​​Crossings Project: A Giant Photo Adventure For Everyone!

Our Spring Crossings project led to our Summer touring Crossings Exhibition - did you catch it?

Hebden Bridge Arts’ 2022 Crossings exhibition, which toured community venues in June 2022, shared over 300 photographs taken by members of the public in response to an open call and by workshop participants of six different photo walks and workshops, designed for adults and children, that we led around Hebden Royd in March and April. 
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Our aim was simple: encourage people to explore our wonderful local landscape, by themselves or on a group walk, and think creatively about what they encountered, on the theme of Crossings, snapping photos as they went.

Crossings are all around us. Stiles, gates, gaps in the wall, stepping stones across a stream and a cobbled path laid between fields all reveal the routes humans have taken through the countryside over many generations. Bridges and tunnels, zebra crossings and pedestrian crossings keep us safe as we move around our busy, urban environment. 

​With the support of local creatives Lizzie Lockhart, Clare Danon and Amanda Dalton plus volunteers from Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd Walkers Action groups, we took members of the public on a photowalk adventure.  We ran open public walks, more tailored walks to suit those with access needs and walks for children aged 4 to 8.

Hebden Royd Photo Map

At our exhibition people enjoyed a photography slideshow, creative writing, audio field recordings captured by local sound artist Jo Kennedy, a Hebden Royd Photo Map beautifully designed by local maker and illustrator Kerith Ogden (see above), and cyanotypes made by the young  people of Calderdale.
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​Together with Hebden Bridge Walkers Action and the creativity of over 110 local photographers this project has created a massive repository of local crossings which fill our landscape allowing us to explore - stiles, gates, tunnels, bridges, gaps in the wall, tracks and stepping stones.
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Crossings Soundwalk

"This soundwalk is inspired the photographs people took for the Crossings project, and by time spent listening and recording in six Hebden Royd locations.  We start by Hebden Water and walk into town, making our way up to the station and Mayroyd. A gate takes us into Nutclough woods and another one returns us a little while later to centre of Mytholmroyd. From here we venture up to the quieter slopes of Cragg Vale, and finally make our way (maybe on horseback?) to Midgely and the moor.  
 
Crossing the neighbourhoods of Hebden Royd my thoughts wandered onto wider interpretations of 'crossings'. Responding to the photographic images as my initial starting point, I stood in, walked through and listened to the spaces, and came to consider the migratory crossings of birds and people; watery insects becoming air-born (metamorphosis as a type of crossing); the momentary snatches of conversation heard when crossing paths with people, and the cross-fading of sounds as you traverse a bridge or turn a corner, passing from one acoustic space to another. The piece therefore is maybe a mediation on the essence of a ‘crossing’ from one state or place another." Jo Kennedy 

Artist: Jo Kennedy

Sound Artist of the Crossings Soundwalk

BACKGROUND

Jo Kennedy lives in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.  She works in a freelance capacity as a sound designer, sound artist and sound editor.  Her creative work often sits at the intersection between art and environmental science, responding to questions about our relationship with the living world.  ​

current work

She co-produces a podcast (Nature Tripping) with episodes often recorded in the Calder Valley and is a co-director at Yorkshire Sound Women Network.

website

​https://www.jokennedysound.com/

Artist: ​Kerith Ogden

Maker & Illustrator of the Crossings Photo Map

Background

​I'm a maker and illustrator based in Hebden Bridge. I like to draw pictures of interesting creatures and places,
 
I love high contrast, interesting, complicated patterns, hard lines, layers, and the edges of things. I work both in pen-and-ink or digitally, or a combination of the two – I really enjoy both ways of working.

Current work

I also make giant puppets and lanterns mainly out of withie and paper and recycled materials – I love the natural lines and shadows that withies make, and the quality of light through paper.

socials

https://www.instagram.com/redant_art
https://www.facebook.com/redantartstuff