The garden shed

Have you ever wondered into your old ramshackled garden shed to find old dust covered objects from the past, things that evoke memories from days gone by? In no particular order you come across “things of significance” lying on shelves, inside old glass jars along with the paint brushes, all long forgotten about. Well if you take a look inside our old garden shed you get a brief taste of the legacy of Arts in Redditch activity! Various bits and bobs that remind us in one way or another of the Arts in Redditch. Old photographs of youth arts activities inside glass jars , old light gobos for the Scheme 4 Teen Arts and Redditch Operatic Society, an old tattered score from a choral work once performed by Redditch Choral society, a clay fragment picked up by a child from the ancient Bordesley Abbey site, Margaret Hemming’s knitting needles, the famous rat from Redditch Amateur Theatre Society, a drum stick thrown into the audience at the Palace Theatre in the 1960s, an old Palace Youth Theatre stage mask, a photograph of a Astwood Bank Carnival float and a frog abandoned in disgust that played it’s part in visual arts degree show! Theres more behind the scenes that can’t be seen here but I think you get the picture?

Even the window frame is of significance, representative here of the window frame from an old garden shed belonging to our project, its really a cut and pasted photograph of one of the original window frames from the scene dock in the historic 1913 Palace Theatre.

I think we’re particularly pleased with this page because of the participation involved in it’s creation. Kevin Hunton from Spookshave Scenography ran a workshop with AiR Partnership members on the theme of found objects.

Here is a copy of the image that we used to illustrate our idea at the workshop.

We thought “found object” art was a perfect way to explore the past of our projects. This workshop culminated in the creation of an installation, that was eventually photographed by Clive Moss, of objects significant to arts participants but placed in a new context communicating new meanings to the viewer. Remember if you have a past project you want to be put in our shed then let us know. Enjoy!