due to vaughn oliver having to pull out of digital scarborough today due to family illness, i’ve been asked if i could fill in. so with a head full of cognitive mapping due to CHART Scarborough, i’ll be delivering a talk on the theory behind the project and our research and progress so far. i’ll also have the very latest version of the map which is still in progress. 4.30pm at westwood school of arts (yorkshire coast college, next to tesco).
last night was the first public exhibition of work by the students on the schools creative and media higher diploma in the north yorks coast area and mighty impressive it was too. we’ve been in touch with the diploma since a creative coast event in 2008 which introduced the idea to the local creative sector. i’ve since been invited to be an ‘business champion’ which involves offering a working world perspective to the diploma and helping connect local creatives with the course so students meet practitioners and get a glimpse of what a career in the creative industries might be like. rachel and i spent an hour with them at the start of the year showing them our work on the railway art project.
the diploma was described in a nutshell on the exhibition guide as…
“…designed to teach young people how to work creatively; they work in groups and alone on a series of activities that will give them a good overview of the different things you can do in the creative industries. the diploma is not one subject; the students combine work in six of the following disciplines across the two years: photography, interactive media, film, television, music, drama, graphic design, 2D art, 2D art, animation, creative writing, radio and audio…”
i wish we’d had this opportunity when i was at school. last nights work was response to a brief to record the ‘distinctive atmosphere of scarborough sea front’. these students are year 10 (14-15 year olds) and the quality of work was excellent. here are some that particularly caught my eye.
the image at the top is of megan jepson’s ’scarborough/castle’ in which photos of the seafront are pasted on a foamboard model of scarborough castle. megan did a work work placement with us a few weeks ago so we had an idea of what her piece would be although i’m told the final construction happened rather close to the exhibition opening – we’ve all been there. it really exceeded my expectations – the scale (which doesn’t really come across on my photo) and use of colour were spot on.
the use of text in this oil painting by shannon barker reminded me of ‘we two boys together clinging’ by david hockney. creatively integrating text with drawings and paintings was a theme in several pieces.
and i was really taken with scott asquith’s ‘rolling’ in which a ball rolled and bounced the length of the sea front. it was inventive, nicely edited and great fun. a brilliant piece of work.
it’s a little unfair to single just a few out as all the students deserve to be proud of their work. congratulations too to spencer, their tutor. the only blight of the evening was that we didn’t get a better turn-out from local creatives who had been invited to come take a look and offer support to the coast’s next generation of creatives. obviously i’ve got my work cut out in this role.
uh oh, looks like there’s about to be some menacing on our blog. dennis is coming to town for scarborough literature festival. we’ll blog our brochure, poster [excerpt above], flyers and bookmark designs next week inbetween laying paving stones.
yep, it’s update night at the first creative coast of 2010 with news and opportunities from the north yorkshire creative network and on local projects. essential if you want to know what’s going on and how you might get developed or commissioned (courtesy of a new scheme offered by the north yorks network). rick of chrysalis arts and wendy of create will be spilling the beans. it’ll be nice to be back at the merchant too. 5.30pm. link to creative coast facebook group.
if you’ve been asking yourself this, then get yourself down to the international business forum event at the spa today or tomorrow and pick up a copy of this brochure.
another award for scarborough – the international association of public participation project of the year – prompted this new piece of literature. alas we didn’t get to go to san diego for the ceremony, instead we had to turn a brochure around, from concept to delivery in two days. ok, so that was delivery to london and taken from there to san diego, but we think that’s pretty speedy nonetheless. the brochure uses text and a visual timeline to tell the story of scarboroughs’ renaissance over the last 7 years. it’s also pretty candid about the situation that scarborough faced and how the council was basically told to work in partnership or not get any more money.
although you probably won’t hear as much about this award, to my mind it’s probably the most important as it recognises that scarborough’s recent achievements have come through people working together with shared vision.
we tweeted it a few weeks ago, but are delighted to formally anounce that we have been awarded the contract in a competitive pitch to design the printed and web-based version of CHART Scarborough (formerly known as Scarborough Arts Trail). the first step has been to create a blog that will document the process as we carry out research and undertake trials with people using different methods of navigating scarborough’s cultural hotspots: www.chartscarborough.com
expect us going on off all sorts of cartography tangents on there. but we’ll pop the odd post on here as we reach milestones in the project. we’ve already come up with the name with project leader, dorcas taylor, and really looking forward to working on the rest of this project.
…will be the area shown below.
we’re pleased to announce that we will be working artist rachel welford to provide a piece of public art on the old scarborough-whitby railway line, now part of the national cycle route and an increasingly used alternative transport route into urban scarborough.
the artwork will form part of a new track surface near the road bridge at the bottom of woodland ravine in scarborough at the intersection of several routes. the work’s function is to act as a waymarker and signpost and will be visible to users of the line and by pedestrians and vehicles from the road bridge. adrian and rachel [taking a snap on the pic below] produced the winning design in a competitive submission with rebecca providing some vital technical insight to bring the idea to fruition.
the project will involve local community groups who use the track working with poet john clarke to generate text for the artwork. this project will be something of a new venture for us and we hope, lead to us applying for similar work in the future. we’ll blog progress on here as it develops. workshops with the community groups should begin in the next couple of weeks with completion of the project in october of this year.
some links:
friends of the old railway line
the cinder track – a project by university of sheffield students. summary of the cinder track project in this issue of renaissance news.
sustrans
we seem to be always popular with work placements, perhaps partly because so few design studios offer them (shame on you!). and we like to give our placements something fun and real to work on if we can.
recent 6th form placement sabina impressed us with her photography so we suggested working on a centrespread for the july/august issue of ’scarboroughs future’ that encouraged people to look at possible future renaissance projects. these include the spa and surrounding area taking in the roundabout [possible future use as a surfers changing and shower area?] and controversial disused cliff lift, the far harbour area, the ‘argos building’ [space better put to use as a market square?] and the grand-daddy of them all – the futurist on the seafront.
sabina created this photomontage with the addition of our words and typography. it’s a little different to some of our previous scarborough-focussed projects in that we’re not trying to make scarborough look good, but rather encourage people to reimagine spaces and how they might be transformed.
for us this also hints at some future projects we have lined up in which we’ll be exploring space in scarborough and in one instance, helping the physical transformation of an area.
it’s been one of those weird weeks with a mix of good news and high pressure in equal measures. so when rebecca took a phonecall mid-meeting and announced there was someone on the other end asking if i was planning on meeting gordon brown and peter mandelson for drinks on monday evening, i assumed it was a wind-up.
but it wasn’t. and so myself and steve bromham of scarborough IT-consultancy save9 will be turning up at no.10 downing street this monday. apparently the evening is to congratulate businesses succeeding despite the recession although our invitation is, of course, due to scarborough’s renaissance partnership winning the grand jury prize for britain in the european enterprise awards.
the situation became even more bizarre when i received another phone call late today saying that there were a few people the prime minister would like to talk and be photographed with specifically and could i email over a quick biography and photo so they’d be able to pick me out when i arrived. i am seriously wondering if they’ve got the right person…
still, it’s an honour nonetheless, not least to represent scarborough, the town that has been so good to me. i shall be encouraging the PM and secretary for business, innovation and skills to pay us a visit sometime. i’m thinking that surely it’s good for a government during a recession to be visiting the most enterprising place in europe… a coastal town in the uk? the invitation to downing street is also a good excuse for me and the family to make a short break of it and ‘do the sights’. sorry, no sense of urban cool here – we want to see soldiers in shiny helmets strutting about on horses in front of the queen’s house thank you.
hastily-written media release: media-release-ea-and-save9-at-no-10-v19-06-09
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