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The  Artspace project  introduces  professional artists with specialist skills to Barrow and South Cumbrian schools and to the wider community. Working with artists from within our region, we establish sustainable creative partnerships with our local authority, the areas creative industries and institutions, providing  time and resources  to devise and deliver innovative  projects that  combine traditional art skills with digital media, performance and research.

 

 Since 2017 we have begun to explore aspects of significant sites and their role in our perception of place and history.  Working from a base at the Sir John Barrow Cottage we have established partnerships with our local authority, Ulverston Coronation Hall and Green Lane Archaeology.   "SJB3: Manners and Amusements" was  the first body of work and events to result, followed by  our "Storyfair'  project with the Sir John Barrow School,  now in its 5th year, and hosted by Furness Traditions Festival.

In 2022 our "Still Waters" project saw us exploring  landscape, social history and memory in  Askam In Furness with local historian and writer Kevin Alexander..

   Since 2023 we have been working with MIND In Furness, St Mary's Hospice and local schools and  families on  story telling, visual work, sound and creative writing projects. Our  2024  project "Making Time" will see that work continue and extend to a local Residential Care Home and the St Mary's Living Well Sports Cafe.  We have worked with Kamishibai story teller Cathy Sullivan, touring the local libraries with stories an darts activities for children.

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Our major 2024 project looked at the intersection between music and community activism in Barrow in 19760-96 and produced a book, "Play Summat We Know" containing oral history interviews, contemporary accounts and ephemera. This work has been developed into a major exhibition at Barrow Dock Museum called "Play One Of Your Own" in 2025, with further commissioned work from video artist John Rennie and coders/.crafters Artfly. 

With the support of Arts Council England, this work will now be interpreted yet further by locally based artists, working in sound, text, sculpture and animation.

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On this site  is a full record of our  work from our first residency programme in 2013-14 to the present. 

We welcome your ideas and proposals.

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