Birder's Paradise Middle Phase

After Phase One of the Birder's Site visits, came our return phase, where we went back to our 3 main sites and delivered workshops and activities, which would provide opportunities to talk to the public about the sites.

In Hanley Park, a visit from Tom Pine, parks liaison officer was interesting for us, as Tom brought the tree audit he had promised for us to explore. This was a fascinating document and beautiful map, which traced every tree in the park. The audit shows what an amazing collection of trees the park contains - something which we felt needed some attention.

We used the tree audit to identify a wonderful selection of trees, and decided that we would create a tree trail for our final visit to the park.

One of the trees we selected was the beautiful Himalayan Cedar, which has a startling array of cones at this time of year.

We also had lots of other visitors, including college students, the park keeper, and some other interested members of the public.

Carole Ware, Chair of The Friends of Hanley Park stopped by to discuss the idea of a bee friendly garden that we hope to work together on for the future. In the afternoon we were pleased to receive a visit from some of the 'Men In Sheds' group. This is a group of older men who get together regularly in the park to work on shared activities, sometimes gardening, sometimes games or art. They came along and made some bug hotels with us, and explored the caravan, and did a little bit of bird watching. 

At Westport Lake we did our sweetcorn for bread swap.

In fact, it didn't work the way that we had expected, as the people who were feeding bread to the birds tended to avoid us. But we spoke to a lot of people about the problem of feeding bread to birds, and gave out a lot of corn. And quite a few children did us some lovely examples of bread birds to use within our designs.

 They all seemed to be quite bloated.

It was great to spend another day by the lake talking to people about their experiences of birdlife there. 

We were really pleased that Helen Meharg, one of the countryside officers, was able to come and visit us, and see the Birdhide at work.

We were happy to be able to add a few more birds to our list, and though we didn't see them this time ourselves, we were told of sightings of a woodpecker and a kingfisher that very day! Hopefully we will see them ourselves next time.

We returned to the Spode factory as well, with an idea of spending the day in the Spode Rose Garden, auditing the birds there, but also doing some much needed gardening. Unfortunately, on arrival we were told that we couldn't access the garden, due to an asbestos problem in the adjacent building, so we had to set up next to the car park instead.

But our extra visit, to Hanley as part of the Appetite Big Feast weekend was more successful. We set up outside the Potteries Museum and spent time talking to the public about urban birds, and making bug hotels.

We enjoyed hearing the stories of that people wanted to share with us. Some were touching, some interesting and some were even quite gruesome!

To hear about how the project started go here: http://annafrancis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/birders-paradise-stoke-on-trent.html

Birder's Paradise: Collecting moss on the Spode Factory Site

Saturday Market Project

I am working on a lovely commission for the wonderful 'Saturday Market Project.' They are an amazing company celebrating, making, good design and products. What they say 'We explore ways to draw new audiences into the making process, led by a belief in experimentation, collaboration, skill-sharing and good design.'
I have been asked to work on a flower pressing kit, which is all about helping people to explore and appreciate Urban Nature. This is so far up my street at the moment, I had hoped to make some new work with the Brownfield Ikebana ideas, and this feels like it is going in the right direction. I have been able to combine a few of the things I have been thinking and working with over the past few years.
My approach has been to consider some of the exploring kits and site excavations I have been doing recently, with the research into the Victorian Language of Flowers. I have looked at a variety of flowers that can be found growing abundantly in cities, but which also have meanings within the Language of Flowers. These have been selected, and then a relevant instruction put together for users of the SMP kit.
I had created 21 plant instructions, which the SMP chose 12 of. I then created drawing to accompany the texts.
Here are some of the drawings and plants that didn't make it.

1.     Ragwort  – I am humble but proud ‘The humble ragwort quietly nods its head in the breeze: it has many kin – is there one that you recognise?’

1.       Coltsfoot – justice shall be done you ‘The law enforcers do their best to keep man in check in the city – but nature on the other hand has its unruly way. Coltsfoot, where found pervades – what else is cocking a snook at the enforcers?’

1.       Thistle – misanthropy ‘The city and nature are at war, locate the plant that shows the most resistance to man’s need to build.’
The Kit is coming along, and will launch at London Design Festival, where I will be leading a tour of Urban Nature Sites, and we will use the field guide to look for clues and uncover secrets in the city.
Details are available here: http://saturdaymarketprojectldf.tumblr.com/post/94717831336/saturday-20-september-2-30pm-5-00pm
The workshop/tour will be on Saturday 20th September from 2.30 - 5pm in Shoreditch.
Update:
The guide was really beautifully made by SMP - hand cut paper and hand stitched.
The urban nature tour I did in Shoreditch was really well received. It was quite a funny thing to arrive in Shoreditch in the morning and scope out the area in order to plan a tour for the afternoon! I am more used to leading tours in familiar places.

Birder's Paradise: Stoke-on-Trent

Birder's Paradise: Stoke-on-Trent is now underway. The project which myself and Andrew Branscombe have been working on for some time is now launched, and is going really well.
We had a few hiccups along the way, not least having the mobile bird hide quarantined for a number of months half way through the renovation!

The renovation of the caravan is now complete, and our research and development phase is also complete: we have made our visits and connections, and are now about to begin the public workshop phase of the project, which we are really looking for ward to.
Here is an update on what has happened so far:
We started with our bird hide design - based in an RSPB bird sanctuary, we put together our proposal, which was commissioned by the Appetite Kitchen Programme.

The caravan was like any ordinary family caravan, and needed to be entirely stripped out of all the usual furnishings, windows and other features.

We commissioned GoldPeg and Malarky to do a wonderful paint job on the caravan.

They used our design, and the colours for the paint job were all sourced from the physical environment on one of our planned urban exploration sites: the Spode Factory Site.

Once the paint job was complete the refit of the interior took place. Andy boarded out the caravan with osb and created the recognisable viewing slots, and benches.

We have been collecting books relating to urban nature and birding for some time, for the resource/library area within the bird hide. This is for visitors to the bird hide to use in order to identify species of bird and other creatures on the sites we visit.

Our first outing for Birder's Paradise Stoke was actually outside of the Appetite commission, and an extra visit on top of our main sites for investigation - but it was a really good test of the project, and how the public might respond and work with us.

It was a public workshop for Stoke Pride Festival in Northwood Park.

Whenever we are birders, we have a sort of uniform, to let people know who we are.

We are learning that the intrigue of a transformed caravan immediately acts as a disarming device for talking to the public. But also, everyone has a story about birds and nature in their lives that they want to share with us.

For the Pride event we built a semi-permanent mini beasts hotel, using materials found in the park, plus a few old pallets.

We also worked with the public to help them to make mini-mini beast hotels for them to take home.

People told us about where the beast hotels would be going. 

The next few outings for the caravan have been our exploratory stage: where myself and Andy go to the sites and spend time looking, exploring, identifying species and talking to people who are using the sites.

For each site, we have met with the people who work at or manage the sites. We hope to discover the issues and concerns they may have in providing a home for nature on their site, and hope that in some small way we can work with some of their concerns when it comes to our approach for Birder's Paradise.

At Westport Lake we have been working with Helen Meharg, a countryside officer for the council. She talked to us about the work they are doing on the site, and revealed that one of the major problems is that people dump a lot of white bread in the lake.

This has lead to what is described as an enormous bread bloom under the water in the lake - also contributing to a major algae problem, and in addition, is causing Angel Wing in the geese - a condition which is caused by an unhealthy diet, poor in the vitamin e the birds need, which leads to a splaying out of the wing, and an inability to fly. 

Spending time at the lake we saw many people with bags and bags of bread - despite signs asking people not to feed the birds bread. We are planning our public workshop phase which raises awareness about this particular issue.

First, we will invite people to draw a bread bird: there will be a description to explain: Due to the poor diet of white bread (which lacks the vitamin e needed) Bread Bird is heavy, can't fly or float and is quite bloated, and suffers from indigestion. From the drawings of bread bird, we will choose one to be made into a sculpture for the public exhibition phase. In addition, I hope to show people how to make an origami cup.

The cups will then be filled with corn.

and then I will swap the corn for the bread that people have brought with them, to feed the birds with some of the food stuff that they need.

We have also been in Hanley Park, we met the 'Men in Sheds' group - for Older men with some form of mental health support needs or dementia. They do a lot of work in the park, painting, wildlife support etc. as well as meeting twice a week to socialise in the park. We hope to be able to run a relaxed workshop with them, making mini beast hotels, which it was suggested was something they were hoping to do.

In addition - we have begun to discuss the development of a project with the Friends of Hanley Park, as they have been working to develop a wild/nature trail area in the park for some time, and have been looking for support on that. We are also talking with the W.I. group 'Let's Make Jam' and Sainsburys, as they wish to create a bee friendly garden with us, so the two things fit perfectly. So our work in Hanley Park will be to explore the idea of and design a bee friendly garden.

Our final site is the Spode Factory site, early explorations have made me think I am really keen to look closely at the plants and mosses growing on the site. I have an idea to create a moss garden, from mosses and lichens gathered from the site, but we will see.
The other thing I hope to do is a series of images from the sites which celebrate the people that champion and look after these sites: the series is called Force of Nature and one of those is John Pierce from Westport Lake.

John is a water bailiff, and has been a member of the RSPB since the 50s. He has seen many changes in how we relate to nature - he told us about his early days as a birder - that one of the things everyone did was to collect eggs from nests. When John was about 17 conservationists started to talk about the damage that egg collecting was doing to bird life in the UK, and after that John started to campaign to tell others about it. John has been campaigning and being a champion for wildlife ever since. Lately John has been trying to educate people about the problem of white bread. He told us about one couple who visit the lake daily to feed the birds - he managed to persuade them not to feed white bread anymore - now they feed the birds with brown...he says there is more to be done. John visits the Lake at 6am daily, rain or shine, he learnt to swim here. John brings down corn for the birds, and also feeds other mammals in the area - he says they have 5 foxes, 2 badgers and 9 mink living in the area.

The Artist and The City

Image: John Currie, Self-portrait and Adam James, My Kind of People

I have wanted to curate an exhibition for the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery for some time, and it is happening in October this year.
I am working with Jean Milton from the museum to curate a show called 'The Artist and The City.'
It is so exciting to have been given access to the museum's fantastic collection. Yesterday we went into the museums underbelly, where there is so much amazing work that is never seen.
Cases and cases full of ceramics, paintings, workbooks.
The exhibition has 4 very important artists from the museums collection, with links to Stoke-on-Trent, and then for each of those we have selected an emerging or mid career artist to make an artwork in response to one of the artworks from the collection. We have identified artists that we feel have an affinity with each other. I am so excited to reveal the 8 artists to be included in the show:

George Cartlidge (1868 - 1961)

John Currie (1884 - 1914)

Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein (1899-1990)

Terry Shave 

David Bethell 

Adam James

Carla Wright

Sophie Bard
I am currently gathering ideas for a timeline to accompany the exhibition in the museum: which aims to be a comprehensive chronology of the arts and artists in Stoke-on-Trent. We also hope to commission an artist to work the content of the timeline gathered from the public into an artwork which documents the history of the arts in the city as a ltd edition giveaway for the show.

The show continues in AirSpace, as well with exciting commissioned works by David Bethell, Adam James, Carla Wright and Sophie Bard.

More details about the exhibition below. 

AirSpace Gallery (ASG) and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery (PMAG) are collaborating on an exhibition titled 'The Artist and The City' which explores the notion of the city of Stoke-on-Trent as a Creative City- considering the history of creative industries and artists working in the city - ahead of the Esmee Fairburn funded project, Artcity.

Artcity is a five-year artist-led programme in Stoke-on-Trent that aims to:

            Improve the quality of place and life in the city for those who live here and

            Create a new story for the city - modelling new ideas for the city's future.

The project in particular sets out S-O-T as a city which is really viable as a place for art and artists to thrive, providing opportunities for artists to access disused spaces in the city to make activity happen in new and surprising ways and places.

The Artist and The City:

This exhibition aims  to set the context of Artcity, demonstrating that artists have lived and worked in the city for hundreds of years, and setting out the particular experience of The Artist and The City, through an examination of the works of 4 well known artists, originally living or working in the city.

The exhibition takes as its focus and starting point the work of 4 artists, who are well represented within the Museums collection, and whose work is also identified as being world class.

The artists to be explored in The Artist and The City are:

George Cartlidge (1868 - 1961)

John Currie (1884 - 1914)

Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein (1899-1990)

Terry Shave (b1952)

The exhibition is a chance to showcase some beautiful, important works from the Museum's collection, with each of the selected artists having a series of works from the collection on display, revealing the history of these artists, their fascinating lives and connections to the city, but will also provide an opportunity for the next generation of artists to explore the artists and their works, and what it means to be an artist living or working in the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

The exhibition will select one work from each of the artists above, to become the starting point for a new commission for a contemporary artist with connections to the city of Stoke-on-Trent today. The curators of The Artist and The City have deliberately selected the artists, due to a perceived crossover or affinity with the works from the collection, and that those artists have lived here, or worked here previously, and therefore have a connection to the city. These newly commissioned, responsive artworks will be displayed alongside the artworks from the museum collection within the Art gallery at PMAG. The pairings are:

George Cartlidge (1868 - 1961) - David Bethell

John Currie (1884 - 1914) - Adam James

Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein (1899-1990) - Carla Wright

Terry Shave (b1952) - Sophie Bard

In addition the exhibition will continue to explore the theme of The Artist and The City through an exciting exhibition at AirSpace Gallery, which seeks to propose and imagine what the future Artcity may look like; exploring the city as a viable site for artistic endeavour, but also as a place where artists can live, work and prosper.

The exhibition at PMAG will run from: 4th October (with PV at AirSpace on 3rd) - 22nd February

The exhibition at AirSpace opens at the same time, and runs for 6 weeks.

Alongside the exhibition there will be a series of events and activity which discuss the history of Creativity in the City of Stoke-on-Trent, and project forwards to the future Artcity. Details tbc.

Emily Speed's Work Makes Works Project

Artist Emily Speed has started a new project which aims to make evident the way that artists work makes more work - and how careers develop, and how things within the art world are connected.
I joined in, as back in 2008 I went on an A-N trip to Lille (documented on this blog) and it turned out to be quite important in making some wonderful connections and leading to a number of projects. I met Emily on that trip.
I created this diagram to show the connections.

I also created another diagram to show the relationship which developed with Longhouse, the programme of artist development which was delivered by Multistory (sadly no longer in existence) but I hope this diagram shows how something small can lead to something big.

There are a lot of interesting diagrams being sent in by various artists, and I think it really shows the very different journeys and strategies that artists take. A great project, Emily!

Birder's Paradise: Appetite Commission

Andrew Branscombe and I have embarked upon a new commission. We are thrilled that the ideas we had to develop a project called Birder's Paradise (see previous blog for details of history) has been commissioned by Appetite (part of the Arts Council's Creative, People and Places programme to bring arts to areas where there is less uptake in arts and culture) which sees 3 million in arts funding coming to the city of Stoke-on-Trent, specifically to build audiences in the area. Our commission comes from The Kitchen section of the Appetite programme, supporting artists in the area to research and develop ideas, and providing seed funding for projects.

We sent in an expression of interest to Appetite, as we felt their remit, to create an appetite for the arts in Stoke, through a variety of commissions could fit really well with our ideas for Birder's Paradise, which would bring arts to the public via conversations about Birds and Wildlife to be found locally.

Here is the proposal that we sent in.

Birder's Paradise: Stoke-on-Trent.

A Birder is different from a Twitcher. While Twitchers will travel miles to see an exotic or rare bird type, Birders are much more interested in spending time with the wildlife and creatures that surround them in their daily lives. This is something that we, as artists, feel an affinity with, in relation to Stoke-on-Trent. To give an idea of our possible approach to involvement in the Appetite Programme we propose to create a mobile research lab 'Birder's Paradise' a mobile bird hide, which can travel to open spaces around Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire, to gather data, identify species and deliver activities and events which create a dialogue with residents and users of the sites about wildlife in their local vicinity. The conversations around wildlife are meant as a 'way-in' to talking to the people of the area about where they live, and what makes it special. Unlike some of the other Appetite projects, the appetites we will be discussing will be of the avian variety – and we will be able to talk to people about urban birdlife, what they eat, and how they can be supported.

The content gathered from those conversations will lead to developments within the project and inform the direction of our response. We know, from personal experience, that taking an interest in green spaces and the wildlife there can improve health and wellbeing, and hope to talk to the public in Stoke-on-Trent about how they experience their local environment, and what other ways they may like to engage with it.

Andrew Branscombe: Ingrained 2010

We are Andrew Branscombe and Anna Francis (AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.) In terms of previous relevant experience: we have plenty of experience of managing projects which engage the public, and which lead to developments, we welcome the opportunity to tell you about some of these projects in a meeting. Also, we have recently developed a small Yarden Space at the back of our artist-led gallery into a Bird Haven, where planting and landscaping is all planned to support the diversity of birds and other wildlife in the city centre, which can act as a catalyst and learning space to encourage others to consider our feathered friends in the planning and use of urban spaces. The project was complete in April, 2013 - and we would love to embark on a venture around the area, where we can take our knowledge from the Bird Yarden on the road, and visit other areas of the city, to talk to people about what it is like to live there and the diversity of wildlife in those areas. As practitioners we have an interest in how artists can have an impact on the environment, and urban development.

Anna Francis, Brownfiled Ikebana 2012

A recent project 'Brownfield Ikebana' shows the type of approach we would take to public workshops on the sites where the Birder's Paradise Hide could visit. In 'Brownfield Ikebana,' Anna used traditional Japanese flower arranging techniques as a starting point for workshops and performances, bringing participants to a local Brownfield site. The workshop saw participants using and identifying 'weeds' and litter to create beautiful flower arrangements, but more importantly to discuss these interim sites and their uses and importance.

The Birder's Paradise project would involve a number of stages, some of the content of which is unknown as yet - as our usual working methodology allows space for participants and site to impact on direction, and activity, but to give an idea:

1. Construct the mobile bird hide: The mobile bird hide would be a converted caravan, camouflaged to blend in to Green and Urban Open Spaces, but also referencing traditional bird hides. The bird hide would act as a temporary work space and hub for working on various sites in the area.

2. Research and development stage: This would see the artists making connections in the various locations, meeting stake holders and identifying key people to involve in the project. We would identify specific locations and then visit these areas to undertake research; looking at uses, users and preliminary identification of wildlife types, and planning our next stage/response. 

3. Intensive Discovery Period: We would endeavour to spend time on the sites, holding workshops, collecting data, making art works. These will be planned and designed in relation to the people and sites identified in the research and development stage, and would centre around what it is like to live and work in the areas, and what can be done to involve people more in the arts in these areas. 

4. Presentation: we will allow the process to determine what our final product is, but for example it may be works for an exhibition; venue to be found during residency, or a mobile exhibition in 'The Mobile Bird Hide' returning to the areas previously visited, and presenting a vision of Green Stoke.

We hope that Birder's Paradise will demonstrate that developing an appreciation and knowledge of wildlife and nature is possible in built up areas and that spending time in green spaces can be incredibly important to the health and well being of residents. 

Appreciating and nurturing urban birds is a mutually beneficial activity, for bird and human, and ultimately we hope that the project will start to reframe familiar sites for residents and users, encouraging people to use open green spaces more, and not just the landscaped civic ones. We also hope it will create conversation - leading to content which talks about what life is like in this area, and how citizens can make it better.

Budget items:

Purchase of caravan and renovation
Other materials for workshops and temporary exhibition
Artists Fees: 2 X artists for 10 contact days plus other time spent.

We also sent in images from previous works, and our C.V.'s. 

We were really pleased that our expression of interest began a conversation with the Appetite producers; to explore how the commission could support us as artists in working on a project locally, what we hoped to gain in experience, and how this could be build into the Appetite Kitchen programme of support for artists in the city. The commission was granted, and we are now embarking on the project. They will be announcing a call for Year Two commissions soon, so artists: watch this space.

So far, we have purchased a caravan, and found a site to store it and renovate it - transforming it from domestic holiday home, to urban bird hide.

Andy has ripped out the innards of the caravan, and will be rebuilding in the style of the bird hides that we have seen in our research process. (see Andy's write up here.) 

We are aiming to secure partnerships with 4 sites around the city to take our mobile bid hide in the Spring and Summer - and carry out our research processes, and creation of artworks. Then we will plan and deliver workshops on the sites with the public, or stakeholders. We hope that the sites we choose will be a combination of different types of land: managed green space, for example, the grounds of a stately home or public park, wetland spaces - for example Middleport Lake, a Brownfield Site and an inner city green haven are all possibilities to explore. We will begin the process shortly of finding partners or stakeholders in those areas, and discovering who might be interested in working with us.

One of the things I am hoping to learn about during the project, as well as exploring how the different sites support bird and other wild life - I want specifically to learn about how mosses and lichens can be used to ascertain the pollution and air quality of an area, and look at ways of working with these fascinating plants.

We are really looking forward to working with the Appetite Team to make connections, and are really grateful for the opportunity to see our ideas develop.

We are also pleased that there may be an opportunity within the project to see the artwork commissioned by Capsule for the New Library of Birmingham (see previous post) will be reused in the libraries around Stoke-on-Trent prior to our residencies around the city with the bird hide, as a way of raising awareness of what we are doing, and advertising out workshops and activity.

The Appetite programme is supported using public funding by Arts Council England and led by the New Vic Theatre in partnership with B Arts, Brighter Futures, Partners in Creative Learning and Staffordshire University. Appetite is also supported by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.