East Melksham
Client: Tetlow King
Artist: Phil Smith (Wrights and Sites) Verity-Jane Keefe
A number of projects are taking place at East Melksham as part of the art plan produced by Ginkgo Projects for East Melksham Consortium via Tetlow King.
The development area to the east of Melksham is a very distinct, complete and entirely new-build area of town. It will contain a number of small, distinct housing areas (developed by a number of different developers), a school, playing fields and a Local Centre which will be a community resource area. The development is expected to take place over a number of years, with a phased approach across the site.
East Melksham will need to develop its own sense of community whilst linking into and complementing the existing culture within Melksham. An existing community will soon neighbour a new one. This relationship between old and new has been an important consideration in the creation of the art plan and resulting proposed projects for East Melksham.
An initial piece of research and development work was carried out by artist Phil Smith, (Wrights & Sites) has fed into the development of a staged art plan as follows:
Five Routes – Identified via an initial research project, to form a framework for the development of the following commissions.
Film Project – responding to the Five Routes.
Skills Development/Mentoring – A programme developed between artists and community.
Five Destination Points – 5 artists’ commissions, responding to the artists films that will deliver five permanent, physical artworks within the identified destination points in East Melksham.
Verity Jane Keefe has recently finished her film and launched it with a screening and walking event in Melksham on 28th to 30th September. Verity has spent a period of intense research in Melksham, unpicking the town’s character through it’s architecture, it’s residents and it’s history. She has worked with Phil Smith, an artist and playwright who had previously been commissioned to carry out research into the town to inform this project’s brief. Using the five well used walking routes, a script has been developed that turns each route into an act in a play, navigating the landscape through a mixture of fact, folklore, local mythology, local encounters and archival research. Residents of the town feature as narrator to compliment the main protagonist, the landscape both social and physical.
Verity organised a series of artist led walks through the town in the spring with residents of the town. For the open house weekend, she lead walks again presenting the opportunity for informal conversation surrounding the project and participant’s relationship to public space and the town.