Turning Points by Laura Dicken
During 2020 artist Laura Dicken spoke to 4 creatives for her Creative Connections Commissioned project Turning Points to find out more about creativity in the Black Country and how people view the places they live and the opportunities that are around them. We’ve chosen a few extracts from the conversations to share below.
Andre Reid - Walsall
“I wanted to work on bringing back creative provision, that creative vibe, that energy, back to Walsall, and just reinvigorating that spirit where we’re not just creative, we’re strategic. We think about where we want things to be, why we want them to be there and what the impact that’s gonna have on us as people living in the town, people visiting the town, people working in the town... to be more conscious and involved in those decisions. And at the same time not having to wait or ask for permission”.
“The things that I’m conscious of here in Walsall is we end up being signed up to this 'hero culture' where we expect one person to solve all the issues. We lay it all on them and if they get anything wrong then they’re the villain of the situation. So there has to be ways for people as individuals to all feel their own sense of power in the situation. So we'll all feel like heroes, we’re all leaders in this as well.”
“I know people would speak of Walsall as being like this maybe racially divided place in many ways, there probably is still a lot of that but when i’ve travelled around people generally will talk. They’ll be curious to why you’re there and it's not like a hostility thing, actually, it’s more like ‘ah, well let me tell you a bit about this place’.
A lot of people that are in Walsall are migrants too, in the sense of, we’ve travelled to Wasall for a certain reason, and we’ve ended up settling here. And so we have a common ground in terms of ‘oh I came here 10 years ago’ or ‘I came here 3 years ago’. It doesn’t matter, we’re all meeting in the same place. We’re all sharing this experience of learning to love the place, desiring to do more with this place where we are living.”
Liz Berry - Sedgley
“Perhaps my biggest hope for Sedgley, Dudley, the Black Country is that it’ll find a way to really be proud of its past without being overshadowed by it.”
“I think about when I was a teenager in the Black Country, I felt like I had to get away to do something different, to make something of it, to have these dreams and adventures. And when I meet kids now they’ve got that spirit too. That spirit of dream and adventure which doesn’t seem squashed at all. And I’m so delighted and surprised to discover that they are really engaged, political and energetic and connected and open minded… in a way that I’m sure I didn’t feel the world was in the 90s when I was a teenager.”
“I think for the centre of lots of those little towns, that kind of orbit Dudley, like sedgley, where I grew up, the Gornals, they’ve got lots of lovely places and lovely things but also there’s been lots of shut down shops. There’s been lots of shut down businesses and I think we should be doing something about the High Street that makes people feel they want to go there…
And I was thinking about this during the lockdown because lots of people were using their local high street more than they ever have and I thought actually that’s like the secret power isn’t it? It’s being able to tap into that and offer people something they’re not getting in the big shops, whether that be community things, little cafes, a busy library. Whether it be cheap rents for little businesses, an outdoors market that feels actually you can get good value and its a good lively place to go.
But it’s a really complicated one, when you’re working on the idea of transformation, because traditionally transformation in the Black Country has meant change and change has meant loss; loss of industry, of communities, of connectedness, of jobs for people to go to, and security. We just have to reframe the way we see this idea of transformation, that we can work together as communities to make something better, but it’s something actually that we’ve all got to take responsibility for.”
“If you were think about ideas of what’s traditionally Black Country, it’s always a really masculine thing. It’s white, it’s working class. But actually some the most exciting work I see happening is from some of the different cultures that have arrived in the Black Country, different languages, different outlooks, different perspectives.
The perspectives of girls and women, of you know, the LGBTQ community and actually that is a really great source of richness that sometimes people forget about. When they think about the Black Country, we have this idea of the Black Country as it was in past, you know that rally masculine idea. The bit I’m really interested in, is those stories in the Black Country now, those new voices that are bringing something completely fresh to it.”
“What a great language we’ve got. We don’t have to be ashamed of it. Like I used be be ashamed, when I left for University people used to laugh at my voice and my accent. But now I think it’s really beautiful. I feel really really proud of it. And that’s what I’d love to pass forward through my work, this feeling of pride in our voices”.
Lindsey + Tim Baker of True Reverie - Wolverhampton
“I think that people are so down to earth in Wolverhampton that they are reluctant to show pride and shout about what’s good and be proud of that culture that’s here.”