Outreach Artist Project
Jane Glynn: New Town Stories
Artist Jane Glynn worked with participants to share ideas and get creative in response to the New Geographies project. The project started exploring our relationships with local areas and specifically what ‘public art’ might be.
The latter workshops focused on Stuart Whipps’ project on New Towns and concluded with an exhibition ‘New Town Stories’ of participants artwork in February 2020, online activities and a giant book for University of Hertfordshire’s ‘Festival of Ideas Reimagined’ - watch the making of Jane's giant book and try her creative activities.
Jane's Activities:
If you enjoyed these activities, you may enjoy Jane's Create It Share It's Room with a View and Make a Tiny Book.
Jane invited people to imagine their own towns and places that have meaning to them – through collage, drawing, painting and bookmaking. She found people often commented on green spaces, see her other observations below:
"At the beginning of the project, we had lots of discussions about nominated spaces and our own favourite local places and made collage pictures and books about these.
During children’s sessions important places included: sweet shops, libraries, sports grounds, playgrounds – not surprisingly the most important aspects of places seemed to be what children did in the spaces; when the drawings were made into books many of the children read their books like stories, describing a day’s journey from place to place (“after football I go to the sweet shop and then we go to the playground”).
During adult sessions the use of collage freed people up to dream and imagine ideal local spaces – the discussions at the end were crucial to the sessions – allowing us to learn from each other about our own relationships with local spaces and to adjust our perceptions about how spaces can be used/experienced.
Throughout the project many of the places people brought to the discussion were outdoor shared ‘natural’ spaces like parks and gardens.”
Thank you to participants in Hertfordshire who got involved, including at Hatfield Library, Potential Kids, Art for All, local primary schools, young careers and UH students.
If you enjoyed Jane's online workshops, you may enjoy other activities from Jane - CreateItShareIt Room with a View and Make a Tiny Book.
We would be grateful if you could complete the New Geographies survey. This survey will take approximately 2-3 minutes and helps the New Geographies consortium of organisations to gather feedback for the funder and to evaluate our projects. You do not need to give your name or email.
New Geographies is supported by Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence strategic fund and lead by the ECVAN
