Clay Project

The Passion

NATIONAL THEATRE WALES AND WILDWORKS with MICHAEL SHEEN "Love, Betrayal, Sacrifice, Passion." In a spectacular finale to its triumphant launch year, NATIONAL THEATRE WALES joined forces with WILDWORKS, which bought Michael Sheen home to star in a one-off ground-breaking theatre event which placed the Port Talbot community at its very heart.

The Enchanted Palace

Independent charity Historic Royal Palaces undertook a £12 million major project called 'Welcome to Kensington – a palace for everyone' to transform and re-present Kensington Palace by 2012.

The Memory Projector

In September 2009 a team of 10 WildWorkers together with 8 local artists and performers took up residence in Glasgow to create an interactive performance and installation that would be the centre piece of the Merchant City Festival.

The Beautiful Journey

SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY HAS HAPPENED… The Beautiful Journey is set in the not so distant future. Something has happend. We are all on the move, an exodus into the unknown.

Imaginary Journeys: The Travel Agencies

WILDWORKS is proud to be one of the first companies commissioned through an exciting new arts programme called FEAST to lead an ambitious Arts in the Community project in seven market towns across Cornwall:

Souterrain

A WILDWORKS Production travelling through Britain and France, 2006-2007 Orpheus is returning home from war. The village is being decorated with bunting, and the "welcome home" banner has been raised. The band is playing, the choir singing and the vicar is handing out cake.

Clay Project

A WILDWORKS Project in St Dennis, Clay Country, Cornwall - January-April 2008 We had been driving past St Dennis for years, not paying it attention, just another village in Clay Country. But this is a place on the brink of dramatic change, the clay industries have all but disappeared and regeneration plans are being rolled out.

Morwenstow

A WILDWORKS Project in North Cornwall, November-December 2006We travelled the lanes, visited the churches and chapels, the institutes and community hall, the school, farms, pub, post office, fields and cliffs.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings / 3 island project

You are minding your own business. Suddenly a man with enormous wings crashes to earth beside you. Good luck or bad? Angel or demon? All you know is your life, and the life of everybody you know, will never be the same…ever again!

Journey to the Halo

A WILDWORKS Project in Haslingden, Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, September 2007High on the moors above the Rossendale Valley, dominating a landscape studded with the shapes of the old cotton mills, stands the Halo, a Panopticon landmark sculpture designed to celebrate the regeneration of the moorland landscape.

An archive of Cornish performance

An archive of Cornish performance held by University College Falmouth (UCF) following generous donations from WILDWORKS, Kneehigh and the family of Nick Darke will ensure invaluable performance materials are preserved and kept in Cornwall.

Clay Project

A WILDWORKS Project in St Dennis, Clay Country, Cornwall - January-April 2008

We had been driving past St Dennis for years, not paying it attention, just another village in Clay Country. But this is a place on the brink of dramatic change, the clay industries have all but disappeared and regeneration plans are being rolled out. The most extraordinary thing about this work is how, in the brief space of a few weeks, the village reveals itself, through its people, as a place of extraordinary talent, pride and resilience.

The first stage of the work, Honouring the Past, showed that St Dennis is a place with a strong memory of itself. There are many private photography archives, lovingly kept by community members, notably Mr Harry Barrett, photographer of St Dennis, but many other people keep their own collections and are able to animate the images with wonderful stories. These photographs revealed an incredibly active and self-sufficient community. There were images of work, groups of men with their arms around each others shoulders, proud in their camaraderie. Images of the Band, the carnival, pantomimes and amateur theatricals, really wonderful stuff, and the thing they had in common was a sense of people working together, and having fun together.

WILDWORKS artists spent two weeks gathering material that was then turned into the most beautiful memory boxes. These were exhibited at a number of tea parties held by WILDWORKS.

Making the film ‘Heart of Clay’ we found a strong thread linking the past to the present. It was very heartening to see the pride of place that endures in the young people of St Dennis. The children of St Dennis were really central to the process, inviting their families into school and making wonderful objects about their sense of belonging to the area.

The next part of the project ‘Imagining Futures’ tapped into the resourceful spirit that we found in the Clay Country, and provided a forum for people to express their dreams, fears and aspirations.
We took over the St Dennis Working Men’s Institute and created a village within the village. We made portable allotments, a museum of the past, a library of the future…We also reconstructed the old St Dennis Plaza Cinema. We held an all-day party and the people of St Dennis came and talked to us and, more importantly, to each other, about their dreams, their fears, and their love of the place.

“The film of St Dennis people and the reconstructed Plaza cinema was great as a final event. The whole place was buzzing on the Saturday evening with local people coming to see the story of St Dennis. The numbers who came through the door was truly impressive. The specially prepared room in the Institute looked extraordinary and brimmed with the attention to detail, wit and beauty that told people that they and their community were valuable and their ideas counted for something. As a way of collecting people’s perspectives, worries and hopes it was inventive, sensitive and open.

The whole project provided a model for working with people in an entirely new and creative way. It opened new windows through which people could see the future”.
Rose Barnecut, Co-Director, Creative Unit, Cornwall County Council

‘Honouring the Past, Valuing the Present, Imagining the Future’ was a WIILDWORKS Community Project commissioned by Restormel Borough Council as part of their Community Consultation in the Clay Area. It took place in the Clay Country, in St Dennis and surrounding area, from January to April 2008.