Time To Archives - Made With Many

Artist Carole Miles with some of the artwork made as part of Connecting Corby ©Paul Stringer Friday 6th November 2020 Virtual Exhibition of Corby artwork opens For one year from Friday 6th November you will be able to explore two virtual galleries full of extraordinary artwork created by Corby people as part of the Made With Many programme. When the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in March 2020, we made the difficult decision to cancel all of our planned events to safeguard project participants and pledged to find an alternative way to celebrate their work at a later date. A mass of creative work had been made by local people through two projects, Time To… and Connecting Corby, which was destined to languish indefinitely in our storeroom unless a way to publicly present it safely could be found. Time To… was a project that aimed to make a positive difference to the lives of older people in Corby, taking place in Corby Library, The Autumn Centre, local care homes and community centres, which was made possible with support from the ScottishPower Foundation, Larkfleet Community Fund, Arts Council England and Writing East Midlands. Connecting Corby was supported by The National Lottery Community Fund and HM Government through the Building Connections Fund to combat loneliness and improve social connections within communities, with sessions taking place in community centres across Lloyds, Kingswood and Hazel Leys estates. With all public venues being instructed to close for the foreseeable future, a completely new approach and solution was needed, and after some research, the Made With Many team decided to work with V21 ArtSpace to create a virtual exhibition space to bring the work into the digital realm. These two virtual spaces can be navigated on any device that has an internet browser and exhibition visitors also have the opportunity to take part in recorded workshops in art, dance and poetry within the space. We have also worked with SC Agency to produce a book of the artworks, which will be given to people who took part in the public workshops, as well as residents at local care homes who participated as a lasting memento of the project. Artist Phiona Richards with origami kusudamas made by Corby people as part of the Time To... project © Paul Stringer Entry to the galleries is completely free, however we would really value your time to complete each gallery’s audience survey when you visit, to help find out what you thought of the work, the way it is being presented and what activities you would like to see in the future. Made With Many Programme Director, Helen Willmott commented, “It was with a heavy heart that we had to postpone these celebration events in March 2020 due to the threat of COVID, as many of our participants are in the vulnerable group. These events were really important to the team, the artists we had been working with and the local people that had helped to create them and we were determined to do justice to the fantastic artwork had been made. We are delighted to now be able to present this work in a safe environment whilst at the same time trying something really innovative in Corby.” To view the online galleries, take the audience survey and for further details about each of these projects, please visit our What's On page from 2pm on Friday 6th November. Media enquiries should be sent to marian@madewithmany.org Visit the Virtual Exhibition Keep in Touch For future updates on news, events and opportunities please sign up to the newsletter below or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.