Tottington Library: Things to Do

As part of the project 'Things to Do' yesterday Jeni McConnell and I were at Tottington Library, Bury.

Things to do is a pioneering pilot project, a collaboration with people living with dementia, their carers, arthur+martha, Bury Council and others, redefining relationships with art, carers and the self. It is resulting in workshops and test-driving of draft pages of a creative activity book.

A tricky thing for both Jeni and I was to sit back and simply observe the session- our natural instincts are to 'be on the job', to constantly engage with people, checking group dynamics, pacing the session, trying to find ways for everyone to have opportunities to be involved with the activity. Yesterday that role was challenged, our task was to allow failure or silence to happen.

It was an important lesson on letting go. Things didn't fall apart, the group (in the main) looked after its-self. The instructions for the activities were followed, and in the discussion towards the end of the day, we were told the mock-up pages were clear and informative. Jeni and I still leant a hand, encouragement and advice where needed, but held back much more than normal. There weren't silences, it didn't all fall apart, there was a lot of laughter, and quite a lot of art making.

The game of fruit boules was interesting to watch as participants began to roll their decorated oranges along the floor – no messing about with moving tables – most just got on with it from their chair and dodged the table legs. I loved watching this - there was some serious concentration on faces, judging which direction was needed and how fast to roll – I am convinced some folks have been pretty good bowlers in their time! Smiles and laughter filled the room – the library visitors must have wondered what we were all up to!   Jeni

Thanks to Making Space and all the group for making us all so welcoming and helping us with our project. On a very sad note, the wonderful, important resource Tottington Library,  Bury is closing Saturday 4th March 2017. The closures are part of a saving drive by Bury Council. There is an online petition on-line here. Prestwich Library, Bury has already closed, also Unsworth, Radcliffe Library is due to close in August. 

At the heart of the museum

 

Sing me to Sleep, quilt at Bury Art Museum.

Artist Lois Blackburn, talking at the opening of arthur+martha's latest exhibition

On Tuesday we had an opportunity to celebrate two projects, in the beautiful, inspiring setting of Bury Art Museum. The exhibition brings together two separate projects,   The Homeless Library and Sing me to Sleep,  two projects with much in common:  The people who made them – groups of homeless people living in Manchester and Vilinus, making artworks, poems, telling stories…

BOTH highlight the importance of self expression- as one of the deepest human needs, it defines identity, allows change and brings joy.

Artist Egle Gudonyte with Sing me to Sleep, at Bury Art Museum

One of the highlights of Sing me to Sleep, was our group trip to Vilnius in Lithuania. Our hosts Socialiniai Meno Projektai, and the National Gallery of Art, welcomed us… Showed us around the city-  Opened our eyes- Inspired us- These projects give us all a sense of pride and value in making and displaying the artwork produced. We were very lucky to have artist Egle Gudonyte the lead artist for the project in Lithuania come to opening of the exhibition in Bury and speak. 
 

The Homeless Library at Bury Art Museum

artist book, Riff Raff, 2016

Viewing The Homeless Library video, at Bury Art Museum.

Part of the artist/makers and audience, for the Bury Art Museum event.

Thank you to The Booth Centre and everyone else who came along and enjoyed our celebration, and the Museum for the wonderful space, right in the heart of the museum, their support and hospitality. 
 
The exhibition continues at Bury Art Museum until 21st January 2017.

A wee light at the end of the tunnel

Danny Collins

'So many of the books have so much to say, doom and gloom and a wee light at the end of the tunnel- there is a light at the end of the tunnel- but it's a long bloody tunnel.' Lawrence McGill

Howard Installing books for The Homeless Library

Yesterday saw the exhibition install of two arthur+martha projects at Bury Art Museum, The Homeless Library and Sing me to Sleep, a British-Lithuanian art project.

The Homeless Library, is a fraction of a heritage: the unwritten, unheard stories of homeless people. The exhibition in Bury shares 50 plus books, full of artworks, poems and interviews.

Riff Raff

Lawrence identified one of the problems with showing artist books behind glass: 'you only get one page of the book, it's like only getting one page of Alice in Wonderland, you're not getting the full story- that's why I flattened that one out (Riff Raff, shown above) so you could read the whole thing.

Another member of the group pointed out: you might only get one page of each story, but it all comes together with snippets of other peoples stories...

Lawrence, Egle and Howard installing The Homeless Library

For the install of The Homeless Library, I was joined by Gary, Howard, Masoud, Lawrence and Paul from The Booth Centre, (a day center for people who are or who have experienced homelessness) Over the last few years, Phil and I have learnt so much from The Booth Centre and friend to arthur+martha
clinical psychologist Polly Kaiser, about the importance of participants being involved at ever stage of a project, of finding ways of this not being a token gesture, but a opportunity to truly learn from each other.

Leaping from the success of the Homeless Library presentation at The University of Glasgow,  I stood back and handed over the curating to the rest of the group. 

As soon as the cases were open, they got on with the task- made all the decisions as to what was going where, read the books carefully and decided what pages were to be left open, and all done in such an amazing co-operative sensitive way- no bickering, no ego, but respect for each other and the work, the results are wonderful, the group added a great richness and freshness to the exhibition.

Masoud, Paul and Howard installing The Homeless Library

Sing me to Sleep / Padainuok man labanakt is a British-Lithuanian project. People who are currently homeless or who have experienced homelessness, worked with artists from arthur+martha and Lithuanian Socialiniai meno projektai.  The projects explored the tangled forests of fairytale, childhood and their current life.

Sing me to Sleep, Lithuanian film.

Preparation of space at Bury Art Museum

Hanging of Sing me to Sleep

Sing me to Sleep, quilt and Lithuanian installation in foreground

We are delighted that Egle Gudonyte,  the lead artist in Lithuania brought to England a beautiful and thought provoking intervention to the gallery. The installation is just a fragment of the overall collaboration in “Sing me to Sleep”. In its modest scale, it connects the nature and human acts that can be found in both life, and fairy-tales: walking, confronting hunger, finding a shelter and the pursuit of happiness. 

Materials and instructions to build a house. Part of the Lithuanian installation

 
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Materials and instructions to build a house. / Priemonės ir instrukcija, kaip pastatyti namą.

Instruction, thread, 4 match boxes, wooden plate, plastic bag. The instructions were written down by the project participant Rimga.  This house has never been built.

Sing me to Sleep, Bury

Invitation

We are delighted to invite you to the opening to a two-part exhibition made in collaboration with homeless people. The Homeless Library and the British-Lithuanian art project Sing Me to Sleep (Padainuok man labanakt)

The exhibition opens at 2pm on December 13^th, 2016 at Bury Art Museum and will run until the 21st January 2017.

Phil B and Sing me to Sleep, photo courtesy of Janine Onermaier

The Homeless Library, is a fraction of a heritage: the unwritten, unheard stories of homeless people. Until now these stories have been held in living memory and lost when those who remember are gone. This library is a set of 50-plus handmade books, full of artworks, poems and interviews. How does homelessness fit into our history, what can be learnt from these stories?

‘Sing me to Sleep’ (Padainuok man labanakt’) is a British-Lithuanian art project. People who have experienced homelessness, worked with professional artists to explore the tangled forests of fairytale, childhood and their current life.  This is a journey through a fairytale forest- facing shadows that carry bits of some long forgotten riddles, with the sounds of words, cries and laughter, filled with an uncertain perception of what is small and what is big, light or dark, good or bad, real or imaginary.

Bury Art Museum is open Tuesday to Friday 10.00 -17.00, Saturday 10.00 to 16.30 How to find them

Main project partners: arthur+martha CIC, The Booth Centre, The Wellspring, Socialiniai meno projektai.  In the UK projects supported by Arts Council England and The Heritage Lottery Fund.    

http://arthur-and-martha.blogspot.co.uk

Genuine Workers, from The Homeless Library collection. Photo Lois Blackburn

The Red Door

For the project The Homeless Library we are very lucky to be working with artist Jeni McConnell. The following is her account of a session together.

Early in September I spent a day working with Lois, one half of arthur+martha on the Homeless Library project.  We were in Bury at the Red Door Drop In centre, part of St Joseph's Catholic Church.

The day began with unpacking my book making goodies from my trolley and boxes. Lois had a similar stash - we must have looked quite curious to the people in the centre when we first arrived - they'd seen Lois before of course, and Philip, but not me - or the huge rolls of book binding cloth I was carting around with me.

Artist book collaboration Justin and Jeni for The Homeless Library. 

The centre was bright and full of chatter and busy activity, we sat in the main space, quite a small room in which it seemed most things happened.  Quite a few people busied themselves in and out, it was a beautiful dry day, with the sun peeping through the white (and some darkening) clouds.

Lois and I sat inside at the central multi-purpose table so we could have a look and chat through some of the work made, and to do our own quick skills sharing session with some quick book making techniques.

There are many stories that have been shared so far in the project, some as poetry, some hand written, some typed.  These have been intertwined within the folded pages of books, print work and other papery structures produced in earlier workshops.  There is an excitement building about this project, I'm keen to see how it unfolds along the rest of the way, and to read more of the stories too.

For this session I took some of the already printed stories to explore book ideas with. Reading through any of the texts I find there are certain words that stand out - almost as if I was going through with a highlight pen - they needed to be said a little clearer and I played with ways of doing this.

Justin came to join me, he'd been working with Lois in an earlier session and had some of his own words already written, but first he helped me work through the idea with the bits I had. We shared thoughts and ideas as we went along.  I do love the process of sharing something I can do with others, it's such a pleasure to see anyone's confidence grow as they pick up a new technique and working with Justin was just that.

We cut a story into thin same sized sections, there was an odd pleasure in it dividing the story so evenly and we cut the same sized pieces of tracing paper to use together. Justin read through the story and underlined words he felt were important, that needed highlighting, that needed to be shared in a more visible way.  There were cut out and stuck onto the tracing paper as a separate layer.

Conversations drifted on the air, "I found someone in me lounge this morning, I had to get out before I punched him. Why would someone be in my lounge? I came here".

Justin and I talked about reading other people's stories, about whether it was easy to find the right words to cut out, to in some way raise the status of.  We agreed it was - things just pop up and feel important.

As he reads he intermittently tells me stories of his Mum and his twin sister, who has recently died.  His Mum was a child-minder, but she also showed other people how to child-mind too; she shared her skills with others. He smiled as he explained they always had old cardboard, empty loo rolls and used tubs ready to make things, she was always making stuff with him. He seems to be really connected back to that time, he talks quite fast, an excitement about the memory perhaps.

Then, the now of the task in hand stops him short, "I need to concentrate, I'll shut up". We glue and cut in silence.

My ears again become aware of the others in the room, a tiny front room type space, a sort of flat with a living and dining area, as well as a kitchen. All one space, with a busy washing machine in too.  Here folks sit and natter, watch TV, get help and advice from the staff.

I know I smell, I can't have a bath
I'm not right, I'm not with it
It's these tablets ...

We've cut out all the words and they are glued on to the tracing paper. I'm pleased with the result and Justin thinks it's a good idea too; we carry on.  He makes the decisions on cover and inner paper we can use and we being to make the book covers.  Making holes is hard, we could do with a hammer but it's not safe to have one so we sort of struggle along, but enjoy the challenge of a little bit of making do too.

After lunch Justin starts to work on his own text, cutting it into sections to go with his story.  We talk about plans for his book and we work together on the table for quite a while, until it's time for me to go.  His book isn't quite finished, but he is clear with what he needs to do and I leave him all the materials he needs and tools he can keep too.

He promises to finish his book; I hope he manages it!