Our Corby
Archives and experiences of life in Corby used to inspire new art
A new project called Our Corby will see archive material and memories of life in Corby used to inspire new works of art for the town.
The project, which has funding from Arts Council England East Midlands, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the MLA and Renaissance East Midlands will delve deep into two extensive collections of photographs of the town that have not been publicly available before.
Arts and heritage organisations, and local communities, will be brought together to celebrate Corby’s history of absorbing new cultures as it grew from stone-built village of fifteen hundred souls, to steel ‘boom-town’ with a population of more than fifty thousand, in less than fifty years.
Corby Heritage worker Billy Dalziel explained how the idea for the project came about: ‘Following some work in Northamptonshire Record Office looking for historic material about Corby, I discovered that in addition to material collected by local historians from the 1930s to 60s, Corby Community Arts had been collecting local people’s expressions of place and identity for the last 30 years’.
These two amazing archives capture critical periods in the town’s history as the steel works propelled a rural village into an industrial town and then left it with 30% unemployment as it closed in 1980.
Our Corby will train and support volunteers to capture the stories behind the images and to develop a community heritage website and a programme of working with community groups, that will explore the emotional connections people have to this unique place. It will also appoint a writer in residence to lead a team of artists, including local artists, in creating a unique new works in response to the material.
The project will culminate in multi-site celebratory exhibitions and events in summer 2011 to coincide with Northamptonshire’s Igniting Ambition festivities as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
Jane Seddon, Northamptonshire’s Museum Development Officer said:
‘Corby is experiencing significant new growth and development so it is the perfect time to explore the community’s memories and responses to change. The legacy of the project will be a permanently accessible bank of images at the Heritage Centre, touring exhibition, audio tour and a community archive website which volunteers have been trained to build and maintain, allowing Corby residents in the future to provide comment on their own history.’
Anybody interested in volunteering should contact the project coordinator, Jim Grevatte jimgrevatte@btinternet.com.
The partner organisations delivering Our Corby are Corby Borough Council, Corby Community Arts, Northamptonshire Record Office, Writing East Midlands, Renaissance East Midlands, MLA and Northampton Museums.
