Issue07 Found in Blackburn Issue
CURATED BY Faye Adams
COVER IMAGE Darwen Terracotta and Faience employee Jimmy Turnbull (the company is one of those working With the Festival of Making) DESIGN BY sourcecreative.co.uk
PHOTOGRAPHY Richard Tymon – richardtymonphotography / Derren Lee Poole – phunkography / Catherine Caton – MadeAtSource Lee Smillie
CONTRIBUTORS Cameron Procter
Arte et Labore, which translates as ‘by art and by labour’ or ‘by skill and hard work’ is the town motto for Blackburn, Lancashire. Blackburn has a proud history of art, industry and innovation and a strong creative community with an entrepreneurial spirit. By Skill & Hard Work aims to recognise and celebrate these artists, entrepreneurs and creatives who make the town unique.
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CONTACT 01254 667130 byskill&hardwork
INSIDE Issue07 4/ The Festival of Making In May Blackburn will play host to the UK’s first Festival of Making 6/ Spotlight Breaking the Mould Darwen Terracotta and Faience, is one of the company’s hosting an artist in residence for the Festival of Making
18/ Design for Life Husband and wife team Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway are the creative force behind a new housing development in Blackburn 20/ Passage to India Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery is playing host to an exhibition exploring the ties that bind Britain and India
9/ Raising Spirits A new resurgence in Blackburn’s nightlife means everything from Tiki Bars to the UK’s only community rock pub
22/ Best of British Photographer Tom Bunning was invited to turn his lens on Blackburn based fashion label Community Clothing
12/ Junk Food The new Stone Soup café is turning junk food on its head
26/ Prism Gallery University Centre at Blackburn College has launched its own art gallery
14/ Off the Record Young creatives in Darwen are redefining what a record company can be 16/ In Print Artist Julia Swarbrick is breathing new life into a Colombian Printing Press
COVER STORY 27/ Found in Blackburn A creative project that is set to explore Blackburn’s hidden treasures
Found in Blackburn Issue By Skill and Hard Work (BS&HW) is a quarterly publication celebrating the creative talents of people who live, work or play in Blackburn. BS&HW celebrates the town and the commitment to skill and hard work of its creative community.
In this issue we feature Found In Blackburn, an exciting exploration into some of Blackburn’s most historic buildings and hidden treasures and the people who used to inhabit these spaces.
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The project will see artists and creatives look back at Blackburn’s rich and varied history as well as looking forward to the next chapter in the town’s development.
6TH - 7TH MAY 2017
The National Festival of Making will be a two day celebration of making and manufacturing.
In May Blackburn will play host to the UK’s first Festival of Making, a two day celebration of makers and making. Taking its cue from the town’s long history of manufacturing, the festival will both showcase the work of artisans and individual craftspeople and highlight the world class firms that base themselves in Blackburn and the surrounding area, from decorating giants Graham & Brown to mattress manufacturers Silent Night. The festival is being curated by design guru Wayne Hemingway MBE who opened his first Red or Dead factory in Blackburn, along with Deco Publique, the team behind Vintage by the Sea
in Morecambe and Placeshakers, a social enterprise. It is funded by Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Super Slow Way and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. It will see the town centre transformed over the weekend of May 6 and 7 into a hotbed of activity with a whole host of exhibitions, workshops, demonstrations and performances all based on Making of one kind of another and incorporating the festival’s eight themes; Making Noise, Making Love, Making History, Making Tastes, Making Place, Making Things, Making a Living and Making Digital.
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Activities on offer include technology based craft sessions at The Making Rooms, the town’s new digital and technological making hub, that include designing a pixel game using LED lights and circuit boards and creating your own animated robot. Or making music with the Reboot Project who are composing a soundtrack for Blackburn, taking inspiration from the town’s love affair with Northern Soul or reliving the hey days of the Acid House and Rave scene. A Makers Market will feature the best of the region’s artists, makers and designers all selected for the quality and originality of their work while young makers will have the
Terracotta and Faience, a company that restores historic buildings and MGS Technical Plastics a Plastic Injection Moulding company. Also specially commissioned for the festival is Front Room Factories, a documentary that highlights the army of home based makers in Blackburn with Darwen whose creative endeavours bring to life the borough’s motto of By Skill & Hard Work. opportunity to sell their wares at a special Teenage Market. And visitors will be able to see for themselves the results of nine specially commissioned art works resulting from a series of artist residences at East Lancashire manufacturers. The project called The Art in Manufacturing has been cocommissioned with Super Slow Way and has seen artists take up residence at companies that include the likes of Darwen
While Maker Sheds will show the results of a competition run for design and architectural students to design an innovative small structure for individual makers. In addition, leading up to the festival weekend Creative Lancashire will run a Business Innovation for Growth Conference (BIG) with a series of panels, workshops and seminars offering the chance to hear from industry experts.
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“We’ll also be inspired to try things we never thought we’d try and perhaps even find that we are good at, so together we’ll have fun in workshops hosted by brilliant, skilled and inspiring makers, artists and designers to find out what we like making the most.” said Wayne Hemingway.
GRAYSON PERRY’S A HOUSE FOR ESSEX
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One of the firm’s featuring in the Festival of Making’s Art of Manufacturing has helped restore some of our nation’s most treasured buildings. What do the Royal Albert Hall, Battersea Power Station and Blackpool Tower all have in common? They’ve all been restored to their former glory by Darwen Terracotta and Faience. The Blackburn based company has revamped some of the world’s most beautiful buildings, including the Wrigley building in Chicago, luxury department store Harrods and the iconic Art Deco Hoover building in West London.
Painstakingly creating exact replicas of statues, decorative terracotta brickwork, sculptural details and tiles, the firm’s talented 32 strong workforce turns back the clock for buildings damaged by weather or general wear and tear.
Clay is then poured or hand pressed into the mould and the block is then fired at temperatures of up to 1200 degrees Celsius. In some cases a glaze is applied to match existing colours, known as architectural faience.
The process sees a team of sculptors and designers produce a mould of the damaged item copying it exactly albeit on a larger scale to allow for shrinkage.
Darwen Terracotta is just one of a handful of companies working in the sector and as a result their skills are very much in demand.
TERRACOTTA BLOCKS WERE MADE FOR THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL’S NEW ENTRANCE
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New contracts include the restoration of Wigan Town Hall, St Pancras Church, Liverpool’s Tower Buildings, the Savoy Hotel and London’s Natural History Museum. Set up by former colleagues Jon Wilson, Steve Allen and Jon Almond, the trio had all been employed by the long established Shaws of Darwen, where they had worked for over 36 years. Shaws, which had been in business since 1897, decided in 2015 to close the architectural side of its operation, so having been made redundant, they decided to set up a new business under a new name and find new premises. “It was a tremendous shock to hear that after 118 years of manufacturing, Shaws Terracotta was to close,” said Steve, now Operations manager.
“More so, because the demand for the product was at its highest level for decades. We decided that we simply couldn’t allow these skills to be lost and create such a gap in the market place which could only have been filled by foreign competitors.” After securing financial investment including a grant from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s Assistance to Industry scheme, their order book soon began filling up. As well as restoration the company works on new build projects and collaborates with architects to push the boundaries of what can be achieved.
“We can offer an architect an almost limitless colour, finish and shape,” adds Steve. “The work we do is extremely bespoke and perhaps a great example of this is the faience we produced for Grayson Perry’s collaboration with architect Charles Holland. It includes sculptured panels to the whole exterior and huge chimneys adorning the structure”. WORKING ON A DECORATIVE TILE FOR GRAYSON PERRY’S HOUSE
Recent projects include a striking new facade for the Clerkenwell shop for a very well known international fashion house and the production of tiles for Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry’s A House for Essex. THE LONDON COLISEUM AT NIGHT
REPLICA STATUES IN THE WORKSHOP FOR THE LONDON COLISEUM
TERRACOTTA LETTERS PRODUCED FOR THE HACKNEY EMPIRE’S EXTENSION
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A resurgence of new bars and the relaunching of old venues is putting the life back into Blackburn’s nightlife. It’s fair to say Blackburn’s nightlife has struggled in recent times thanks to the challenging economic climate and changing tastes in what people want from a night out. However, over the last year the town has seen a steady stream of people with fresh ideas and a steely determination, that Blackburn is going far from gently into that good night.
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The recently opened Drummers Arms on King William Street is one of the new wave of micropubs - an increasingly popular phenomenon of small one room pubs that focus on real ales and shun noisy TVs in favour of good conversation. Behind the venture are husband and wife, Katy and James Quayle from Darwen, who currently run Q-Ale, a business hiring pop-up bars to events and festivals and fitting out micropubs. “With some of the larger pubs and bars you go in they all have the same generic beers on offer but with a micropub you have more choice and we’re more flexible about what we can sell,” says James. People who visit the King William Street watering hole are able to enjoy local offerings from
Darwen breweries; Three B’s Brewery and Hopstar as well as boutique gins and whiskies. Also on sale are pies made by Lancashire’s Dales Fine Foods and fair trade tea and coffee. Even music has a local element with the jukebox stocked with CDs from local unsigned bands. Next door is the soon to be open Tiki Monkey, a new Tiki bar complete with vintage surf memorabilia and exotic cocktails. It will offer cocktails from a menu compiled by an award winning mixologist and a selection of American craft beers and ales served from a bar decked out to look like a Hawaiian surf shack. Tattooist Benj Ashmead who owns the Eagles Wing Tattoo Studio on Mincing Lane, says he
THE DRUMMERS ARMS
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has been thinking about the idea for a number of years and now was the time to go for it along with colleague Dean Rothwell and friend Rachel White. “Recently when I’ve been out places are busting at the seams so I thought it was time to take the leap,” said Benj. “I used to live in the Northern Quarter in Manchester and there is so much choice and lots of great little bars with loads of character. I thought it would be amazing to open something like that in Blackburn.” Like The Drummers Arms, Tiki Monkey has had Council support in the form of advice and rates relief, as part of a drive to encourage new businesses into Blackburn and Darwen town centres.
Down the road on King Street, a Blackburn institution, the Cellar Bar has recently re-opened. True to its name the bar is run from an atmospheric cellar under a building, which bears a blue plaque marking it out as the 1847 birth place of Albert Neilson (Monkey) Hornby who went on to captain both the English rugby and cricket teams. Friends Neil Shackleton and Jonathan Nutter like many in Blackburn were saddened to see its decline in popularity following several incarnations before it finally closed around four years ago. The pair who now own the Boomtown Basement Records CIC label decided to relaunch the bar in October last year and give it a new lease of life.
And although there is a lot to do in re-establishing a venue, slowly and surely they are building up its following as a venue that showcases new music. They’ve extended the opening hours and now serve Fairtrade food and hot drinks during the day and other plans include revamping the large courtyard and holding larger events in the building upstairs. And if the reincarnation of The Sir Charles Napier is anything to go by then it’s sure to be a success. Hailed as the UK’s first community rock pub The Napier (as it is known) reopened in September last year. After the original rock pub hit hard times, rather than let it fade away a group of local rockers set themselves up as a Community Interest Company
q-ale.co.uk Facebook /thenapierblackburn Facebook /tikimonkeyblackburn Facebook /blackburnlive ALEX MARTINDALE, ONE OF THE DIRECTORS AT THE NAPIER ROCK PUB
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(C.I.C) called ‘Save the Napier’ and successfully campaigned to have it listed as an Asset of Community Value. They raised £40,000 from sponsors as well as Blackburn with Darwen Council and reopened with none other than rock legend Rob Halford cutting the ribbon and taking to the stage to sing with locals. Since then it has gone from strength to strength and the future looks bright says one of the directors of the C.I.C Alex Martindale. “We’re being used as a case study going to government on community pubs and we’ll soon be announcing the sale of shares in the pub so we can purchase the building and make changes. It’s gone better than we ever hoped.”
The new Stone Soup café is offering fast food with a conscience It’s estimated that roughly one third of the world’s food produced for human consumption goes to waste but in Blackburn two local ladies are looking to do their bit to address this.
It will see food being used, that would otherwise go to waste, made into a range of items for sale including soups and salads, at the Victoria Street arts centre.
The Stone Soup cafe is a new pop up café being launched at the Bureau for the Centre for the Arts in Blackburn.
The pair intend to approach supermarkets for their unsold food that is nearing its sell by date and allotment growers who might have excess produce.
The venture which intends to provide healthy food at an affordable price is being run by Bureau regulars Sarah Arnold and Charis Whitehead-St Pierre.
The idea comes from a growing movement that is gaining popularity around the globe on diverting food that would simply go to landfill.
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It originated in Leeds where there now more than 30 junk food cafes and where there is now the UK’s first Junk Food supermarket. Like many of the junk food cafés the Blackburn cafe will also have a charitable element with food being charged for on a ‘pay what you feel’ basis in an effort to make good food accessible for people on low incomes. “A lot of people out there are struggling and we want to do as much as we can to help,” said Sarah.
“By providing cheap and healthy food we’re giving people a real alternative to the fast food outlets,” she added. The cafe is intending to operate as a pop-up cafe serving food at events run by The Bureau until it is ready to open full time. It is hoped that it will fit in well with the art centre’s mission of making the arts more accessible by encouraging people who wouldn’t normally go to see an exhibition, to look at the work on display while they are visiting the café.
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“We are looking for support from local businesses and organisations in order to install a fully working cafe kitchen suitable for full time running,” said Charis. “And we also would love to have more volunteers to help run the cafe, so if this sounds like something you would like to support, please get in touch. This is about tackling food poverty and social isolation as well as preventing food waste”.
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To think of Sunbird Records as just a bar undersells what it’s really about – it’s also a record label, a music collective, a creative movement and a venue but more than that, it’s testament to what can be achieved with creativity, blind ambition and a whole lot of elbow grease. Co-founder Jonathan Lindley isn’t shy to admit that in hindsight the £35,000 that he raised with the help of friends and family to open the hipster Darwen hangout was far from enough.
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This surprising admission makes what he and the friends behind the venture have managed to achieve, all the more impressive. It took Jonathan and 20 other people (who either run the Sunbird Records label or who are signed to it) along with two friends who work in construction, 15 weeks to renovate the old bank it is based in. “We worked solidly with hardly any sleep for pretty much the whole time,” said Jonathan, a graphic design lecturer. “It was pretty full on, we did everything including building the bar and toilets, we learned a lot and came out of it even better friends than before.” What they pulled off was a total facelift of the building, which would normally cost ten times the £20,000 they spent and should have taken three times as long. The result is a bar and venue that makes the most of the former bank’s features and even has an adjoining stone pizza oven takeaway with which it shares the building. However, the group see the bar as more of an ‘incubator space’ for building a music and creative scene and from which to operate Sunbird Records, the label originally started by Jonathan’s dad in the 90s, resurrected by Jonathan and friends four years ago. The ethos of the record label is that will sign any genre from hardcore to hip-hop as long as the musicians subscribed to the same creative vision as the rest of the Sunbird team. sunbirdrecords.co.uk 15
The idea of an incubator space came out of Jonathan’s research at Huddersfield University for his Phd exploring subcultures and the possibilities of what a record label can be. The bar is an extension of this and allows them to feature new acts that might struggle to find decent venues and enable the record labels’ sister company 1988 Promotions, to build up a portfolio of artists. Further more there are even plans to build a recording studio to allow greater opportunities for collaboration among signings. Meanwhile six months later the bar goes from strength to strength. “It hasn’t gone to plan,” Jonathan happily concedes, “but in many ways it has gone better. “As people find out about us they start coming every week and then tell their friends and they do the same. It feels like a community has developed, which is what we wanted.”
Artist Julia Swarbrick is breathing new life into a Colombian Printing Press For many these days, printing is an arbitrary matter, an everyday process that is taken care of by a desktop ink-jet machine that pushes out documents and files in a matter of seconds. But printing has a long and noble history, and artist Julia Swarbrick has undertaken a residency at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery to keep the memory and the tradition alive. Until April last year, a Colombian Printing Press had been gathering dust in storage at the museum.
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Once homed in a prominent place, it was moved – for reasons unknown by the current staff – downstairs in the early 1980s.
In addition, Julia began working on a response to some of the stories and recurring narratives that can be found within the museum’s Hart Collection, where the press once stood.
The Colombian, invented in 1813 in the U.S by George Clymer, with its ornate American eagle proudly perched on top, and other heavily symbolic embellishments is about as far from today’s homogeneous printing machines as you can get.
Blackburn’s own ode to printmaking and typography, the Hart collection was gifted to the town in 1946 by rope manufacturer Edward Hart, and it contains works that span the entire history of print, from Assyrian tablets dating back to c.2000 BC to works by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.
“It was really sad to see it in bits in the basement,” said Julia whose residency funded by Arts Council England ran for seven months. “And the thing is a press like that, as long as it’s maintained properly, it will last for hundreds of years. It’s a piece of technology that just keeps going.”
Using the Columbian press, Julia has created illustrations of some of the themes that arise within the collection recontextualising and rejuvenating these ancient stories such as the medieval book of hours, a Christian devotional text, which she has reimaged for a modern audience.
With the help of the St. Bride Foundation – once the “social and educational hub of printing and publishing on Fleet Street”, now a group whose aim is to preserve and promote the heritage of print – Julia was able to piece the press back together and produce its first print in over 30 years.
She also explored the use of old and new technologies producing a handmade book using traditional methods then utilising modern laser cutters to re-create woodcuts like those used in some of the earliest printed works of Chaucer.
And so began a series of workshops and demonstrations with local community groups and organisations, illustrating the power and technology that was once at the heart of the printing industry.
See the results of Julia’s work in Contemplating a Legacy Exhibition, Works at Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery until April 29.
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Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway’s latest housing project aims to have people heading for the hills. Their first development had people camping out overnight to secure one of their forward thinking homes, but can husband and wife design team, Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, recreate that same magic on their home turf?
Since then they have embarked on a string of housing developments including award winning ones in Kings Lynn, Maidenhead, Aylesbury, Dartford and Manchester.
When Wayne Hemingway criticised the ‘Wimpeyfication and Barratification of Britain’ blaming new developments of ‘soulless identikit housing’ on modern developers, rather than run and hide, housebuilders Wimpey threw down the gauntlet.
Fast forward to today and the couple now hope to create that same excitement generated by Staiths with Green Hills, a development of 167 family homes and a proposed community building in Blackburn, where Wayne went to school and the couple opened their first factory.
They invited the pair behind legendary brand Red or Dead and now House of Hemingway, to see if they could do any better.
“We have been hoping to get the chance to design houses in the area we grew up for some time, he said.
And it turns out they could. Working alongside Wimpey they came up with Staiths, a 750 house development in Gateshead that had people queuing overnight to snap one up and won a string of awards including Development of the Year in 2006.
“Years ago we got close to getting the chance to work on another site but unfortunately it didn’t come to fruition but Green Hills is worth the wait. This is a site with the scale and in a position to be able to deliver something wonderful and be a credit to a place that we owe a great upbringing to.”
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throughout, an area of woodland and the prioritisation of views to the West Pennine Moors and landmarks such as Darwen Tower.
As before, they are teaming up with architectural practice, the IDPartnership, another husband and wife team who share their vision of championing quality of life, and Kingswood Homes, a Preston based developer.
“We have the ability on this site to make a home more than just a roof over your head,” said Wayne.
And as with previous projects, Green Hills in South East Blackburn will incorporate the principles that Wayne and Gerardine first developed at Staiths following an international tour of exemplar housing projects.
“Green Hills Blackburn is blessed with views and access to magnificent countryside, parks and waterways. That ability to enjoy the outdoors can begin the second you step out of your door and will make a massive difference to the quality of life for residents.”
They were particularly inspired by modern housing in northern Europe and the Nordic countries; ones that put people before profit and even ahead of architecture, by making the landscape, pedestrians, play areas and cyclists central to the design.
Design details also take care not to compete but to compliment the semi-rural surrounding area with materials referencing the distinctive Pennine Lancashire stone walls and buildings and the area’s agricultural heritage with houses arranged in courtyard formations as if in traditional farmstead.
As a result, Green Hills will prioritise walking and cycling, with cars hidden away in garages or carports and greenspaces taking centre stage with two communal areas or ‘village greens’ for residents to share.
“The design stems from our long term crusade to prove that through intelligent design thinking, creative use of materials and sheer hard work it is possible to deliver places to live that debunk the criticism that all new housing in this country is inferior to what was built in the past,” added Wayne.
The rural landscape is also given prominence with the addition of green routes (walkways of naturalistic planting and landscaping) running
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This year Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery will embrace the town’s Indian heritage Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery is playing host to a new exhibition that aims to explore the many ties that bind Britain and India.
It features photographs by Tim Smith and footage by Indian film-makers Amit Madheshiya and Shirley Abraham depicting the people and places of Gujarat and Mumbai that have a past or present day connection with Britain.
Entitled India’s Gateway, it depicts life in both Gujarat and Mumbai, areas that through trade and migration have developed strong links with the UK including East Lancashire as a result of the textile industries of the past.
The exhibition is the result of a 3,000 mile journey around India undertaken by Tim who wanted to show just how closely intertwined the fortunes of both countries has been.
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It explores the massive impact that followed as a result of the establishment of Britain’s East Indian Trading Company that transformed Bombay, today Mumbai, into a major trading port, the imposition of British rule and resulting diverse communities of Indian migrants that were later welcomed to the UK.
The exhibition comes in a year when the UK and India will celebrate their cultural ties and the 70th anniversary of India’s independence, with a unique programme of cultural exchanges organised by the British Council and the Government of India. To tie in with this Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery will host a collection of ragamala miniature paintings, accompanied by an ivory sarinda instrument, both made in 17th century India for courtly patrons, from the British Museum’s South Asian collection.
Other images look at the strong links many of today’s migrants maintain with their homeland and how opportunities are developing for younger generations as India goes through a considerable period of change.
India’s Gateway, will open at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday, February 18 until July 15.
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Photographer Tom Bunning who has worked with the likes of David Beckham and Paul Weller, was invited to turn his lens on Blackburn based fashion label Community Clothing. Launched by Patrick Grant, creative director of Saville Row’s Norton & Sons and the ETautz fashion brand, Community Clothing sells high quality British made clothing affordable and champions UK textile communities. From its shop on Lord Street West it sells clothing made in Blackburn, British made socks and outerwear as well as knitwear from Scotland. Tom was invited to photograph volunteers at the shop provided through employment charity Bootstrap and to also capture scenes from the town that inspired the project.
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University Centre at Blackburn College has launched its own art gallery A new pop up gallery celebrating contemporary art is being opened by the University Centre at Blackburn College.
“We also have tutors that exhibit all over the country and until now they weren’t able to exhibit in Blackburn and show students examples of their work in a proper setting.”
The Prism gallery on Lord Street West will offer students the opportunity of exhibiting at and running their own professional gallery.
In addition, Prism will host the University Centre’s programme of visiting lecturers and artists such as those from the Chelsea College of Art with which the course has strong links.
Open to the public one week a month it will also widen the range of art that is on offer in Blackburn with exhibitions featuring a range of contemporary and experimental artwork.
As well as shows and opening nights the public will also be invited to open critiques to offer artists feedback.
Work on display will be created by the University Centre’s BA fine arts degree students along with work by visiting artists and tutors who teach at the college.
The project is the result of a partnership between the College and the Council that aims to find new uses for empty properties in the town centre.
Jamie Holman, Programme Leader said: “As part of their course students have to show they have acquired some experience in a professional environment so this will give them the chance to get that experience of both curating and hanging a show,”
“We previously had a short trial with a shop opposite the library that was really successful and we’ve been looking for an opportunity to build on that ever since,” added Jamie. “Basically we want to bring the quality of a city centre artspace to Blackburn.”
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AN EXPLORATION OF BLACKBURN’S FASCINATING HISTORY AND EXCITING FUTURE, THROUGH A DIVERSE SERIES OF COMMISSIONED ARTWORKS
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Found in Blackburn is an exciting exploration of Blackburn’s most historic buildings, hidden treasures and the people who used to inhabit these spaces. Blackburn has a rich and vibrant history and the buildings dotted around the town show fragments of this past. Found in Blackburn will allow people to once again connect with these spaces, showing off Blackburn’s architecture and built environment and bringing people closer to the town’s history and the people who have lived here, their memories, snippets of their daily lives, and also their plans, hopes and dream for the future.
The artists in residence will be Elly Langlois, who will take to the street to explore the relationship between Blackburn town centre and nearby Whalley Range, letterpress printer David Armes who will take up residence at Radio Lancashire to create work based on conversations with listeners and Feona Hadcroft who will paint, sketch, sculpt and even knit the sights and sounds of Blackburn market. The project will culminate in an day of events on Saturday March 11 and an exhibition until March 26 across a number of venues including BBC radio Lancashire, Blackburn market, The Bureau Centre for the Arts and Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery. There will also be a one day pop up exhibition of photography in Town Hall Square.
The project will see site-specific creative responses produced by a variety of creatives from across Lancashire including photographers, filmmakers, researchers and visual artists, and three new artist residency programmes.
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THE STREETS – ELLY LANGLOIS RESIDENCY
This residency will explore the thoughts and feelings of the people of Blackburn and their relationships with the town. Blackburn town centre and its high-street has a variety of shops and buildings such as the Museum and the Library, and a large Mall. There is another high-street however, located just a stone’s throw away called Whalley Range. Socially Engaged artist Elly Langlois is exploring the relationship between these two high-streets, exploring their similarities and differences and relationships to the town. She is engaging with people of both high streets and getting them to suggest possible futures for the town, by inventing stories. Using neon wire as her ink, she will be writing snippets of these stories and installing them at various locations around the town. Visitors will then be invited to follow the trail of stories as they unfold across the town centre.
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BLACKBURN MARKET – FEONA HADCROFT RESIDENCY
Painter and Sculptor, Feona Hadcroft, will be based in Blackburn Market and will look at the relationship that the people who visit and work at the market have with their town. She will be responding to its stallholders and shoppers through paintings, sculpting, sketches, and even knitting! The project will see Feona create a series of large acrylic paintings inspired by the market and a series of sculpted heads that represent people she meets during her residency. The finished artworks will be displayed at the final exhibition on March 11.
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BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE – DAVID ARMES RESIDENCY
Letterpress printmaker David Armes undertook a residence at BBC Radio Lancashire using letterpress to capture listeners’ memories and feelings about Blackburn. Each Monday throughout January he was based at the station on the John Gilmore afternoon show and took part in conversations themed around ‘work’, ‘home life’ and ‘night life’. The residency was a reflection upon Blackburn’s past and its future. And the project saw David collecting oral histories, stories and memories and using these as inspiration to create a new set of letterpress prints that will be on display at the closing exhibition.
DERREN LEE-POOLE – PHOTOGRAPHY In the footsteps of Christopher John Ball, a wellknown documentary style photographer who captured many shots of Blackburn and Lancashire in the 1980’s, photographer Derren Lee-Poole will produce a series of his own documentary photographs reflecting on current day Blackburn and its inhabitants, whilst considering what the town means to him.
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STEPHANIE CLAIRE – A CUP OF CREATIVE
An alternative Walking Tour - an original piece of street-theatre created especially for Found in Blackburn. Theatre performer Stephanie Claire has been commissioned to create an alternative walking tour of Blackburn. Based on peoples’ memories from various locations in the town, and times in its history, and will be using these memories as inspiration. Her tour will be site specific, with stories being retold by herself at various locations throughout Blackburn. Taking place on March 11 the free 45 minute walking tour will begin at Town Hall Square and conclude at a local café where free refreshments will be available and participants are invited to discuss their memories of the town. Join the tour on March 11 at 10am, 12:30pm or 3pm. Please arrive ten minutes before the start of the tour.
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CEDAR LEWISOHN Cedar Lewisohn is a Londonbased curator, writer and artist who will be working with University Fine Art students at Blackburn College. The group will produce a collection of films and fine art prints inspired by food, local ingredients and heritage recipes. Work produced will be exhibited in Blackburn College’s Prism Art Gallery on Lord Street West.
LIAM ST-PIERRE & AARON DUNLEAVY Liam St-Pierre is a Blackburn born filmmaker whose films have won numerous awards and have been screened at a range of international film festivals, including Raindance, Sheffield Docfest, DOC NYC, London Short Film Festival. Liam will be working with another local filmmaker, Aaron Dunleavy, and producing a short documentary linking Blackburn’s past and present using the hidden spaces of the past (Tony’s ballroom, Holy Trinity Church an Waterfall Mill, a former Cotton Mill) and comparing them with their modern equivalents. The duo will collect a range of stories from local people as they talk about their memories of these hidden places; what they liked and loathed, the trouble they got into, the fun, the fights and the lost loves. They will also find modern day equivalent of these spaces and interview the young people of Blackburn who frequent them. The finished film will be screened at the Found in Blackburn event on March 11.
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OBSCURA DARKROOM Obscura Darkroom are a community darkroom based in the heart of Blackburn. They are handing out 100 film cameras to the public, and asking them to capture shots that represent their daily lives, and a snapshot of Blackburn through their eyes! The exposed films will then be developed and later on installed on a large town centre wall to create one big analogue mural of Blackburn told by its very own inhabitants.
DAVID BOULTBEE – LIGHT INSTALLATION David Boultbee (BREAD art collective) is an artist interested in creating unexpected encounters and inviting people to re-explore places familiar places to see them in a different light. He uses light, sound and interactive technologies with a strong social focus to collaborate with the public realm. For Found in Blackburn David will consider Blackburn’s iconic shopping centre, The Mall, which forms the centre of what was a total redevelopment of the town centre during the 1960’s and 70’s. He will be creating a series of glowing panels exploring this often overlooked icon of post-war urban planning and visitors will be able to follow a trail of his installations around the town.
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RICHARD TYMON – PHOTOGRAPHY
Richard Tymon is a photographer who has been working in collaboration with Thwaites Brewery. Thwaites have been brewing their famous beers at Eanam, Blackburn for over 200 years and his collection of photographs provides the first glimpse inside the historic landmark building. This unrestricted photographic exploration takes the viewer into many rooms of the now largely decommissioned brewery, incorporating the remaining brewery for Crafty Dan and the Stables. The remaining machinery is testament to how significant Thwaites were in the industry.
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MATT SOMMERVILLE – 360 DEGREE FILMS
Filmmaker Matt Sommerville will be giving people access to places that are usually off limits to the public, or are “hidden” spaces using their smart phones. He will create 360 degree shots from six local buildings including Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, Blackburn Council Chambers and the former cotton exchange on King William Street.
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OLD TOWN
Old Town is a series of photographs from Blackburn’s past printed onto large vinyls and installed at various, site-specific locations across the town.
01
Outside the Cotton Exchange
02 On the High Street 03 Town Hall St 04 Blackburn Library (Window Vinyl) 05 Blackburn Bus Station 37
VENUES Artwork is displayed for up to one month. To see a full list of venue opening times and dates please visit the website.
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Tony’s Ballroom Outside Only
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The Cotton Exchange Outside Only
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Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
Blackburn Library Outside Only
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Thwaites - The Stables Saturday 11 March only
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Blackburn Market
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PROGRAMME SATURDAY 11 MARCH ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO ATTEND 10:00 – 16:00 All exhibition venues open
12:00 – 13:30 Guided Exhibition Tour b Town Hall Square
10:00 – 16:00 Drop-in printmaking workshop with Julia Swarbrick on the traditional Colombian press e Blackburn Museum 10:00 – 11:30
11:00 – 12:00
12:30 – 14:00 Stephanie Claire - Memory Trail b Town Hall Square 13:30 – 14:30 Artists Talk f Prism Contemporary
Stephanie Claire - Memory Trail b Town Hall Square (*This performance is relaxed, welcoming people who experience mobility issues or special needs)
15:00 – 16:30 Stephanie Claire - Memory Trail b Town Hall Square 16:30 – 19:00 Our Town - Meet the artists behind the project and see the premiere of “Hidden Blackburn” a film made by Liam St-Pierre and Aaron Dunleavy c The Bureau
Curated Carparks - A guided tour with David Boultbee around some of the hidden brutalist architecture gems found in Blackburn Mall b Town Hall Square
ARTWORKS 01 02 03
Lee-Poole 08 Derren a BBC Radio Lancashire
Elly Langlois a BBC Radio Lancashire c The Bureau i The Making Rooms j Blackburn Library
Darkroom m Wall next to 09 Obscura Debenhams
Liam Saint-Pierre & Aaron Dunleavy HI a BBC Radio Lancashire G c The Bureau
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ANA David Armes a BBC RadioE Lancashire M e Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
To M65 Jnct 6 Old Town h Blackburn Bus Station
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Hadcroft a BBC Radio Lancashire 04 Feona d Blackburn Market Tymon a BBC Radio Lancashire 05 Richard g The Stables Boultbee a BBC Radio Lancashire 06 David b King William Street
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HIGH ER AU DL EY ST
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Stephanie Claire b Town Hall Square
f PRISM Contemporary ET Cedar Lewisohn RE
j Blackburn Library b Town Hall Square l Tony’s Ballroom k The Cotton Exchange
Matt Sommerville visit www.foundinblackburn.co.uk to see behind the doors of six iconic buildings as interactive 360° photographs
FOUNDINBLACKBURN.CO.UK Facebook /foundinblackburn @foundinbburn 39
PAUL WELLER
Saturday, April 8, 7.30pm PAUL WELLER Singer song writer Paul Weller will be back in Blackburn as part of his UK tour. Sunday, April 23, 8pm TEZ ILYAS - MADE IN BRITAIN Join one of the UK’s most exciting rising stars as he heads out on his first nationwide tour
Thursday, April 6, 7pm YOU ME AT SIX
TEZ ILYAS
You Me At Six are back on tour this year with their hotly anticipated album Night People. YOU ME AT SIX
Sunday, May 14, 8pm OMID DJALILI – SCHMUCH FOR A NIGHT
JOOLS HOLLAND
Award winning comedian and actor Omid Djalili known for his legendary stand-up performances, is back on a nationwide tour. Saturday, May 20, 7.30pm JOOLS HOLLAND & HIS RHYTHM AND BLUES ORCHESTRA Pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, television presenter and multiplatinum recording artist Jools Holland and his much loved Rhythm & Blues Orchestra will be delighting Blackburn with an evening of jazz and blues.
WWW.KINGGEORGESHALL.COM
BOOKINGS: 0844 847 1664