Residents invited to join local artists to help celebrate iconic Stoke heritage site
Community organisations are working in partnership to bring together a group of artists for a special exhibition to celebrate Stoke Town’s heritage.
ACAVA Studios and Spode Museum are set to welcome four artists who will be leading a series of workshops with local residents.
Joyce Iwaszko, Charne Visser, Nadine Wilde and Natasha Mchugh will not only develop their own ideas, but will also be producing new works for the project called – The Buddleia Bush Effect – in collaboration with those who attend the sessions.
The workshops start on Saturday 3 May, and the works created will focus on the Spode site including its current developments including the industrialised landscape and effect on the localised eco-system.
(Image supplied by ACAVA)
Artist Joyce Iwaszko, whose work utilises unconventional materials, said: “The Buddleia Bush Effect project is a wonderful opportunity to highlight the historic Spode site, produce new work and create artwork with the community.
“Working at the Spode site is a huge privilege and I have been inspired by several of the Spode patterns combining elements from Blue Italian, Buddleia and Rome focusing on transfer print and specifically the colours purple/lilac.
“During the workshops the public will be encouraged to paint buddleia, butterflies and bees onto stones and take home a piece of history painted on site.”
Dan Southward from ACAVA Studios added: “We look forward to engaging artists based at Spode with the local community.
“The workshops will allow local people an opportunity to collaborate and be part of producing new artworks that will then be exhibited in and around the Spode site.
“The workshops will give participants the opportunity to learn and develop new skills as well as build a greater understanding of both the history of the Spode site and the eclectic mix of artists and practitioners which are currently based here.”
Workshops will take place between May 3 and 13th June, and will include mono printing, urban sketching, drawing and collage, embroidery, photographic cyanotypes, natural dying and painting.
Bookings for the 3 May sessions are via this link for Experimental charcoal Drawing – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
And for a monoprint session here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
The final works will be exhibited at the Spode site between 15 – 30 June.
Local videographer Joe Brennan will also be documenting the artists, the workshops and new art works and will be producing a short film to help to archive and preserve the project.
The Buddleia Bush Effect workshops will take place at Spode Museum and ACAVA Studios, and are free to attend. For more details please contact dan.southward@acava.
The project has received support from Stoke High Street Accelerator pilot, which is funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). £237k was awarded to Stoke Town through Stoke-on-Trent City Council to be spent in the financial year 2024/25.
