A group of artists and their families on the Isle of Wight are taking part in the national ‘Open Weekend’ which marks the launch of the Cultural Olympiad.
The ‘Open Weekend’ is a programme of events taking place across the UK and the group are holding two events this weekend, hosted by Quay Arts and Naturezones.
The Isle of Wight’s exhibition and project group, called ‘No Man is an Island’, recently formed from families who first exhibited together at Quay Arts in 2004, in an exhibition called ‘Inside Outside’.
It gave the artists, who all have children with autism, a chance to show the creative lives of their families. The highly successful exhibition was given another opportunity in 2007, this time exhibiting in the House of Commons, arranged by the Isle of Wight MP, Andrew Turner.
“We are a group of parents who met at a time of real adversity and we realised that we could use our skills as artists to show families living with ‘hidden disabilities’ in an entirely different light. Our families have worked across the Arts and other fields, including medal-winning sporting achievements, but our common factor is that we all have at least one child with Autism,” said Melanie Swan, the group’s Exhibition Curator and Project Manager. “This places us in a unique position. We’ll be working in collaboration with Quay Arts, Naturezones wildlife education centre, the National Autistic Society (NAS) and its recently launched Isle of Wight Branch, the Isle of Wight Island Games Association and the Riverside Centre”.
On Saturday 27th September visitors to Quay Arts will have an opportunity to see part of the group’s Inside Outside exhibition in a display in the Seminar Room between 2 and 5pm.
They will be able to meet some of the exhibitors and see the exciting new direction for their next Quay Arts exhibition in September 2009, learn how this fits in with the National Autistic Society’s ‘I Exist’ campaign and find out about future workshops with Quay Arts and Naturezones.
On Sunday 28th September the group will have another display of work and activities, this time at Naturezones, a nature reserve and education centre, from 2 to 5pm.
It will include the ‘20.12 Images’ project which two of the young people started on September 17th to mark the Paralympics Handover day. This project will be part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, which Naturezones was recently accredited to deliver. The young men, Jake Packham and Dave Talbot, took photographs every hour for 12 hours and also marked the start of a ’12 day’ cycle of photographs, which ends on Sunday.
They will continue to take a photograph every week until the ’12 week’ cycle is complete and monthly until next August for the ’12 month’ cycle. Their work will later form part of a collaborative project with artists, where their photographic images will be explored and developed in other media, including painting and textile work.
Landscape and the natural world will influence the group’s future projects and they were delighted to hear that Geoffrey Hughes, actor and forester, will visit their Open Weekend Event at Naturezones on Sunday.
“This is so encouraging for our young people,” said Sarah Talbot, Associate Project Manager, “and gives them just the boost they need. Dave was thrilled when Geoffrey visited him after our exhibition in 2004 and we are very grateful for his interest and support.”
The group is looking forward to workshop opportunities with Quay Arts, Naturezones, the NAS and the Riverside Centre, in response to Quay Arts exhibitions next autumn, leading to an exhibition of work at the Quay’s Learning Curve Gallery in November 2009.
“We’re incredibly excited about future possibilities for developing our projects,” said Melanie. “The goodwill we’ve been shown by the Island’s Art and Sporting organisations in the short time since we worked to build our Open Weekend events is absolutely fantastic. We are thoroughly looking forward to rising to the challenges ahead of us!”
Links to Other Organisations:
Quay Arts www.quayarts.org
Naturezones; www.naturezones.org.uk
Naturezones Director, Angela Hewitt; T: (01983) 296110; E: [email protected]
National Autistic Society ‘I Exist’ campaign; www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1558
International Island Games Association; www.islandgames.net
Riverside Centre; www.riversidecentre.org.uk
