Bryan Dixon

Film maker Bryan Dixon is working with the community to teach new skills and make a film. Taking Kelly's Butterfly house as inspiration, the group have been meeting in the space at Habergham Mill over the last week.

The group were practising setting all the equipment up the day we joined them, and taking it in turn to conduct interviews. Iain arrived with his trolley, so they interviewed him too, before we left the group to continue their film making whilst we went with Iain and the trolley around Stoops.

The trolley got lots of attention!

- Caroline Huckleberry

Butterfly House

The Butterfly House is here! It's been exciting coming and seeing it being constructed, and finding out more about the reasons behind its construction, and it's great to see it finished and ready for the public to interact with.

As well as the house, old local photographs lined the unit walls. Kelly left notebooks handy for visitors to jot down names and locations if they spotted any familiar places/faces on the photographs. I saw lots of the visitors to the space seeking out old friends and family members, and trying to identify classrooms and schools. There was a photo walk around the mill too, for people to capture modern images of the area.

 

Cath Ford ran a lantern making workshop in the space, and lots of houses and buildings of all shapes were created in the session. The finished ones were filled with battery operated tea light and fairy lights...and placed inside inside Butterfly House.

 

The space inside the Butterfly House acted as a mini cinema, with old film footage projecting onto the inner walls... and it looked really magical in there, especially once the lanterns had been added to the space. 

Kelly held a variety of events over the course of the week which included singing, decorating the house with images, storytelling, performances and even clog dancing! A choir came from the Calico Group to sing in the space, and it was their very first public performance! They sounded fantastic, and received a good welcome from the crowd of residents and mill users. 

Ex Emmerdale actress Ursula Holden-Gill  entertained the crowd with her brilliant storytelling, clog dancing and singing... with funny and engaging local tales.

The space and events were all really enjoyable, and really varied. Kelly did a brilliant job and the audience all seemed to really enjoy themselves too. The house and space feels part of the community, a bringing together of old and new.

Lights, camera, action!

We've been documenting with Caroline Wright, as she created a pop up photographic studio in a home. Working with photographer Andy Ford, they set about recreating old posed black and white/sepia studio shots.  Local resident Fiona kindly offered the use of her home for the day, and a lot of residents turned up to be involved in the project.

This was the prep room - hair/make up, food and drinks. It also doubled up as a friendly meeting room, a place to chat and meet new friends, a place to get excited about the photo shoot, and to discuss how well it went after having the photos taken.

Fiona's front room was where Andy had set up the photo studio, and he used different backgrounds for the participants. He took lots of shots of each person, and you can see the old photos that Caroline sourced on the side, that were being used for inspirations. 

It looked like a lot of fun to be a part of - and if I'd been a resident I'd have been taking part! We also did quite a few interviews with participants in the back yard/garden area, asking people about the day but also more general questions around community, sense of place and their feelings about projects like this one.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films

Kelly in the Mill

We went to Habergham Mill to document Kelly and her installation. When we arrived she was beginning the construction with Dave and Vinnie, in one of the empty spaces at the mill. There was lots of wood and drilling sounds... and an exciting vibe in the air.

Kelly is making a replica of a house, and it was great looking through the original full size house blueprints/plans with her to see how they are being re-interpreted in the space.

I'm looking forward to seeing it all completed, and hopefully meeting the local resident who lived in the house that inspired the installation. The mill is a fantastic place to start with - full of interesting textures, peeling paint and a general 'lived in' feel to it... and the addition of Kellys installation and photo archive will make it a very exciting place to be.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films 

Iain

We've been documenting with Iain Broadley as he worked with groups of young people from Burnley.

This was a keyring making session at a community centre, with the young people designing each keyring themselves. They have words and drawing on them, and phrases chosen included 'I love Stoops' and 'I love Coal Clough Lane'.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films

The Red Triangle

Catch up and planning meeting with Caroline, Cath, Kelly, Helen, Steph and Caroline and Dave from Huckleberry Films.

We met at the Red Triangle in Burnley, and drank our way through a lot of tea between us. It was a really inspiring meeting full of ideas and plans... and was a great chance to find out what each person is working on. It's good to keep in touch via e-mail, but even better to meet in person to chat.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films

Coal Clough

We went to one of Kelly Loughlin's photograph scanning sessions at Coal Clough library. She is collecting a database of old photos of the area for the Ground UP project, and meeting local people to chat about their memories/photos. The photographs are all being scanned, to create a database of archive images.

Kelly was mid discussion with one person when we arrived, and another arrived soon after... and I joined in the conversation, finding out amongst other things, about the Cornish miners who moved into the area in the 1870's. It was really interesting to listen to the stories/take part in the discussion, and I found out a lot about a part of Burnley's history that had previously been unknown to me.

Some of the photos were of Kelly's own family, as she grew up in the area... and it was great to find out more about some of the amazing old photographs.

Caroline and Dave, Huckleberry Films