PLACES is a group of artists associated with Horse and Bamboo Theatre who work with people of all ages on projects that help them to engage with the built environment of their towns and cities.
The long-term collaboration between Horse and Bamboo Theatre and PLACES began with a project to introduce young children to the experience of architecture through visual theatre. This work grew out of Horse and Bamboo Theatre being one of Europe’s leading visual theatre companies and their unique role in the UK.
They create complex, beautiful, contemporary and informed theatre that does not require verbal explanation but where stories are told through the sensory experience of music, light, mask, animation and puppetry. Over a thirty-year period they have won awards for the quality and innovation of their work and so it was a natural development to expand this into understanding and facilitating the process of place making.
All their work begins in the creative environment of their building at Rossendale in Pennine Lancashire. This building – known affectionately as The Boo – has evolved over the years into a collection of places for making, places for performing, places for meeting, for eating, for animation, for creating music, for sewing, for office work, for talking and for thinking – the list grows as part of the creative process that takes place there. The story of the building itself is one that has evolved from beginning in the 19th century as a Liberal Club, then a dance hall, later a skating rink, a cinema, a shoe warehouse and then abandonment. But in 1955 it was rescued and became the home of Horse and Bamboo Theatre.
It is from this environment that the work of PLACES links up with the local community and others that are further afield. We do this through projects that involve consultation and participation in connecting people with their locality and in making a creative response to the concept of place and a sense of belonging.
The work we do explores the ways in which the built environment is created and adapted to form places that are defined by buildings and townscape, how these become places of memory and how they are interlinked in the imagination of the people who live in them. |
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The name PLACES is made up of the first letters of words we use to describe the built environment:
PEOPLE the individuals who make the built environment their own.
LOCATION the surroundings on which our lives are focussed.
ARCHITECTURE the spaces and structures in which our lives take place.
COMMUNITY groups of people defined by culture and tradition.
ENVIRONMENT the circumstances and events that influence our lives.
SENTIMENT the feelings and emotions that we experience in places.
These words are part of a dialogue that is fundamental to understanding the narrative of people and places. Our process of exploration, reflection and communication is shared with the local community and a wider audience through painting, photography, film, and performance.
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The outcome of each project varies but they all record the shared learning journey we have taken with the members of a community. When the project comes together, in the form of an exhibition or creative intervention, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts in terms of community engagement and understanding of their built environment. |
