IN THIS PLACE
In This Place is a 12 month project that will take place from September 2006 to August 2007, celebrating and exploring how we relate to the environment. The focus will be participatory workshops and events for all ages but as usual, Arts Alive will work extensively with schools and young people in the delivery of the project
Through its community projects and Arts Festival, Arts Alive has demonstrated that
the arts can play a crucial role in bringing together the community. Although Arts
Alive has always worked successfully with young people and has a long established
reputation in this field, the development of activities for adults, particularly
the inter-
Arts Alive has become a more accessible community group actively engaged with the creative life of the communities in the area that takes in East Powys, West Monmouthshire, and the North Eastern section of the Valleys, breaking barriers for many participants who lack confidence to get involved with ‘art’. We hope with this project to consolidate this position and ensure that the legacy of our development project is built upon.
IN THIS PLACE has been devised specifically in response to demands from participants and community representatives who want the opportunity to continue to explore their community and environment in creative ways. The projects will encourage exploration of our personal connections to the environment we live in through a variety of artistic media and focus again on wide participation and a focused community celebration each summer through the means of an exhibition and/or Festival.
The Arts also play a role in promoting health and well-
We will be focusing on creative projects that allow people to explore creativity
in a relaxing way but also on projects off-
We also intend to focus in on the visually dynamic industrially marked upland area that links northern valley communities with the Usk Valley.
IN THIS PLACE WILL CREATE PROJECTS AND EVENTS CHOSEN FROM THE FOLLOWING THEMES:
LOCATION to page top
What is unique about this particular place?
The natural environment, the farmed or landscaped environment, the built environment. What forces shaped this place. Do we have a sense of belonging or alienation about this place, closeness or detachment?
What are the boundaries of this place, room, house, field, horizon, valley, mountain, country, planet?
What traditions, stories or names attach to this place?
HOW THE THEMES ARE USED to page top
Arts Alive has evolved a process derived from the experience of many years of running themed workshops. An open forum of artists and facilitators evolve a creative menu on a given theme, from which items can be selected. This means that a measure of freedom is retained within the overall framework of the project.
Here are some of the ideas that evolved from this process:
TRACES OF ANCIENT LIFE IN THE LANDSCAPE to page top
Signs of when the present Usk Valley area was a subtropical sea bed or a forest of giant tree ferns are still present in the landscape. Fossilized corals are still evident on the limestone tops while pebble remnants of tree ferns from the carboniferous period (340 million years ago) still wash up on the shingle banks of the Usk. Such signs in the landscape of our very distant past could be used to fire the imagination of both children and adults, with site visits, talks and fossil hunts being used as a starting point for a creative response to this very ancient natural heritage.
HISTORY WRITTEN IN THE LANDSCAPE to page top
This area is rich in Neolithic, bronze age, Iron Age, medieval and important early industrial archaeological sites, many in spectacular settings. Some of these sites could be explored both as current features in our landscape and as clues to the past. Working with schools, history groups and local residents we could establish new links and explore new ways of creating art from the history written in the landscape.
THE LANDSCAPE SHAPED BY NATURAL FORCES to page top
There are many cyclic forces that shape the local landscape such as the flooding and recession of the USK and the flow of the seasons. How stable are these cycles and what effect is human intervention having? Introduced species such as Himalayan balsam and giant hogweed now dominate some lowland areas, while intensive sheep grazing has altered the flora of the uplands. Global warming is already starting to change the hierarchy of native plants in our hedgerows. What creative projects can grow out of these facts that can help us to understand these changes more fully and appreciate our role in them?
THE LANDSCAPE SHAPED BY FARMING to page top
Many of the changes wrought by the centuries of farming are so familiar that it takes an act of will to remind ourselves that these are the result of human intervention. Treeless uplands and fields and hedgerows are created features. Patterns of farming are now changing with the move from production to stewardship. How can we use our creativity to celebrate the strengths of good husbandry and also to create an imagined future?
CHANGES IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT to page top
Towns and villages are in constant change. Barns become houses, shops and businesses come and go, new houses are built. The 60s and 70s saw the departure from traditional building finishes such as stone. Layouts of streets and dwellings used to evolve piecemeal, but now they are planned. Can our creativity be used to explore some of these changes? Is stone more fitting in the landscape than concrete, wood more satisfying than plastic? Can we use our creativity to develop a ‘feel’ for appropriate materials?
PLACENAMES AS MARKERS IN TIME to page top
Local placenames are often historical pegs. Such local names as ‘The Hafod Rd’, ‘the Chartist Cave’ ‘Crickhowell or ‘the Hidden Chapel’ all encapsulate historic or social events. Some of these local placenames could be decoded and have their significance teased out in creative projects that look at the links between language, the past and current identity. The hybrid Welsh/English nature of some of the placenames in common usage in this area is also significant.
TOOLS FOR EXPRESSION to page top
Looking, listening, recording.
Drawing, painting, printing, mark-
Photography, photograms, computer imagery, video.
Sculpture, claywork, assemblage, casts, imprints.
Printing and dying textiles, stitching, weaving.
Writing, storytelling, poetry.
Map and modelmaking.
Dance, theatre, performance, music.
Planting, growing, harvesting
Graffitti / Anonymous painting. Disused quarry, Llangynidr Mountain.
PROJECTS: to page top
Primary Schools Project: Getting from A to B -
Project Leader: Lisa Hellier. Support team Andrea Newton-
Project Brief: To create a large-
Devised in response to approaches by teachers and community leaders, this project will be a partner to the adult community project, the Crickhowell High Street Stitch Up
Inter-
Project Leader: Graham Hartill, writer
Project Brief: To gather oral community histories and publish them
Graham will gather and retell stories from local communities that focus on a sense of place.
Youth Project (16-
Project Leader: Toril Brancher, photographer
Project Brief: To explore and create digital landscape images using mobile phone cameras and digital cameras
As they reach early adulthood, young people often leave our communities for jobs or education. Toril will explore the images they take with them of the rich environment and landscape of the Black Mountains and its communities using digital media.
18th century Lime kiln, Llangattock Mountain
Adult Project: Ancient Stones, Modern Art
Project Leaders: Tessa Waite, Angela Morton, and Tim Rossiter
Project Brief: A series of adult workshops going out into the landscape looking at traces of the past such as standing stones, limestone quarrying, or fossil sites, and then using these sources in the studio to create a response.
The ‘abstract’ nature of standing stones, the land “dislocation” of limestone working, and the fragmentary nature of fossils will be explored both visually and in words.
Children’s Project: Across The Room In Light Years
Project Leaders: Zoë Daniel, Amy Mason, Tim Rossiter
Project Brief: An exploration of the Earth’s position in a vast universe using the Arts Alive building as the core of a giant model.
“If we can fit the solar system on this table then Ursa Major
would be just past Blaenafon …..”
Family / Children’s Project: Singing For The Bees
Project Leaders: Liz Buckler, Chrys Blanchard
Project Brief: Using music, singing, painting and clay work to explore the beneficial relationships that exist between animals and plants such as pollination. In association with the Primrose Trust Farm, Llanigon.
Family/ Children’s Project: Making From The Land
Project Leaders: Morag Colquhoun, Lisa Hellier
Project Brief: Using found natural materials in the setting of an Iron Age hill fort within woodland to create transient signs and sculptures in the landscape.
In association with the Woodland Trust and Coed Cefn Wood
Cross in the Mountains
Caspar David Friedrich, 1811
Cross in the Mountains
Anonymous Painting
in disused quarry
Lllangynidr Mountain
