On Friday 26th and the afternoon of Saturday 27th, we screened a couple of our archive films at Lucem House Community Cinema in then heart of St Helens. Friday’s screening of The Houghton Project was followed by a discussion with some people who were involved at the time, Barry Gore, Esther Wilson, Andy Cave and Roger Hill.
We had a reasonable turnout given the hot weekend weather and it was great to watch the film with a collective audience and their response. This was interesting, generally, people were not just looking back with a ‘It used to be great back then’ perspective, but with more of an impetus to ‘Why can’t we do something like that now?’ The 80’s for St Helens were in many ways a tough time for the town with many local industry and employers closing down, yet, it was also a time for immense creativity. In some of the interviews we’ve done, people talk about this sense of waiting for something to happen and it kind of feels that way again.
On 2nd April 23, we held our first in a series of community performances at Parr Boxing Club. This was the first outing of the short play with music that the students from St Helens College have been working on with direction from Roger Hill. The play sprung out of ideas from an original screening of The Houghton Project and focused down on celebrating what is amazing about St Helens today.
A key feature of the play is a song composed by some of the students and a dance developed by others that the audience are encouraged to copy and share.
Performing in a boxing club was actually a lot of fun – and the students used the boxing ring as a backdrop to the piece, creating another sense of surrealism
We had a good turn out – lots of families and young children who took advantage of the print workshop we ran in the foyer pre-show. This print making workshop was another opportunity for some of the design students from the college to get hands on experience of delivering workshops in a community setting. Led by their tutor Mark, the session used block printing letters to create fun artwork around the themes of the play.
We also used this an an opportunity to invite the audience to the ‘Amazing Day’ planned for 29th April as well as promoting the wider project showcasing some of the material we’ve already collected.
Saturday 29th April was truly, ‘One Amazing Day’ in St Helens with a whole range of the community invited into the city centre to be part of the Borough of Culture celebrations coordinated by ‘Walk the Plank.
As part of the day, we had the opportunity to showcase some of the work we have been doing for Creative St Helens 82-95, screening films in the church and collecting memories of where people used to go in the 80’s and 90’s when the arts scene was flourishing. So many people came up to us to share their stories of growing up in St Helens in the 80’s and 90’s. It was so encouraging that the town has such a rich history!
We’re excited to be screening a couple of films made in St Helens in the 1980’s about the creative scene at the time at Lucem House in St Helens.
The Houghton Project will be screening at Lucem House in St Helens on Friday 26th May at 7pm. Following the film will be a panel discussion with Roger Hill, Barry Gore, Andy Cave and Esther Wilson. To book tickets visit https://www.wegottickets.com/event/58…
Charged will be screening at Lucem House in St Helens on Saturday 27th May at 3:30pm. The film will be introduce by Roger Hill. To book tickets visit https://www.wegottickets.com/event/58…
On Saturday 4th March, we’ll be part of the opening celebrations for St Helens Borough of Culture Year, held at The World of Glass between 10:30am – 3:00pm. We’ll have a stall to show you some of the collected material so far and outline our plans for the year. If you have any memorabilia from 1982-1995 that you would like to add the St Helens Archive, please bring it along, we’ll have a scanner to copy anything so you can keep the original. We’ve love to hear your stories and memories from that time too. Look our for our banner on the mezzanine level and hopefully see you there.
Mark Simmonds and two of the design students from St Helens College
For a week in February, we arranged for a number of design students from St Helens College to deliver a weeks print making residency course at the Foundry Warf in the town centra of St Helens, apartment with extra care for the over 55’s, run by Torus Housing. The students were supported by their tutor Mark and we managed to bring in a RISO copying machine for the week to support the workshop.
One of the aims for the students was to gain hands on experience of delivering community based workshops and encourage younger/older collaboration with the residents of Foundry Warf.
The week was structured around some initial set up, planning and test days, with more formal drop in sessions organised for Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
Residents attending the workshop on Wednesday afternoon.
Mark brought along a couple of typewriters to help collect stories that participants could then add to their artwork. We provided a lot of pre-copied archive material already collected and encouraged residents to bring their own memorabilia to play with. Once they had created a print collage, this was then printed up using a two colour process with the RISO copier. Sometimes, using this two colour process we were able to mix combine the work of two people, creating a collaborative piece of artwork.
Typed up story from one resident called ‘Spitfire’A combination print of two different people’s work.The final workshop session on Friday
We had some great feedback from the residents at the end of the week, a sample of which is below.
“I enjoyed the artwork shop. It was a chance to experiment with crafts I have never done before and exchange ideas with friends. Very creative.”
“Delighted to have spent time on two occasions doing different things than we would normally do, spending time using painting and collage with old images and deciding what to do.”
“Had a really good time doing collage and the learners were brill and very helpful, and how to work with them again.”
