AN ARTS healing festival has brought people together in Alloa to reflect on Covid-19 memorial work co-created in the Wee County to date.
There are plans to make the event an annual affair after guests, speakers and the community flocked to Resonate Together’s Carsebridge Cultural Campus on Friday, June 21.
Over the past two years, Resonate’s Angela Watt and many others have been working with communities to co-create memorials of the pandemic as part of the national Remembering Together initiative.
The Wee County has taken a unique approach to the project, engaging with communities from Menstrie to Muckhart to create pieces of art to reflect on losses and lockdowns, but also to look at the positives.
Rather than a central piece of art for the whole of Clackmannanshire, it was found during the scoping phase of the project that communities were keen to take charge of their own memorials in their own settlements with people directly involved in making art.
And in many ways, engaging with the project and being creative was the most important aspect, rather than a focus on the end product with an ethos that it is the journey that matters, not the destination.
Angela, founder and CEO at Resonate, told the Advertiser: “The co-creation process was at the heart of the project.
“I believe in inclusion, people sharing their ideas and being able to lead on aspects of the work they want within it.
“It can be a real challenge to ensure that co-creation, working and developing together, continues throughout the whole project.”
The project was unlike a traditional commission where an artist responds to a brief.
Angela added: “This time we had to look for patterns – what are the majority saying about this, what are the majority in each settlement wanting, what materials are they using?”
The project worked to find partners in 10 areas in Clackmannanshire, with mentee artists also appointed in the scoping phase, supplying materials, ideas and uniquely, a part of the budget to help organisations with the cost of living.
With the funds all spent in Clacks, including paid positions for mentees and support for groups, the project also supported community wealth building aims.
While there were patterns and similarities, people engaging with the memorial work took a different approach in each area and a wide range of art has been created, including songs, poetry, films and more.
Friday’s event saw the launch of a festival of Remembering Together, intended to be a celebration of people helping each other.
It was also a chance to showcase the works that have been co-created over the past two years after thousands engaged with the initiative.
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The event also saw special guests share their stories, including Donna Mclean from Sauchie Active8, Hilary Craig from Muckhart Parish Church and international artist Karen Strang, who painted numerous key workers’ portraits during the pandemic.
As previously reported, the gifted Clacks-based painter Karen also exhibited the works at Lillie Art Gallery, which was sponsored by the project.
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