Creative responses to Dudley People’s Archive
David O’Coy is a magazine publisher who has been experimenting with Dudley People’s Archive and associated participatory and creative collaborations. As he brings the project towards its evaluation stage he has been reflecting on the surprising outcomes of developing the work during lockdowns.
This is part 2 of 3 lab notes: In part 2 David looks at the creative collaborations alongside the care and attention taken to reinterpreting the submitted works by the creatives involved.
What if… we can learn from our stories of the past to shape our present and future.
A slower approach — cultural anthropology
Growing up in Dudley explores and celebrates Dudley’s rich heritage and vibrant present through people’s photography and stories. We are using the project to celebrate the rich tapestry of life in the town, through social movements, subcultures and styles that span the generations from pre-war to modern-day Dudley. The project offers a democratic approach to story gathering where each photograph and memory is treated equally.
Reflecting on the past can give us feelings of comfort, gratitude and relaxation which are commonly provoked when we take a trip down memory lane. These memories chronicle the (mostly) highs and sometimes lows of Dudley life and offers a collective memory of what it was (and is) like to grow up in the town.
Growing Up In Dudley has provided a simple way for people to slow down and reconnect with themselves and their surroundings, as well as making new connections along the way.
The project (alongside the lockdowns), gave us an opportunity to be intentional and considerate with our time and allowed us to encompass the commonplace, ordinary and extraordinary moments that are right in front of us every day. Finding time to show gratitude, self-discovery and reinvention we also took this approach when inviting creative interpretations of the archive.
Using the CoLab Dudley guiding principles as a framework, methodology and a mindset has lead Growing Up In Dudley to find the sweet spot of strong engagement, viability, and bringing together a creative thinking community.
The act of preserving, archiving and enhancing embraces the lab principles of ‘connections matter,’ and is a subtle example of ‘slow living’ by using the call to actions and activities to encourage a thoughtful, deliberate and gentler life. The lab principles added real value and confidence to act on the creative project ideas.
Sharing the archive — Folk Art curation
After 15 months of gathering we were in a position to share the stories and photos submitted. So rich is the size of the archive (to date we’ve received around 300 submissions to the project consisting of approximately 1000 photographs and 50 oral memories committed to tape) that we hosted two exhibitions over one month in November.
The first was the people’s submissions; our lockdown (and beyond) online community dug out their images to send to us and share with others across social media platforms. We compiled these into themes, eras, styles and stories to share.
We adopted a lo-fi cut + paste approach. The images submitted are digital and so we placed some of them on shared posters, others were stand alone images and some included snippets of stories and quotes.
We wanted to make the invitation in to the space and exhibition style feel accessible. It’s the ‘people’s’ archive and in Dudley, where we no longer have an art gallery, we are keen not to alienate those that pass by. We wanted to entice them in with colour, fun, vibrancy and of course the shared histories, memories and stories.
People felt encouraged to drop in, share a story, have their memories reignited of forgotten spaces, places and people as well as get the fortuitous opportunity to spot people they know in the images and get to chat to others they don’t through shared common interests.
Creative Collaborations
The process of digging deep into people’s heritage, archives and memory sharing, uncovering lost stories and then interpreting the findings into various mediums has been exhilarating with exciting and often unexpected results.
We started to see a willingness and open-mindedness to embrace collaboration, whether that was through poetry based on shared memories, collages re-interpreting the submitted photographs or quilt making and embroidery.
All of these activities brought people together and the creative responses nudged the project into new and serendipitous realms, taking the ‘heritage’ aspects of Growing up in Dudley into a new direction. It has also helped bring a uniqueness to our work and approach.
Using the submitted archive materials we invited a selection of creatives to re-interprete the work through poetry (Laura Jane Round), collage (Mark Murphy and Black Country Collage Club), photography (Marta Kochanek, Tia Lloyd) and illustration (NewTasty).
Posters — The illustrative element of the collaborative partnership comes from illustrator Newtasty, who we commissioned to produce a series of designs based on the golden era of travel. These illustrations take key iconic buildings around the town including the market square, the castle and live music venue JB’s. These are produced with the intention of turning them into display posters, tea towels, postcards and mugs that people can treasure at home.
Poetry — We approached the Dudley performance poet Laura Jane Round to write a small series of poems based on the archive photos that were sent in to us. The subsequent poems were then performed and filmed for the archive.
Photography — Marta Kochanek was commissioned to bring a fresh and contemporary eye to the project by creating a new body of work photographing Dudley people in a series of striking portraits alongside which were displayed Q+As of memories and comments on the town.
After learning from one of the most reputable photographers, Annie Leibovitz, Marta’s practice focuses on people. With an award winning portfolio and a personable approach to work and the relationships she builds Marta has used her skills to engage with people across the town.
Photography — Dudley based photographer Tia Lloyd’s inspirations to undertake this project came from their curiosity in the skinhead subculture as well as an interest in the misconception and poor stereotypes skinheads have been branded with since the 80’s.
“The people I have met throughout my project are amongst the most welcoming people I have ever met. They have made me feel welcome within the skinhead brotherhood and have allowed me to explore their lifestyle, for this I’m very grateful.”
Embroidery — Artist Jan Norton brought together a group of women to meet weekly in the CoLab Dudley space and talk through the archive. They chose images, as well as bringing in their own, which Jan then printed on to fabric so that they could be decorated.
The gentle nature of the sessions were an opportunity to learn a new skill (or up-skill forgotten methods), chat and share ideas. Some of the panels were sent to care homes for people to complete and all of the pieces have been brought together and stitched to offer a beautifully crafted piece of work consisting of 36 unique panels.
Paper weaving — artist Nilupa Yasmin took a selection of images and reprinted them on thick A3 paper which she shred and then started to weave. With the invitation to join her in the space on Friday mornings, or just watch from the window, her installation grew and hundreds of people walked by to see her work develop over five weeks. Over 30 square panels were produced that have been weaved together to make one colourful large-scale installation piece.
Black Country Collage Club — During lockdown Black Country Collage Club offered a welcome relief sending out creative packs that included both materials to make collage, alongside hand-picked images from the archive chosen by artist Mark Murphy and contemporary images by photographer Patrick Garrington. A group of 30 people from across the Black Country (and beyond) joined zoom each month to share works, techniques and chat while making.
Over 100 collages were produced using images from the archive and some were displayed in the Imaginarium at CoLab on Dudley High Street. The project has since sparked in real life meet-ups, locative collage sessions with international artist Miss Printed and drop in sessions.
DoFest — For a cold and wet weekend in July we commandeered a stall on Dudley market presenting a small display of some of the submitted photographs, but more importantly as a call to action for the public to stop and share a memory and story.
One aspect of this project that jumped out was the latent creativity, empathy and humour of the people in the town, and the willingness and openness to share.
Over the space of the weekend, and with the help of Roger from ‘Sgt Peppers Friends’ and his mobile recording unit, we recorded 43 oral memories and had numerous unrecorded conversations about the town’s past and visions for the future. It gave people an opportunity to reflect on and embrace many of the changes Dudley has coming its way.
Conversations touched upon how people work, live, where they played and socialise, and how we communicate with each other — these market sessions helped stimulate rich dialogue.
Dudley town is a place of character, creativity and some pretty fine architecture where people congregate, communicate and feel at home in company.
Shops and businesses may leave creating a lack of confidence within the town, but the culture and communities are irreplaceable. I hope that Growing up in Dudley project has been a small part of presenting a deeper and emphatic understanding of people and locality, glimpsing these memories and experiences of the past may offer a small foundation for reimagining the future.
In part 3 of the lab notes David will share more about how people from Dudley reacted to the exhibitions and how the lab principles and detectorism came in to practice.
Supported via the National Heritage Lottery Fund and in conjunction with Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, the project has been produced in partnership with CoLab Dudley.
