I'm really happy to have the opportunity to work with the communities of
SW Burnley and look forward to starting the project. I think it's a
really exciting opportunity.
My
father grew up on Melrose Avenue, and raised his family there. I spent
the first 20 years of my life there, attending Myrtle Bank then Hargher
Clough schools - and attended Ivy Bank when they had the annex at
Rosegrove.
My
practice involves the creative use of artefacts, census data and forms
of commemoration to explore memory, connections and place. In a
community context this can become the basis for a process of 'collective
remembering' - piecing together the connective tissues which have been
severed through economic decline, physical changes in the environment
and population movement.
I'm
interested in the metaphor of fabric - the fabric of a community
(patterns, threads) which is quite appropriate in a former textile town.
I've been thinking about the image of fabric produced through an
industrial process, and the way a standard piece of cloth always has
unique features, ideosyncracies or flaws depending on how you look at
it. A piece of fabric can be durable, change over time as it's put to
different uses, altered, embellished, worked upon in different ways.
This durability allows it to carry memories, mediate connections and tie
generation together: when a wedding dress is re-used to make a
Christening gown; when treasured items of baby clothing are passed on.
In a
similar way we pass stories and memories through the generations -
stories of family, community and place. Like the piece of fabric, these
threads change over time, are put to different uses, altered and
embellished.
In
my experience, a story is often the oldest thing we have. As a child I
recall my grandmother explaining why a small area of SW Burnley was
called 'little Cornwall'. Cornish workers were brought here during a
strike and this is where they were housed. As an adult I researched this
story, and discovered that the events took place before my grandmother
was even born. The story was passed to her by her father, a coal miner
involved in the 1873 strike. I never knew my great-grandfather, but this
story came to me across the generations and became part of the fabric
of my life and my connection to a particular place.
