Postcards from the Future was a commissioned residency with socially-engaged artists Jean McEwan and Sophie Powell to explore the value of arts and culture as a way to engage people in imagining the future of places.
The project creatively explored peoples’ relationship to spaces: from urban town centres to rural villages, ring roads, buildings and hinterlands; forgotten characters and everyday experiences; revealing some of the hidden histories and assets of places.
Over February and March 2016, the artists travelled across Kirklees with a little red suitcase to community centres, libraries, markets, arcades and other public spaces to gather knowledge, stories, thoughts and ideas from people about the places they live and work. They invited people to make maps and postcards, contribute objects and images important to them and to share conversations about their hopes and dreams for their towns and villages. The collected images and stories were as diverse as Kirklees itself. The suitcase soon became a mobile exhibition, travelling research receptacle and container of ideas.
The visuals created and the stories captured will be used in the development of a public art policy for Kirklees. The residency has been part of an ongoing creative consultation on regeneration and development and what it means to have quality cultural places.
The consultation process launched with People.Make.Places, a series of three events where guest speakers presented case studies, offered provocations and shared best practice. December last year kicked off with Beyond the Gallery, with presentations from Claire Tymon, Blackburn Is Open and William Titley, In Situ. In February, James Devitt of University of Huddersfield welcomed Nick Bax, Director of Humanstudio and Darren Evans, Wilson’s Republic to the Business Driving Culture event. In March, the series closed with Cultivating Fertile Ground, chaired by Susan Jones a visual arts consultant and researcher, who led the conversation with artists Jean McEwan, Rachel Howfield-Massey and Steve Pool & Kate Genever.
These events provided an opportunity for a diverse and wide ranging debate on the role of culture in place-making. To bring this together a one day symposium, New Ways of Seeing, was held in April. This event looked at how culture and arts practice can: contribute to economic value; create a sense of place and well-being through engagement and participation; increase social capital to create stronger communities through a stronger sense of identity and place. It also looked at the key role the planning process plays through effective planning policy, master planning, planning applications and development projects.
The keynote speaker, Professor Charles Quick, Director, In Certain Places, Preston, brought to life the sustained commitment to place, partnership and time to develop and nurture ideas. Jonathan Banks, Chief Executive, ixia & Nina Pindham, Barrister, No5 Chambers, highlighted the significant role planning and policy has in championing and providing opportunity for cultural development. And Rebecca Chesney, Environmental Artist brought the creative process to life and the role of the artist in questioning, experimenting and bringing new perspectives.
All this rich and fertile conversation, debate and creative thought, is being distilled into a public art policy for Kirklees: a policy which champions the uniqueness of the district, celebrating both our heritage and innovation in establishing quality places.