
Needlemakers' Words
October 2016 at ArtistsWorkhouse, Studley
We asked 10 artists and 10 writers to respond to the history of the Needlemakers of Redditch and Studley.
We all visited the Forge Mill Museum and learnt about the lives of the men, women and children who worked in the needle making trade in the nineteenth century.
At the exhibition opening the writers performed short pieces of poetry and drama to an audience in amongst the artworks on show.
Each of the writers produced a specially presented copy of their text and the resulting collection of these texts was sold to audience members.
A copy of the texts is held in Studley library.
art\write ran a workshop in Studley High School for GCSE art students in partnership with the Studley Needle Heritage Project
The idea behind the project was to see how artists and writers would each respond to the same stimulus, this time not literary but based on social history.