songs and poems, gathered over two years, with hundreds of people who live and work around Morecambe Bay, was Longline, the Carnival Opera (2006), an accessible community performance. In her 4 star review in the Guardian Lyn Gardner wrote: “Longline is about what we have all lost and in its quietly moving, highly ritualized second half how we might retrieve it”. By 2006 Sue Gill and I felt that spectacle had been hijacked by tourism and entertainment industries and the edge for art had moved to ecology, perception and a creative life. So we handed over Lanternhouse and its grant to another company (defunct since 2009) and started Dead Good Guides. We are now creating Wildernest a half acre strip on the west foreshore of Morecambe Bay. In a liminal zone between land and sea, this devotional secular space is for people to connect with themselves and with the elements. The iconography of image based art works of Icons for an Unknown Faith - poster poems, whirly-gigs and weather vanes - includes mythological, scientific and historical stories. A 100 metre land art installation in longship form provides an open access garden next to Natural England’s proposed coastal path. Wildernest will be a joyous enclave to celebrate the spiritual in the everyday.
Creative Citizens Together - Building Hope in Local Communities Robin Simpson
The world is changing. The certainties we have been used to are shifting and, for many of us, this feels deeply unsettling. The UK referendum on EU membership in June 2016 revealed deep divisions between and within communities across the UK. Writing in The Guardian on 11 November 2017, Jonathan Freedland suggested that the leave vote was: “a cry of pain from industrial towns abandoned and left derelict, with few or bad jobs, stagnant wages and crumbling public services. They felt forgotten by the political establishment in London, and grabbed the first chance they had to make themselves heard.”66 Disillusionment with traditional politics is widespread and growing, particularly locally. There is an increasing feeling of disconnection between large parts of the population and those in power - a vicious circle of disenfranchisement that denies many a voice in decisions that make a real difference to their lives. In addition we are an ageing population, working longer, with less leisure time and less disposable income. And while the range of people in our communities becomes ever more diverse, equality of access and opportunity remains an unattainable dream for many. For community cultural activities the funding landscape looks increasingly bleak. Reduced state funding, the move from grants to contracts and an increasing focus on project funding looks unlikely to be reversed. This is the new normal. But perhaps it is possible to find some ways of responding constructively to these many challenges in new approaches which draw on old traditions. One encouraging feature of the current landscape across the UK and Ireland is the multiplicity of ways in which voluntary arts activity is flourishing in almost every locality. The innovation, dedication, determination and enthusiasm demonstrated by creative citizens, not least in communities where there is little financial investment, is remarkable. New models based on centuries old traditions of collective endeavour and a commoning approach to culture and democracy are surfacing, often in the most unexpected places. And year by year, through Voluntary Arts’ EPIC Awards, some of the many creative and amazingly resourceful culturally creative initiatives that are happening in localities across these islands, come to light and are the focus for celebration.
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