Blackpool

February 2023 Reflection and Future (Part I) A photo walk

February 2023 Reflection and Future (Part I) A photo walk

It has been about a year since my Develop Your Creative Practice Grant. A chance through a lockdown and as the lockdown came to an end to experiment and try new approaches alongside The Old Electric a community theatre that arrived in Lancashire. My feelings and ideas are drawn from and to the community and the personality of Blackpool, Lancashire a victorian seaside town, (home), and how the place we live and the narrative are fed back to us as residents. It surprised me to see that I have not posted here for over a year. With thoughts of community, photography, and creativity bouncing around my head continuously.

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Thoughts of magic carried us on. “You put your finger in your ear and say good morning fairies".

Could creativity be many things: Listening, talking, music, gardening, doing our hair, choosing which perfume to wear, cooking, gardening, making  jam, recommending a good book, say like The Twilight series or True Blood, borrowing a glue gun to make a Christmas star or all of these things.

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How do we share - space, stories, cake, tea or an experience ? In Blackpool we might have had those shared experiences through galas, celebrations or in the 70’s perhaps at a Northern Soul event dancing at The Mecca or Jenks maybe in recent years playing Bingo or setting up wallpaper tables outside for an epic street party.

“I love dark fantasy! Hit me up with vampires or slayers or elven Queens and I am yours forever”- she said in a whatsapp followed by the suggestion of dancing in the kitchen as we told each other stories through December to April 2020-21. Painting stones exclaiming “Blackpool Rocks” and indeed it did as quiet connections took place in a digital space -  the community found a way.

Christmas arrived and a book or two were left and gratefully exchanged, excited chats covered everything from magic to whose doggie was doing the doo. We said goodbye to 2020 with a Lang may your yung reek & nursed hopeful thoughts for what was next. 

2021 brought us more home-schooling and f**k all………. quiet anarchy and at 11am on a Monday, new lingo through collage and cut outs of statements, lino prints and clay sculptures. If WIFI was weak or digital screens were not a thing - we could still “make” following a set of instructions and a delivery of lollipop sticks or strings and balloons . Go to work, don't go to work, go out, stay in, shake it all about.

We did the lockdown hokey cokey, together -  lost in creativity & conversation.

 An invitation arrived to knit seagulls. - “My wee granny tried to teach me to crochet and knit. She said it was like growing false teeth”. Laughter filled the WhatsApp group and we listened as were told “It may be a messy one! You'll need a cup/bowl half filled with water. A plate/chopping board/smooth surface. A knife and fork. We were unaware that a hundred butterflies would take flight from a skull that day to leave just a memory of a tiny mouse snuggled in a teacup. 

Thoughts of magic carried us on. “You put your finger in your ear and say good morning fairies and then when you leave you put your finger on your nose and say goodbye fairies...everyone knows that, don't they. ...did it with my kids when they were young and still do it now” ...‘Even in the darkness, there is light’.

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Reflections from a project around “Estates” in Blackpool & Community Housing.

Community: A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as norms, values, customs, or identity

Housing: houses and flats considered collectively.

Norms: Something that is usual, typical, or standard.

Values: The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

Customs: A traditional and widely accepted way of behaving or doing something that is specific to a particular society, place, or time.

Identity: The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.