The Lisen Profile Travel Journal
15th June 2011
Dear Carole, Diane, Eileen, Ian, Jo and Matt,
I hope that this letter finds you well? I have been very busy since we last met; working on the photo shoot of a yoga book for children, working with participants in Stannington and Penistone to create graffiti knitting trails around their areas and this week spending a day at the LEAF allotment with Diane introducing a group of young people to the allotment and issues around growing.
I thought I would take this chance to explain to you more fully my ideas for this project and also the general plan for the workshops and beyond.
The Project: Part 1
From visiting, viewing and hearing talks about the Katerina Seda exhibition several times I found that the part of it that I identified with the most was the fact that 511 people took journeys to the town of Lisen to draw their profile. I loved the stories that came out of these journeys. True, I had questions similar to those that you all asked, but looking past my questions it was the journeying aspect that really caught my attention. When Museums Sheffield asked me to carry out this project to explore the themes of the exhibition with people from S5 I initially thought about finding a group of people from S5 and one from elsewhere in Sheffield. The idea was to bring each group to experience the other’s area.
However, as I explored groups in S5 I realised that the area itself is enormous; there are so many different suburbs within the area and so many different groups existing within each suburb. I found that many people were not aware of the other groups happening in neighbouring areas. So I thought maybe instead of bringing together people from across Sheffield that I could bring together people from across S5. To journey around the area and to discover more that is happening. (S5 was extended to ‘North Sheffield’ after I met Carole and Jo at the Arts for Health Group in Foxhill.)
The plan for the workshops is for us as a group to travel to each other’s areas over the four workshops. You will get a chance to see what is happening in the areas local to you. During these workshops we will talk about different journeys that we have each taken in the PAST. We will take new journeys together and record these in the PRESENT. We will explore how we can take these journeys forward into the FUTURE.
These workshops will be exploratory; we will be talking to each other, carrying out short exercises, recording our routes, gathering thoughts and inspiration for future work. This will all relate back to the theme of journeys. The results of these recordings will be displayed in some way in the Graves Art Gallery in October. Through the process of the workshops we will decide together what will be displayed. (You may or may not see this process as art or being creative but I hope that this may change over our meetings.) This work will lead on to creative opportunities after August which may be more relevant to what you do now.
The Project: Part 2
In September/ October 2011 LEAF allotment, Herries Road, will host Allotment Soup, an annual event involving artists and growers celebrating allotments and growing spaces through artworks, art interventions, performances and other events taking place over one day. This event is organised by Grow Sheffield and has happened in a different allotment around Sheffield each year for the last four years. For this we will have the chance to create new work and display it in an unusual and exciting setting. It is my hope that the journeys we take will provide inspiration for this work, provide us with a connection to the allotment and lead to participation in the event.
You can find out more about the Allotment Soup events of the past four years here:
http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groshefallothm.html
The Dates: Part 1
Wednesday 22nd June, 10am-12pm
Wednesday 29th June, 10am-12pm
Tuesday 5th July, 10am-12pm
(I have had to reschedule this day from Wednesday 6th July to Tuesday 5th due to other commitments. Please let me know if you are able or unable to make this day)
Wednesday 13th July, 10am-12pm
Workshop 2: Wednesday 22nd June 2011
Our next meeting will take place at the LEAF Allotment on Herries Road. Please see the attached map for details of how to find the allotment. During the workshop we will be undertaking the following tasks:
· Sharing stories of our journeys to the allotment.
· A sensory walk around the allotment to explore how our senses react as we travel around a space. We will record our observations in a variety of ways.
· We will again be marking the route that we took to get to the allotment onto a map (this exercise will continue throughout the workshops to build a picture of our journeys taken.
· After the workshop you will have the opportunity to stay a while at the allotment to explore the site further, do some observational drawing/studies, have a chat with the growers or just sit and enjoy the garden!
I hope that this letter has cleared up some of the questions you may have had about the project? If you would like to talk about the project before we next meet then please feel free to contact me either by phone or email using the contact details below. Otherwise there will be time to talk over the project on Wednesday.
I am very much looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!
Best wishes,
