Limavady Hen’s Shed - Crankie
Title of Work: The Gem of the Roe
Arts Care Artist: Helen Bradbury
Arts Care Project Artists: Janice Witherspoon, John Leighton
Art Form: Music, story-telling and visual art
This was the inaugural project using Arts Care’s *Crankie as a creative vehicle.
The project developed with Limavady Hen’s Shed and evolved through collaboration between music, story-telling and visual art.
Discussing the project brief “To Shine Like A Diamond,” the story of the Gem of the Roe, a local story of the area, became the natural choice for the creation of a project.
Through Janice and Helen this local story was interwoven with each participants personal response and a wider local history and resulted a rich dialogue of images and words spanning over 30 ft.
There was much discussion and learning in each of the sessions and the group developed a strong identity through their support of each other and in their relationship to the project over the 8 weeks we met…. Without this group’s dedication their achievement would not have been as great.
The project was performed for the Hen’s Shed group in March which brought all of the elements of the project together in a fitting conclusion.
*What is a crankie? - Crankies are a form of visual storytelling with a rich and wonderful history. A crankie theatre is a box built with two spools inside. The spools have handles that can be ‘cranked’ to bring movement to an illustrated scroll that is wound onto the spools.
The Crankie is a wonderful device for storytelling. It offers a stream of moving images to delight and engage audiences young and old, whilst still allowing plenty of room for the imagination to play its vital part in co-creating the story. Crankies can be combined with shadow puppetry to help tell a story and create magical visual effects.
Participants
Group: Fiona, Linda, Patrick, Debbie, Tishie and Doreen
Thank you so much to the fabulous Limavady Hens shed who embraced this project and really made it their own. You have been shinning diamonds in this years Here & Now festival and have made an amazing contribution to the final showcase. You should all be so proud of what you achieved. Thank you, you talented crankie bunch!