Telling Tales: Generations
Project Title:
Telling Tales: Generations
Project Location:
West Bromwich
Date of Project:
July 2007 - October 2007
Project Participants:
- West Bromwich Town Team
- Yew Tree Healthy Living Centre
- Yew Tree and Tamebridge Community Centre
- Charlemont Community Centre
- Church of St. Mary Magdalene
- Charlemont Methodist Church
- Charlemont Farm Tenants and Residents Association
- Charlemont Youth Club
- Charlemont Social Club and Institute
Project Funders:
Neighbourhood Renewal Fund
Sandwell Partnership
Sandwell MBC.
Project Overview:
An opportunity rarely arises that enables young and older people to meet and discuss shared interests or stories, mainly because of the pre-conception that they will have nothing in common or that they do not wish to meet.
West Bromwich Town Team had been working with community centres and organisations in the Yew Tree and Charlemont areas of West Bromwich and had met many people, both young and old, who had interesting stories to tell and talents to share but no opportunities to showcase these to the rest of the community.
Working with the Town Team and local community centres, Multistory identified people from two different generations living in the area who had common interests, talents or stories and paired them together. Each pair was given the opportunity to meet up and they ‘interviewed’ each other about their shared passion, skills and enthusiasm and posed together for portraits with objects that told their story. Multistory then worked with participants to support them in creating a series of posters using the images, objects and their words to represent the shared, intergenerational talents and skills. We wanted the whole of the local community to be proud of their fellow residents and to think about what talents or stories they could also share with others so we created an ‘urban art trail’ using the posters.
The posters were displayed on bus shelters on the bus route that runs between Charlemont and Yew Tree and were exhibited in the four local community centres along with ‘listening posts’ containing audio recordings of the participants’ conversations. Residents were encouraged to visit the listening posts so that they could find out about an event or activity happening in the centre that they might be interested in, in order to increase people’s sense of community and to encourage them to utilise local resources.
Project participant Tom Smith said, “It’s been quite an experience meeting someone from such a different age group who shares such similar life experiences”.
Multistory also hosted a launch event for the ‘urban art trail’ to showcase the work the participants created for this project. Whether it was dancing, singing or kick-boxing, the whole community came together to celebrate the new found talents and connections that had been made.
Click on the link below to listen to the stories behind the images.
Below are a selection of images showing the Telling Tales: Generations artwork produced in collaboration with local residents.
Below are a selection of photographs taken at the Telling Tales: Generationslaunch held at Yew Tree and Tamebridge Community Centre.
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