What are the benefits of arts and culture for young people?  Is it easy for a young person in Pennine Lancashire to engage with the arts?  In February and March 2012, Mid Pennine Arts set out to explore these and other issues with two groups of young people. This involved a series of focus groups and creative activities. Curious Minds North West commissioned the research which fed into their wider intelligence gathering across the region.

The Creative Learning team worked with two groups of young people, aged between 14 and 15 and based in Accrington and Burnley. We asked them a range of questions: what do you do in your free time?  What arts activities do you engage with?  What do you do regularly?  What have you tried and stopped – and why?

Then we made a cultural visit – the Accrington group saw musical theatre at the Lowry Theatre.  The young people were set the challenge of trying something they had never done before. They explored digital photography and made a short film.

After being in the audience and taking part in a creative workshop, we asked the young people: what did you love?  What could have been better?

Finally we explored the barriers to engaging with arts and culture, what stops young people from getting involved?  The young people were encouraged to suggest ways of unlocking the arts.  In Burnley the group produced a manifesto for what young people want from their arts experiences.

We recorded the discussions digitally with photographs and sound.  We transcribed the discussions and analysed them with qualitative data analysis software.  Visit our website to view the powerpoint report from the project.

The Art of Destination conference we held at Brockholes at the end of March was a fantastic success, and I think we’ve all just about recovered from the busy lead up to the event. Thanks to everyone who came along and who contributed, Lancashire County Council for commissioning the conference, and Arts Council for supporting it.

The invited speakers gave a great range of perspectives on their very own Art of Destination – we had Laurie Peake talking about some wonderful artists she has worked with through Liverpool Biennial;  Steve Messam skyping us from Shanghai to talk about his current projects; Assemble collective describing their fantastic self-initiated work Cineroleum and Folly for a Flyover, and international artist Marco Dessardo explaining his unique approach to creating site-specific work in a traditional gallery space.

Highlights were the beautiful sunny weather we were delighted to have for the day (let’s hope there is more to come!) and the fantastic turn-out that gave us the suitably eclectic audience mix we were hoping for, which really spanned the arts, culture, tourism and regeneration sectors: artists, architects, arts officers, designers, curators, County Councillors and commissioners were all in attendance.

The low point was the fact that Steve Messam’s wonderful piece Souvenir, commissioned by LCC especially for the event, was sadly damaged by vandals soon after it had been installed earlier in the week.  The first showing of the work in the UK following presentations in Shanghai and Venice, by the day of the conference it was far from its original wonderful and ethereal state.  However, some fantastic images remain of Souvenir, so we’re glad that we were at least able to document its fleeting existence so we could share it with the audience who attended, as well as show it online.

Audience feedback rated Brockholes as a fantastic venue, and it’s one we would definitely recommend as conference hosts as well. The conference venue itself is a large, spacious room with beautiful views over the water, and forms part of the Visitor Village that is floating on the lake at the reserve.  An amazing piece of architecture in some lovely landscape, the Village and surrounding site is well worth a visit.  Also, just as importantly, Brockholes passed the conference-goers ultimate test – brilliant catering!

You can see more details of the event and images here.

Helmshore Mills Textile Museum

Helmshore Mills Textile Museum.  Here you can soak up the atmosphere of the historic mills and witness original machinery at work as well as having fun and learning in an exceptional environment.  The museum offers activities, events and special exhibitions, one of which is part of our Contemporary Heritage programme.   The spectacular No Match, created by international sculptor Claire Morgan, is a site specific installation inspired by Claire’s discoveries during her research residency in October 2011.   See the museum’s website for details of opening times and entrance fees.  Not to be missed!

Clitheroe

Clitheroe is a great day out at any time.  Not only does it offer a large variety of unique and boutique shops there is also a fantastic selection of cafés, bars and restaurants to enjoy.  There are many walks that begin in Clitheroe which you can find out more about here.    Clitheroe Castle Keep is currently host to TAKEN, another of our Contemporary Heritage commissions.  This sound installation by contemporary classical composer Ailís Ní Ríain is inspired by the story of the Lancashire witches.  TAKEN allows the visitor to imagine how the 12 individuals may have felt during their last four months in captivity whilst awaiting trial.

Greenways in Padiham and Preston

The Preston Greenway was constructed along the formerly disused railway line that formed part of the Bamber Bridge to Preston extension of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.  The greenway links Penwortham, Bamber Bridge and Preston city centre and forms part of the National Cycle Network.

The Padiham Greenway was created on a disused railway line that runs between Rosegrove in Burnley and Padiham.  The Padiham Greenway has been developed as part of a longer route between Great Harwood and Burnley which is designed to create an off-road trail that connects people to facilities and open spaces in and around the towns that flank the route.

Panopticons

Have you visited the Panopticons yet?  These iconic, contemporary landmarks were designed to attract visitors into the countryside to discover the stunning landscapes that Pennine Lancashire has to offer.  There are four Panopticons each situated on a high-point site commanding spectacular views.  For more information click here.

You can also download various maps and guides for walking around the Panopticons and other areas of interest here.

Have fun whatever you do!

Two of the sculptures are educational pieces based on train couplings, reflecting the history of the area. These have been engraved with poetry from the children who participated in the school engagement programme, led by artist Martin Maudsley. The children from St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Primary and Middleforth C of E Primary School, spent time on the Greenway discovering natural and historical elements of the site through sensory walks and collecting objects for drawing. The poetry was a result of their experiences and what the Greenway meant to them. The pieces have magnifying and fish eye lenses incorporated into the couplings to allow the surroundings to be viewed more closely.

The third sculpture took the form of seating. With the aid of artist John Packer, pupils from Lostock Hall Community High School & Arts College interpreted the ideas of the primary school children and developed them into designs. The end result was seating based loosely on leaf designs.

All three pieces have been built by John and can be found along the main route into Preston and around the Whitehouse Junction Nature Reserve area of the Greenway. The main access points of the Greenway are Avenham Park, Leyland Road opposite the fire station and Factory Lane after the junction with Old Tram Road.

Development of the Greenway initially began in 2010 and saw the disused railway line turned into a multi user Greenway suitable for walking and cycling. The area was surfaced creating a path suitable for outdoor activities and the route, which is open to the public, now forms part of the National Cycle Network.

Helen Yates, Mid Pennine Arts Community and Projects Officer said, “These sculptures add to the offering of the Greenway making it an even more exciting and inviting place to spend the afternoon walking and cycling. It will also encourage schools to use the Greenway as a new learning environment.”

Art of Destination brings together projects that take derelict or unregarded space and transform it into somewhere special – new community assets, new kinds of visitor attraction, or ‘destination art’. Brockholes itself is a prime example – centred on a spectacular floating village of ecobuildings that were commissioned from an international design competition.

And Brockholes will have a unique look for the day, with an eye-popping temporary installation on site, specially commissioned from international artist Steve Messam.

Sneak peak of the temporary installation by Steve Messam which can be seen at Brockholes at the conference

The event, organised by Mid Pennine Arts in collaboration with Lancashire County Council, will showcase partnership work in the County, highlighting the European award winning Padiham Greenway programme alongside high profile, inspiring case studies from the region, the UK and beyond.

Guest speakers will include French artist Marco Dessardo, the London architecture collective Assemble and specialists from Liverpool Biennial, Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Grizedale Forest. Commissioned artist Steve Messam will also be contributing to the debate, in spite of the small inconvenience that, on the day, he will be based at a studio in Shanghai! Steve’s installation on the site will be accessible to Brockholes visitors, on the day itself and right through to Easter weekend.

Art of Destination takes place on Thursday 29 March and will be introduced by County Councillor Kevin Ellard, Chair of Lancashire County Council Arts Task Group. The day is aimed at arts specialists and enthusiasts, as well as professionals in environment, regeneration and public realm, education and public policy.

For more information visit www.midpenninearts.org.uk/art-of-destination

Tickets are available through eventbrite www.artofdestination.eventbrite.co.uk

TAKEN, inspired by the plight of the individuals accused of witchcraft in 1612, evokes the voices in the last days and nights of the twelve accused.  Held captive in a dark, dank, cramped airless cell that measured just 20 by 12 feet, one of the accused died awaiting trial while others began to suffer psychologically in the appalling conditions.  We can only begin to imagine the absolute terror, fear and sadness experienced.  And maybe for some, the final defiance and peace found through good memories and hope for the next life.  The effect inside the space is unrelenting, your imagination not letting you escape the voices of the accused. Some visitors have described it as unsettling, haunting and eerie.

The second experience of TAKEN is from the outside, where you can walk around the Keep on an elevated walkway and at ground level.  This was a deliberate decision on Ailís’s part.  “I was not content with the music simply wafting out and being carried off by the wind so we ensured that speakers were cunningly concealed around the Keep to ensure that the music carries. The visitor has the experience of being a voyeur, aware of people being held captive in the Keep, hearing them humming, however now at a comfortable distance, as the music is mixed with the sounds of the everyday world continuing to spin, spin, spin and they can walk away from the wrongly accused…”

To create her sound installation, Ailís worked with 12 local people.  The ‘hummers’ spent their time together with Ailís, understanding her work as a composer and how she creates her music.  Each person hummed a song that had a personal poignancy to them which became part of the installation.

Ailís said, “I am very pleased that TAKEN at Clitheroe Castle has been extended to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the trial of the Lancashire Witches.  It provides us with the ideal opportunity to take some time and remember those whose lives were taken from them based on inference, inaccuracies, and misinformation and perhaps for simply being different.  The incarceration, trial and hanging of the Lancashire Witches was a travesty, one which has many contemporary resonances. It is important to remember in order not to forget.”

With the 400^th Anniversary of the Lancashire Witches upon us, this is the perfect opportunity to experience this thought provoking installation.  TAKEN will continue to run until the 3 June 2012. Immerse yourself in sound and thought as the Keep is brought to life through music.  Free entry to the keep.

TAKEN was commissioned by Mid Pennine Arts in collaboration with Lancashire County Council.

TAKEN is part of A Contemporary Heritage: new way of seeing, Mid Pennine Arts’ ambitious partnership programme of contemporary art commissions at some of Lancashire’s most colourful and intriguing historic venues.  The commissions, inspired by Lancashire’s heritage, animate each site and offer visitors a rare chance to experience major works of art by artists of national and international standing outside urban areas.

Many of us have enjoyed visiting greenways, those havens for walkers, cyclists and riders created from abandon railway tracks, but how about a greenway in the sky?  That is the basic premise of the High Line in New York, a 1.45 mile long public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side.  Founded in 1999 it is owned by the City and maintained and operated by a Friends group and I’ve been itching to visit it ever since I first read about it.  As well as the plant life, which is reminiscent of the self-seeded landscape and wild plantings that once grew on the unused High Line, long narrow ‘planks’  form a smooth virtually seamless walking surface.   There are special features, including viewing platforms, a water feature, a sundeck and gathering areas to be used for performances, art exhibitions and educational programmes.  My particular desire is to view some of the innovative public art programme.  Just imagine being high above the streets of Manhattan, with views over the Hudson and the city skyline, walking in a beautiful natural environment created out of something so industrial and then coming across a piece of cutting edge contemporary art.  I can’t wait to visit New York to experience this for myself and I’m saving like mad to do it before the end of June so that I can experience Sarah Sze’s intricate installation Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat). 

What is your Art of Destination?

What do young people do in their free time? Do they engage with arts and culture? If the answer is yes, then how and why do they do this? If no, then what’s stopping them?

MPA are helping Curious Minds find out the answers to these and other questions as part of a miniature action research project.

The first two sessions took place at The Hollin’s Technology College, Accrington last week. The young people considered their level of engagement with arts and culture before choosing ‘interventions’ to make and reflect on. They chose to engage with digital media and theatre.

So  a few days later, Matt Gartside from Zumamedia joined the group in school to give them his digital photography top tips. What do you think of the results?

Next week we’re off to the Lowry Centre to see some musical theatre!

The route of the trail came easily.  I wanted to take the participant on a journey through time and so the Weavers’ Triangle Visitor Centre was an ideal and easily located starting point. Sandygate Square forms a focal point of the area’s regeneration and has been the location of recent events and performances.  This was a logical end point to bring the story up-to-date and look into the future.  Between these two points the canal and Trafalgar Street offered opportunities to tell the story of the canal, mills and the people who worked in them.

Once I’d worked out the route and identified the key locations along it, I could then source the archive material to create image slideshows, videos and sound bites which would play when the user reached points of interest along the route.  The internet has put information at our fingertips but there really is no better way of spending an afternoon than exploring what our local libraries have to offer.  Burnley Library was a fantastic resource and an essential source of the many archive images I used within the app.

To create part of the audio soundtrack I recorded local dialect poet Mervyn Hadfield reciting some of his stories.  Five minutes of recording were followed by a most enjoyable couple of hours reminiscing about our respective childhoods growing up among the cobbled terraced streets of Burnley and Rochdale and our parents’ working lives in the cotton mills.  Common experiences separated by thirty years, but a world that has now largely disappeared.

A trip to the North West Sound Archive at Clitheroe Museum (where reel-to-reel tapes and C60 cassettes still exist!) filled the gaps with oral histories of mill workers and bargemen, which they were happy to exchange for my recordings of Mervyn’s memories.

It has been interesting to see how people have reacted differently to the various forms of media.  Contrasting how a location looks now, compared with archive images showing the same place in the past, always seems to delight the user.   My own favourite is a hole in the wall alongside the canal.  If you look through it in the real world a patch of derelict scrubland is revealed.   Looking through the hole using the app reveals something completely different, a journey back in time to what was there before and how it sounded.  You’ll have to find out for yourself what that was though!

Without wanting to sound too deep and analytical, the project does feel like a coming together of many strands of my life – my family’s connections to the cotton industry; the History degree I thought I’d never use directly; a career of over twenty years in software development; more recent experience as a trail writer; and reacquainting myself with a town I’d not really visited since my dad used to take me to the Turf in the days when Burnley actually had a good football team.   If this was a reality TV program I’d probably say that I’d been “on a personal journey”.

So the app is now out there, available on the iStore and Android markets.  A lifetime’s ambition has been accomplished.  Published, at last!

ABOUT TREASURE TRAILS

Treasure Trails devise Trails that inform, entertain and educate people in inspiring ways.  Our Trails capture the imagination, often using game thinking and game mechanics to engage users with their environment.  We now develop location-aware apps for smart phones which provide exciting opportunities to create media-rich trails, guides, stories – and of course puzzles, games and treasure hunts – using a mix of audio, video, text and images to immerse the visitor in their location.  Our company has produced outstanding tailor made Trails for major organisations such as the BBC, National Trust, the Woodland Trust, and many more.

It started with a Tweet.  I can’t remember exactly what I was tweeting about but it elicited an immediate response from @teamMPA.  “Intrigued!  I think we should talk”.  Within the week I was at Mid Pennine Arts’ offices in Burnley meeting with Business Director Rob Carder to explain all about our interactive trails and to discuss ways in which we might possibly work together.  It soon became apparent to both of us that there was an obvious synergy between MPA’s  ‘Art + People + Places’ formula and Treasure Trails’ aim of connecting people with the local environment, ‘The Fun Way to Explore’.

It was when Treasure Trails began to develop location-aware apps for smart phones that the real opportunities became more apparent.  Now the trails could not only be used to link works of art but themselves become a new medium for their interpretation – using audio, video and images, all triggered by GPS – to engage, inform and enhance the visitor experience in a way that could not easily be achieved with more traditional paper-based trails.

We decided that the                                                                                                            Weavers’ Triangle area in Burnley should be the subject of our first joint collaboration.  This area, once at the heart of Burnley’s textile industry, has been the focus of regeneration plans by Burnley Council for some time and MPA have been actively involved in this process.  One of their recent projects, Project Pride Burnley, had brought the area to life with a piece of promenade theatre within the old mills.  The outcomes from this project would be used as the basis for the app.

Soon a steady flow of information arrived electronically and through my letterbox.  A documentary of Project Pride, videos of Dark Satanics and a plethora of images.  Stories of Sandygate, a recent creative writing project that captured local peoples’ memories and stories of the area was also included.  I followed this up with research into the history of the area via the internet and visits to the site.  I always knew a History degree would come in useful one day!

Watch out next week for the second part of this fantastic account of Stuart’s journey to producing the Weavers Triangle app.

If you can’t wait for the second part of this instalment to view the app, you can download it now for FREE from Android or itunes .