If you live in Blyth and regularly walk through the Market Place, then between 14th-21st May you would have noticed that there was a large sculpture of bags erected in the the Market Square and that the old Iceland shop had been transformed into ‘Corners HQ’
‘Corners of Europe’ is a project created by ISIS Arts who are a visual and media arts organisation that specialise in International Programmes. The ‘Corners of Europe’ project is (to quote ISIS) ‘A series of thought provoking artworks, created by over 20 international artists and groups across South East Northumberland’ We are very proud to say we were one of those groups.
ISIS Arts didn’t just turn up for a week, do their thing and leave. They spent quite a few months researching and getting local people involved with their project. Lindsay Duncanson and Andrea MacDonald worked very closely with young people from our Teen Bar and Employability Sessions for a number of weeks. They worked with our young people to create a video for the Corners Artists that shared the experiences of Young People living in Blyth. The young people took Lindsay and Andrea on an amazing tour of the town and shared their knowledge and experience of their home. They used digital skills and a video camera to film their journey and also used several types of sound equipment to record their discussions and interviews with people living in Blyth. Donna who regularly attends our Employability session and volunteers in our Teen Bar sessions used her DJ skills and produced two 10 minute mixes that became the underscore for the final video. Donna shared her skills with the other young people during Teen Bar sessions and they learnt how to use Touch Viz which is a piece of VJ software, this allowed them to mix the videos of Blyth with Donna’s Djing. The final video was shown as part of the Corners Project at Corners HQ. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmJdzDgG15E&feature=youtu.be
As well as making the video our young people also got involved with the ‘Oh my home-lost and found’ project. This project included the large installation of bags that you may have seen in the market square, our young people had their photos taken and were recorded telling the artists in one word what ‘Home’ meant to them. These recordings and photos were included in the series of short performances that took place in the Market and was a collaboration between artists from the UK, Sweden and Spain. Check out the photos of these sessions:
During the week they were here the artists from the Corners Project visited Silx to find out about us and chatted to young people, one of the artists Milous who was from Italy, visited our Employability project and worked with our older young people on some start stop animation. The young people really enjoyed these sessions and Milous was incredibly enthusiastic, check out the start stop video he made with Thomas and Kyle:
As well as visiting the project during the Corners Project, ISIS Arts also gave two of our young people the opportunity to volunteer with them. Karl Hanson and Thomas Urwin both worked very hard throughout the week assisting the artists with installations and also helped spread the word around Blyth about the different projects and activities that were going on. This was a fantastic opportunity for both of these young people, especially Thomas as he has not had a lot of work experience and this opportunity increased his confidence and self esteem, both young people commented on how much they enjoyed the work and learnt a lot from the project and the artists from all over the world.
Overall, Silx were very happy to have been involved in such a great project and are looking forward to working with ISIS Arts again on other projects, watch this space…….