Heritage Lottery Fund: Changing lives – William’s Story

London is an amazing place to work but it’s always exciting when we get the opportunity to visit other places around the UK. I hadn’t been to Leeds since my friend got married there so it was lovely to visit again and travel out to the suburbs. Middleton Park is the sort of park that Londoners dream of, basically they seem to have fenced off a forest to protect it from the city. We were there to visit the Young Archaeologists’ Club and William, one of the members who had won Young Archaeologist of the Year.

Miggy Park, as locals call it, has received several rounds of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund which has enabled the park to explore its mining heritage and build a visitor centre that includes a flexible space that is both a cafe and community work space. The archaeologist club has grown out of a series of HLF funded programmes and was incredibly popular, with the parents as well as the young people, and we were nearly bursting out of the room. After the session William and his family showed us around the park they have grown up with and William pointed out some of the work they had completed as part of the funded project. Take a look at the final video here:

Although a flying visit, it was a real pleasure to once again visit a corner of the country that we might otherwise never have encountered and see how much pleasure people are getting from parks and heritage on their doorsteps.

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PIVOT Support: Pivot Soup

PIVOT Support is a new, Hackney based charity that seeks to provide support and information to people in the borough living on a low income. We were more than happy to donate our services to document their exciting PIVOT Soup event in November 2015. It’s a really interesting model that has been successful in other cities over the world and was a fascinating evening where you get fed, hear about interesting plans for the local area and are given a voice in making them happen.

For this event the four speakers covered a wide range of ideas from bags that open conversations to interactive performances, Hackney residents helping Syrian refugees and chess. All of the ideas were wonderful and valuable and one of the speakers walked away with over a hundred pounds to give momentum to their project. It was great to be involved with a project with such a strong community heart as much of the food was donated by local businesses and organisations and acapmedia was delighted to be part of it. Do look out for future PIVOT Soup events if you have connections to Hackney.

 

Dulwich Picture Gallery: 2016

Towards the end of 2015, we went back to the wonderful Dulwich Picture Gallery to prepare their 2016 preview video. It’s always exciting to hear what is going to be coming into the gallery each year, and this year is no different.

We spoke to curators Ian Dejardin and Xavier Bray about major exhibitions by artists such as Nikolai Astrup, Winifred Knights and Adriaen van de Velde. Dr Bray then also told us about temporary displays in the main gallery including an installation by contemporary artist Mark Wallinger being shown alongside van Dyck’s self portrait, revealing X-Ray images and reuniting works by Dou that haven’t been seen together since they were exhibited in 1665.

Poetry Residency at Highfield Primary School

One of our favourite projects this year has been documenting the work of resident poet Cheryl Moskowitz at Highfield Primary School in Enfield. We’d worked with Cheryl previously on the fantastic Visual to Vocal project at Dulwich Picture Gallery. We were delighted to work with Cheryl again at Highfield and made six trips over six months to capture the extent that poetry has been embraced in the school. This project has been a very unusual venture in a primary school and even captured the eye of the national press:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/the-primary-where-poetry-is-in-motion-9770004.html

It was a real privilege to be involved in documenting this residency and to watch the children develop their love of poetry, win competitions, grow up and build relationships through their work with a professional poet. We covered every part of this incredibly diverse school and felt welcomed into the community over our time there. The films still only really scratch the surface of Cheryl’s work and the school’s commitment to poetry.

Dulwich Picture Gallery: Escher

We were invited to film some introductory videos to the latest blockbuster exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery focussing on renowned artist MC Escher. In the first of the four videos, Ian Dejardin, the director of the Gallery, says that most people had an Escher on their wall at university and I was no exception. I can remember collecting Escher books and images in my teens and it was a real treat to see these iconic pieces in person. This exhibition is fantastic and, incredibly, the first for this artist in the UK.

This is the first of four videos examining some key pieces from the exhibition:

Dulwich Picture Gallery: Visual to Vocal 2015

For several years, we have documented Dulwich Picture Gallery‘s community work, particularly the Visual to Vocal programme. This is run in partnership with English Touring Opera and works with people living with dementia and their carers to write an opera with young students from Dulwich College all inspired by the gallery’s unique collection.

This year we had the extra pleasure of visiting Eve, one of the participants, along with her family at home to hear about the benefits that working on the Visual to Vocal project has had not only for Eve, but for everyone involved. It was very generous of the family to invite us into their home so we were able to get an intimate portrait for this film.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s touch us all. Anything that can help support those living with and caring for people with these diseases should be encouraged and celebrated.

Dulwich Picture Gallery: Ravilious

This year Dulwich Picture Gallery has a beautiful exhibition of watercolours by British watercolour artist, Eric Ravilious. We were invited to speak to James Russell, the exhibition curator, about the artist, his work and life. You can find out more in the videos we made here:

An incredibly beautiful and popular exhibition it runs until the end of August 2015 with additional linked events and programmes.

Dulwich Picture Gallery: From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia

Last year we were lucky enough to work on a couple of projects related to Dulwich Picture Gallery‘s current temporary exhibition all about Canadian artist Emily Carr. We met with a couple of the curators, Sarah Milroy And James Hart. Carr’s paintings include many images from Haida villages after the Haida nation had been badly affected by small pox.

Carr’s interpretation of the Haida art work is not always accurate as she understands it from an outsider’s prespective, projecting her own interpretations onto these works. The exhibition shows off Carr’s wonderful art work and places them in conversation with historical Haida objects by displaying Haida artefacts along side her paintings, including some objects that were made by curator James Hart’s ancestors. Hart is a Haida hereditary chief and talks a little about the exhibition here:

We also noted that the show contains objects loaned by the Horniman Museum and we were pleasantly surprised to see Horniman curator, Robert Storrie, talking at the Emily Carr conference that we documented. The conference was incredibly busy and had a packed schedule of speakers all of whom had a great deal of interest to share about Emily Carr and/or her work and subject matter.

It has been a real privilege to have worked on this show with Dulwich Picture Gallery and gain an insight into this artist who is little known here in the UK but, as was evident at the conference, is a major figure in Canada. I would encourage anyone with an interest in art to check out Emily Carr but your chance to see this show is running out. You have a little over a month before the show ends on March 15th 2015:

From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia

 

Heritage Lottery Fund: Stories of the Empire

Earlier this year we were commissioned to by Heritage Lottery Fund to capture an evening of events discussing the involvement of the Empire in the First World War. The event was to draw attention to their funding stream encouraging people to investigate how their community was involved in the war. It was a completely fascinating event and we met an exciting range of people including veterans from the West Indies, currently serving officers, actors, historians, authors and interested secondary students.

The contribution to the war effort by soldiers from India, Africa and the West Indies was not something that I was at all familiar with and the more we learned the more fascinating we realised this hidden story was. Simple facts like there were more Indian soldiers fighting in the war than White British Stories to individual stories of young black men rising through the ranks to lead troupes made me question how such fascinating and emotional stories could be missing from the narrative of the First World War. One veteran of the Second World War, Sam King, who was also the first black Mayor of Southwark, told us of one example where this was case for him:

Please watch this video and then research some the background to these stories and find out how the Great War really was a world effort, hopefully more stories will emerge thanks to this funding stream from the HLF.

Horniman Museum and Gardens: At Home With Music

To mark the opening of their new display, At Home With Music, the Horniman asked us to film a music recital. The instrument was a beautiful 1772 Kirckman harpsichord which has been restored into playing condition specifically for this new display.

This was a live event at the opening of the new display and the harpsichord is displayed fairly flat against a wall along a narrow corridor between stunning display cases. There was a challenge then to get a range of footage in a dark, tight and busy environment that would also best respect the music and occasion. To do this we arrived early to insert a camera in overhead ceiling vent and employed a gopro which sat almost directly on the keyboard giving us a bird’s eye and an ant’s eye view of the proceedings.

The pieces we recorded were the two new compositions that had won a competition run by the Horniman to mark the opening of the new exhibition and restoration of the harpsichord. They were wonderfully played by Jane Chapman, who was very accommodating to our technical discussions, and really brought the new display to life with her performances.

The Sprawl by Adam W. Stafford

Vine by Tim Watts

The exhibition is a permanent new display, curated by Mimi Waitzman and is a collection of keyboard instruments from the V&A and Horniman collections. Unsurprisingly it can be found in the museum’s music gallery and is very inviting, the only problem is trying not to touch the very welcoming keyboards and stunning pieces on open display.