Together with Jennifer and Jason, members of our small 'support group' we are exploring the therapeutic benefits of investigating place through words and sound. Here's a snippet...
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It's difficult to believe that The curiosity Club has been running for a whole year, and what a strange years its been!
We got off to such a wonderful start in January 2020, with the first members joining us in the studio at the Ruskin Glass Centre. We explored the local landscape together, mainly through walking, using a psychogeographic approach, setting out to get lost!
We met Tim Sunter from St. Michaels Church in Brierley Hill who inspired us to collect and use bells experimentally resulting in the Brierley Bells event at The Glasshouse Heritage Centre in February 2020. The partnerships with the church and the heritage centre were beginning to blossom when everything came to a shuddering halt with the first Covid-19 lockdown.
Bill and I managed to collaborate from a distance and, when it was safe to do so we met up to continue our dérives in and around Brierley Hill. We made two videos together, Sun and Stour and Care Don't Care: Albion which were showcased at the Sensing Nature/Unlocking Landscapes Network 2020 and the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography respectively.
We started meeting up with club members again in August 2020 at Hawbush Community Gardens and quickly developed new ideas of how to address loneliness through working together, exploring the natural detail of the gardens and the wider, more industrial neighbourhood.
The second and third lockdowns really disrupted the flow and our gatherings became less frequent. We were able to continue meeting up due to the exemptions for vulnerable people in the Covid-19 rules however, in November I broke my wrist which put me out of action for two months and the winter weather is not always conducive to outdoor work for everyone.
But, we persevere and the club will reconvene as soon as possible. Hawbush Community
Gardens are bound to be beautiful in the spring so until then we hope and dream of better days ahead.
The Curiosity Club members have been unable to meet up as a group for several weeks now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in the mean time my son Kallum and I have found a way to collaborate, making art together that helps Kallum express his experience of lockdown as someone living with autism and learning disabilities.
We are really pleased that this is being supported by New Art West Midlands through their bursary scheme.
There are lots of things that Kallum has found difficult but one in particular is the Thursday evening doorstep clapping. As both a sensory overload and a breach of normal public etiquette Kallum finds it intolerable and has to take refuge at our allotment until the clapping in the street has stopped.
Collage on flattened toilet roll tubes. Kallum and Helen, May 2020
THE CURIOSITY DIARIES
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