Participatory Arts

Alex works with a wide variety of groups, some with song, others with Art and craft, and word. Below are some examples.

The Kitchen Cabinet Artwork made over several weeks on the theme of “Food”, with The Alzheimer’s Society, funded by The Wordsworth Trust.

A video snippet…How else can we respond to our landscape…I spoke in my Kendal Mountain Festival talk about how we are not separate from the land, it’s bones are our bones, the water flows in our veins, weather breathes through us and, to paraphrase – we come from the earth, and to the earth we return. We cannot possess the land, we cannot possess what already we are. So we connect. And here we are, my good friend Barbara Gilbertson Musician and I, connecting with the land we walk in. We have done this three times now, singing with the cave, enjoying the third voice that the space brings; we sing until we feel part of the cave and our person-ness is gone and all that is left are the voices. (Thank you to Dove Cottage & The Wordsworth Museum for enabling me to start this journey…)

Alex singing The Parting Glass, as a response to Lockdown May 2020

Please scroll down to see further examples of work – Participatory Arts has been with groups such as:

The Alzheimer’s Society

Care Homes

Leonard Cheshire

The Wordsworth Trust

Stroke Survivors

Youth Groups

Tullie House Art Gallery and Museum

Senhouse Roman Museum

Primary and Secondary Schools across Cumbria

Eden Arts

Hadfield Trust

The Studio Morland

Poetry with people who have a dementia and their carers
“Have a Go Printmaking!” – Eden Arts
Paper-bag Heads – inspired by Picasso
Dog Coat for the winning hound at Grasmere Sports – made with Leonard Cheshire
Making “My Place” – outdoors at Kirkby Stephen
FloodFleet – flood recovery project Glenridding
The Winter Droving – mask-making with Eden Arts
Lights of Hope – FloodFleet with Eden Arts funded by the Hadfield Trust and Cumbria Community Foundation
Textile work with people with a dementia and their carers
Felt-making “Mindcraft” funded by Rheged
“Pirate and Petticoats” – costumed Life Drawing – Eden Arts
Example of songwriting and recording – “Gold and Silver”
Reflection on a theme of archeology and stories buried in the ground.
(turn up your sound – it is very quiet!)