Limestone Journeys
Junction Arts is one of the nine partners in The Derbyshire Magnesian Limestone Landscape ‘Limestone Journeys’ project, an exciting Heritage Lottery Funded (HLF) scheme, led by Creswell Heritage Trust. This Landscape Partnership grant brings £2.9 million into the scheme area. Junction Arts has been a major contributor in this bid.
Limestone Journeys Year 2
Junction Arts Project Co-ordinator: Aly Stoneman
Junction Arts ran 11 projects during 2012 as part of The Derbyshire Magnesian Limestone Landscape ‘Limestone Journeys’ project. Our creative projects are designed to bring new skills and individuality to our participants, taking place in schools, colleges, local communities, and with the general public. There are also commissioned artworks designed for site-specific installation and performance. The Year 2 Celebration Event for Limestone Journeys was The Festival of the Outdoors, which took place on Saturday October 28 2012 at Hardwick Hall.
Here is a brief synopsis of the projects being delivered by Junction Arts in Year 2.
Click on the project titles to be directed to the individual project pages:
First Light: A series of workshops in a school, which lead to the creation of a large scale time-line map to provide an educational resource on the chronological and geographical aspects of the local magnesium landscape that can be used by school children. Science and art will came together in a stimulating process with an emphasis on climate and natural intervention. The project is designed to extend knowledge about the origins of the landscape.
Triple Echo: A commissioned artist created a site-specific stone artwork to reflect and enhance the landscape, using local materials. Open studio access was available to schools/consultation groups to see the progress of the project at Hardwick Stone Centre. The sculpture is now located in the grounds of Hardwick Hall.
Drawing the Way: An introduction into how maps provide information from the past to the present. A particular emphasis was placed on how we use maps to understand the evolution and changing state of the landscape and its contours. Research included visits to specific sites to provide physical references.
Beneath The Surface: Commissioned film documentary showcasing the growth and decline of the local industries of quarrying and mining. Research and engagement with community members will help to create a legacy from local people with reference to the industrial past.
The Listening – Limestone Songs: People from the local community were invited to form a choir and with the expertise of a composer/choir leader the choir through a series of workshops to created a new song celebrating the area. The materials will reference the delicate nature of the land and how intervention, if not managed carefully, will make it a more fragile place.
The Whispering Gallery: A participatory event for The Festival of the Outdoors celebration day on October 28 at Hardwick Hall. The general public who are visiting the festival engaged with the project by recording their personal journey through the landscape to the site. The recordings will be installed in the Listening Posts at Hardwick Hall in Autumn/Winter 2012.
Make It, Mend It: An extensive ongoing programme of teaching heritage crafts and skills to members of the community. Led by professional crafts people, this project was designed to bring a response to the sustainability of the landscape through traditional skills and responsibilities, enabling local people to learn new skills relating directly to the environment.
Custodians: Lecture Walk/Tour – A Specialist led this introduction to the Magnesium Limestone area, starting at Creswell Crags and including several key sites of interest. Addressing concerns over environmental landscape management and focusing on local involvement and ownership in the future, this project aims to help create a new awareness of the local landscape and its fragility in these times of global warming. In partnership with Creswell Heritage Trust.
From Cave to Castle: Photography workshops in specific heritage sites of the areas including mills, workers cottages & farmhouses. Students from Chesterfield College School of Art and Design worked with a professional photographer to encourage and extend the vision of the Limestone Journeys project and potentially link with Creswell Heritage Trust’s ‘Your Hidden Heritage’ project, involving local people surveying vernacular structures in the area.
Strands: A Celebration of a lost local industry and the skills supporting it. An artist was commissioned to research and reference the now closed local textile industries of the area and run a series of workshops in the community with an emphasis on textiles or a local craft skill. This project is a practical, visual arts project using knitting skills to showcase how a basic craft can be used to transfer skills and creativity within the community. This project offered an opportunity for local people to become community leaders for skill sharing events.
Traces: A professional writer/artist will ran a series of workshops in schools with a ‘radio link’ designed to create imaginary radio broadcasts with reference to the Ice Age and present day, using stories to describe events or forecasts. Designed for schools in rural or hard to reach communities, this project has an emphasis on communication and investigating the local landscape and history, providing the opportunity for two schools – one from Derbyshire and one from another Magnesian Limestone region in the UK – to build a new relationship which has a strong reference to the special landscapes in which they live. The students created imaginative work to be broadcast or skyped between the schools.
