Transported is delighted to announce details of the artists commissioned for the Creative Consultation strand, who will be delivering their projects up until September 2014. This strand is focusing on bringing artist-led events to specific areas not reached during the initial consultation last year – Fishtoft, Wrangle, Gosberton, Quadring, Pinchbeck, Cowbit, Moulton Chapel, Holbeach St. Johns, Sutton St. James, Moulton Seas End, Moulton, Whaplode, Swineshead and Bicker.
The artists and projects commissioned are:
Jo Wheeler: ‘The Village Postcard Project’ & ‘Bus Fayre’
‘The Village Postcard project’
Jo will be working across four villages; Pinchbeck, Whaplode, Moulton and Cowbit. To understand the nature of each village Jo will spend time with local people to discuss ideas around identity – finding out about the folklore, the economy, the history, the landscape, the architecture, the geology, the wildlife and the characters that make that village unique. Using her own creative practice in photography she will respond to the themes that emerge and create a series of contemporary images to reflect and celebrate the uniqueness of each location. Through sharing these images she aims to enhance people’s local pride and sense of belonging, helping to put each village on the map, as well as sow the seeds for future arts engagement.
‘Bus Fayre’
The buses and bus shelters of the villages will be used to exhibit the images from the village postcard project for a month. To consult on ideas around people and place, and the potential of using buses and shelters as future creative spaces, Jo will also programme a series of one day Bus Stop Pop Up events, transforming a bus shelter in each of the four villages she will be working in, into a temporary, unexpected and quirky space. Dressing them as intriguing installations, a programme of acoustic live music will stimulate curiosity, encouraging people to engage and discuss their ideas. Jo will offer refreshments and the village postcards as part of the exchange. The reverse of the postcard will offer prompts, inviting people to record their responses.
The on board exhibition will target three buses along each route, engaging a large audience of travellers with time to sit and reflect whilst in transit. The postcards will also be available on the buses with an on board post box for returning them to us once completed. The returned postcards will be curated into an online gallery as part of the project’s blog.
François Matarasso: ‘The Light Ships’
The Light Ships is
• A revaluation of Fenland churches as works of art and sites of contemporary creativity;
• An exploration of the village church’s layered meanings in community life now; and
• A celebration of the stories, memories and associations bound up in every church.
The Light Ships revolves around the Fenland’s wonderful churches. Each one is unique, its form, treasures and meanings built up over centuries by the people who have lived alongside and owned it. Arks of creativity and memory, each one carries a community’s life across oceans of time, refitted constantly to meet changing needs in changing times.
The Light Ships will take place across all fourteen consultation villages and we invite anyone and everyone with an interest to be involved – parishioners, vicars and volunteers; masons, cleaners and gardeners; choirs, bell-ringers, musicians, needle workers and other artists; schools, clubs and community associations. We want to discover stories, insights and knowledge of each unique place, looking and talking and listening until a shared image of ‘church-ness’ begins to form. Words, film and photography will portray the buildings as lived-in spaces not just architectural wonders – sites of meaning and local spirit of place. A website will record progress, collect research materials and enable online conversation. The Light Ships will produce a book and a short film that are at the same time documents of a summer’s work and a millennium of life in Fenland Lincolnshire.
François Matarasso is a writer and community artist whose work is concerned with art and culture in social life. For more than 30 years, he has worked with communities across Britain and abroad; for The Light Ships, he will be working with his son Laurence, who is a young filmmaker. You can see some of François’ recent work here: http://regularmarvels.com
Katie Smith: ‘Pinhole Cameras’
Katie will be Transported’s artist in residence in Swineshead throughout June. She will be helping people develop both their artistic and technical knowledge of photography through constructing match box sized pinhole cameras with very basic materials. Katie will be running workshops at a variety of locations across the village and her residency will explore how pinhole photography can be used to create personal images of people’s homes. These images will be shown in a pop-up exhibition in the village which will be curated with the help of the residents taking part in the workshops.
Faceless Arts: ‘Wired for Creativity’
Artists from Faceless will be using wire sculpting techniques to explore the agricultural and horticultural heritage of the area, with both young people in schools and all age groups in community settings, culminating in a temporary exhibition of public art. Two artists will deliver up to six wire sculpting workshops (two per day) with 10 – 30 participants in each workshop, using brightly coloured, highly reflective aluminium wire. They will explore local heritage and represent horticultural and agricultural industries in a series of 40cm individual wire sculptures which will be brought together in temporary exhibitions at public spaces such as the Parish Hall or further afield in Boston, before participants take their sculpture home to keep.
Neil Baker of Electric Egg: ‘Sketchcrawl’
Neil will be running a series of ‘Sketchcrawls’ around Moulton, Fishtoft, Gosberton, Whaplode, and Sutton St James where he will lead community members in sketching, drawing and painting their village and different focal points around it. Different art materials will be provided to allow people of all ages and skill levels to gain different skills as well as to challenge them with something new. The images created will be photographed or scanned to create a collection of the work produced to be shared in an online gallery to encourage others to get involved in sketching and drawing what they love about their area.
Rebecca Lee: ‘Outside Broadcast’
Rebecca Lee will work with people in Bicker, Quadring, Moulton Seas End, Moulton Chapel, Holbeach St Johns and Sutton St James on a project called Outside Broadcast.
As part of the creative consultation strand, Rebecca will invite people who live and work in the villages to help her compile a collection of sound recordings. People will be asked to suggest information, people and places that they feel reflect their village and community as they know it, perhaps sharing new information or stories about their experience of living there. Their suggestions will be captured as recordings that could include conversations, music, stories, readings, or field recordings made on walks, in places of work, homes, fields, on farms, on boats or whereever people decide should feature.
The recordings will be combined, to create compositions that comprise layers of audio, moving between spoken word, sound or music which offer an impression of these villages that perhaps is unknown to others living in South Holland, like short films without images.
These works will then be broadcast as a series on local radio, sending the audio back out across South Holland for other people to experience.
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Dates and times for these exciting projects are currently being finalised, so check back for updates!
