Offsite9: Pop-up Lives Storybook - Katie Holtom
Pop-up Lives is a visual pop-up book experience designed for a family audience. It is an intimate exploration of togetherness on a miniature stage co-created by Wolverhampton's own children. A paper theatre will be brought to life with light using a combination of paper pop-ups, projection mapping, poetry, and hand-drawn illustrations to illuminate the experiences of young people and their families. Katie Holtom discusses her ideas and motivations for the work.
What drew you to the commission?
I was drawn to the commission after seeing the lack of restraint it held to my creative practice. Usually there are boundaries and certain points you have to hit within commissioned work but this let me be free and fully experimental in my practice. It was also appealing to be associated with such a significant network of cultural organisations. As an emerging artist, it is exciting that this has the potential to springboard my career in the arts further.
Tell us more about how the project will work.
The piece will work just like the pop-up books we know and love. At first glance the book will stand no more than a few feet tall, decorated only in children's scribbles but when the lights dim and a projection is beamed onto the book’s pages, the images become animated with the stories of children and young people. A digital narrator will tell the story on each page, with the addition of subtitles to make the installation entirely accessible. Designed for an audience of one family at a time, the installation will create a unique and intimate story experience.
What is the importance of co-creation from your perspective?
My work often experiments cross-discipline, playing with emerging technologies and contemporary theatre. I enjoy the co-creative aspect of working with children and young people, and allowing them to inform the work from the ground up.
Co-creation with children and young people is at the heart of this project. They have worked with me to provide the content of the text, based around their own life experiences of family, friends and their own networks. The story therefore comes direct from the minds and souls of children. This has also informed the illustrations of the book, which they have produced themselves.
Children and young people have had very little access to arts and cultural opportunities since the pandemic, as it has been deemed less important that those traditional skills such as maths and English. But when such a significant cultural event like Offsite9 comes to the heart of their city, they should be able to immerse themselves in it and celebrate by sharing their own experiences.
What do you hope audiences will take away?
I hope the work will provide a sense of joy and happiness after such a tough time. It will give deeper meaning to the thoughts, feelings and experiences of children and highlight their quite often profound knowledge of things that we as adults still find hard to understand.