Wish You Were Here

Wish you Were Here! was a Postcard Making Public Engagement Activity for Transported Art by The Eloquent Fold - Phiona Richards and I at Gedney Hill Community Centre, July 2013. Transported is a community focused arts engagement programme for the people of Boston Borough and South Holland. 

Phiona and I normally work individually as freelance artists or in other collaborative pairings but wanted to work collaboratively during the consultation stage of Transported. For our engagement activities we worked together as The Eloquent Fold. We were drawn together by a love of text, books, maps, fabric, history, journeys, exploration, photography, making and doing. Phiona contacted me one Sunday morning just as I was about to look at the Transported call out for artists to see if we might work together on a proposal. We decided it would be wise to go to the preliminary drop-in session in  Boston to find out more and to introduce ourselves. Phiona took on the role as scribe whilst I asked the questions we felt we needed to ask and already it became apparent we were a great team! During our 

Transported formally launched on Sunday 5 May in Holbeach, beginning a community consultation phase which will inform the programme proper that is delivered from September 2013 onwards.

Whilst making their postcards the participants were interviewed by the Transported Researchers who had a range of structured questions, my favourite being "If you had £1000 to spend on an arts event or activity in your area what would you choose?". 

The answers will shape the Transported Art program over the next three years and should give the community greater access to the arts.

With the decline of the letter writing 

we are always thrilled to receive something 

through the post other than a bill or junk mail.

The postcard will be a reminder to the participants of the creative times to come and by communicating their expectations we can all raise awareness about the value of the arts in strengthening and enriching community life, giving pleasure, building confidence and raising aspirations.

You can see Flickr sets from this workshop here and here