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| Quilt Fresh Air and Poverty at National Trust's Lyme Park. |
PRESS RELEASE
TOUCHABLE HISTORY
A pair of quilts has been embroidered with the wartime history
of Derbyshire by older people in the county. History arts project, Stitching the Wars opens at Derbyshire Records Office 4th October until
the 5th January 2018. The two quilts then go into the National
Collection held by The Quilters’ Guild. Poems, reminiscence, photos and the
Stitching the Wars book will be archived at Derbyshire Records Office.
This award-winning project Stitching the Wars combines
history, poetry and embroidery from older people living in rural Derbyshire,
including many with dementia. Artist Lois Blackburn from the arts organisation
arthur+martha made two collaborative community quilts embroidered with
testimony from older people who survived two world wars.
Lois Blackburn commented: "This is art made by the public
and we've been delighted to witness its growth and the richness of experience
it contains. It is touchable history, quilts hand-stitched by over 400 older
people with fragments of their stories. One of the great joys of the project
has been to witness the pleasure of people with dementia who have taken part,
turning memory from a thing to be feared to a thing to be relished. These
quilts are a precious contribution to us all."
The poems that border the quilts and appear in the accompanying
book and sound recordings were made in collaboration with poet Philip
Davenport. "Sometimes the most extraordinary and powerful things are said
in day-to-day conversation. We've painstakingly written down people's words and
built them into poems together. Some of these are straightforward accounts of
farming, cooking, schooldays, others are accounts of bombing raids and the fight
to survive in wartime, and to survive poverty. It's a chorus of many voices,
many experiences."
The exhibition in Matlock will share, archive photos, recorded
readings of poems and reminiscence, and the accompanying book. They speak not only
of violence, or sadness, but also of great affection for the past, for their
fellow humans and for the beauty of the land around them. In love and in hate,
in war and in peace, you’ll find their words here, set amongst stitched fields
of greens and browns and blood red.
The project has been supported by Arts Council England,
Foundation Derbyshire, Derbyshire County Council, Derbyshire Dales Council, Age
UK, The Alzheimer's Society and The Farming Life Centre. We would like to thank
the many, many people who have participated and whose work has made this a very
special project.
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| Barbara and Mary, two of the participants at Buxton Art Gallery and Museum's exhibition of Stitching the Wars |
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