A collaborative arts project linking communities across the Durham Dales
The Textile Map Panel Project
The Project
The central idea of Connecting Weardale as a project was for communities up and down the Dale to collaborate with artists and produce a large-scale textile map of the area. The process of exploring different art forms along the way was intended to tease out the stories, histories, and heritages embedded in these landscapes and communities.
The map is made of 4 individual panels which, once completed, can be displayed together or as individual artworks. Each community taking part in the project will eventually be able to hold their own map, or they can collaborate to display the shared elements together. The physicality of one continuous map, separated in such a way, echoes the discrete pockets of community across the Dales which are nonetheless connected by rivers, roads, landscapes and landmarks, and a shared history.
The completed map panels will be accompanied by smaller, individual map-books, and personal stories about the area conveyed through writing and film, all of which act as a shared resource and "key" to the larger panels.
The smaller, more personal map-books are being produced by individual participants to sit alongside their earlier work on the larger panels. These fabric-and-collage books celebrate people's sense of place in the area, and concentrate on distinct aspects of rural life. They follow the seasons, document the plants, birds, and trees of the Dales, and track the small quiet moments of daily life against the large, ever-changing landscapes.
Workshops
Creative workshops took place around Weardale over a number of months in the Autumn and Winter of 2019.
Sessions explored a range of artistic techniques and processes such as linocut, mark-making, weaving, and quilting. As well as learning new skills, participants enjoyed sharing these creative experiences with each other and even began exploring ways in which they could work together after the workshops ended, both to improve their lives and to find other opportunities.
Despite lockdown, work continues (separately) on the 4 interlinked map panels, led by the artists involved.