cultured worked with us on our third cookbook, Secret Dishes From Around the World 3. They commissioned the fantastic artists Amer Daoud and Sean McAllister to jointly create a painting for the project.

Hull Environmental & Management Solutions (EMS) is a social enterprise based in the east of the city confronting food poverty throughout Hull. The enterprise is dedicated to food redistribution, collecting surplus food from supermarkets across the city to be given to those in need at the organisation’s outlet at Preston Road Village Centre. EMS has also worked to promote local growing initiatives, setting up growing sites on underused council-owned land throughout the city and supplying the infrastructure necessary to support residents in their own community gardening ventures. As a community enterprise, the organisation has worked with other local organisations such as Humber Wood Recycling, who have supplied materials for raised planting beds, and Yorkshire Water, who have provided the initiative with free irrigation.

We would also like to draw attention to the work of Giroscope – a social enterprise in West Hull providing affordable housing to those who need it by purchasing and renovating empty properties across the city. Giroscope has been working in Hull since the late 1990s, when the organisation converted a stables yard in into the Arthur Street Social Enterprise Park, and more recently renovated another yard in Selby Street to house the enterprise’s bicycle project, carpentry workshop, offices, classrooms and the Vulcan Learning Centre – a charity dedicated to helping Hull’s youth. In 2018, the enterprise purchased St. Matthew’s Church on Anlaby Road to be used by local start-ups and businesses, reinstating the building as an iconic central meeting place for West Hull’s residents.

Our Community Cookery School team visited Hull as part of the Secret Dishes From Around the World book tour in 2021. Whilst we were there, we spoke to photographer Sean McAllister, who grew up in Hull, and was commissioned by Absolutely Cultured to create the artwork for the Syrian section of the cookbook. McAllister shares the story behind the resulting piece, ‘Fatteh and foul – my Syrian breakfast’, created alongside artist Amer Daoud.

We then spoke to Lindsay Stockley on how Hull has evolved since becoming City of Culture back in 2017. You can listen to both conversations on our Share Your Secrets podcast, which is available for free via Spotify, Google and Apple!