Mission Statement

The Trust’s Charitable Object

To advance the education of the public by the encouragement of study, research, practice and knowledge of the arts and sculpture, thereby stimulating public interest in these and other related artistic and cultural fields, and of the environment, geology, geomorphology, archaeology, culture and heritage of the Isle of Portland, Dorset and other regions in the UK and elsewhere.

The Trust’s mission:

To create an arts and environmental legacy that incorporates the interdisciplinary model underpinning our work, engaging diverse communities in finding solutions to social and environmental concerns through ambitious arts projects of high quality.

To apply artists’ innovation to the use of waste materials, promoting sustainability, biodiversity and cultural exchange,  with  Portland being one of the most intensively quarried landscapes in the UK, a microcosm for local and global concerns.

Our Trustees

Our Trustees support the mission & vision of our organisation for the regeneration of Portland and contribute skills in areas of environmental education, visual and performing arts, stone carving skills, health and well being, disability arts, theatre and legal skills.
Five main areas of activity include artists residencies, bespoke education programmes for community, schools, universities, stone carving workshops and the recording of Portland’s changing quarry environments, through the physical and digital living archive;
This includes unpublished materials alongside artists site specific recordings for the preservation and interpretation-of Portland’s fossil record, ecological mapping with research, projects and interviews over 37 years that bring new insights into the landscape; collaborations between artists, architects, naturalists, ecologists, earth scientists, community and the last generation of quarrymen and stone masons who worked Portlands landscape by hand.

Trustee led community partnerships:

Kensington and Chelsea MIND ‘Meanwhile Wildlife Gardens’; a project that transformed an area derelict / neglected land into a thriving wildlife garden.
Local and national schools re Art & Design, Geography, English Dance and Drama leading to Art/Heritage and Environment projects and the recent formation by young people of a new dance group/company focusing on landscape choreography and processional works in the quarry environment.
New course in landscape & environmental sculpture with Royal College of Art , UK and international universities including Art and Architecture schools.
Establishing the first higher education course in South Dorset.
Writing and delivering new validated 2nd year electives across 21 Depts and 5 Faculties of the University of Brighton with MA in Site specific performance and MA by Independent Project funded by AHRC.

The most significant research that PSQT has led was supported by DEFRA /MIRO (Mineral Industry Research Organisation) and MIST (/Mineral Industry Sustainable Technology Programme) and Arts Council England that brought together an extensive range of Partners that led to a sustainable legacy for future projects and new designs for the innovative uses of stone waste for maximum habitat creation for the educational sustainable after-use of quarry
landscapes nearing the end of their working life