29th July 2023: Launch of ‘The Stitched Atlas’ project

The Stitched Atlas : Would you like to participate in a community walking and/or stitching project to revisit Ella Mary Leather’s places of folklore?

I live in Herefordshire and am investigating our relationship with rural place, studying at Manchester Metropolitan University.  I am seeking participants for this year long research project that will collaboratively create The Stitched Atlas with a halfway exhibition at Herefordshire Archive & Records Centre from 12th March 2024, and a final tour of the Atlas from September 2024. My aim is for us to revisit the places of folklore and songs identified by Ella Mary Leather in her book of 1912.

This will involve visiting one of the places where Ella Mary Leather gathered folklore and/or folksongs over the four seasons of 2023/4. You can choose the place you wish to visit and document it perhaps through notes / sketches / photographs / walks / gathering materials / stitching. Visits may be limited to four – one for each season – or may be as many times as you wish.

There will be a series of introductory sessions to the project and some materials made available. Following these I will hold a regular drop in session in Leominster where we can stitch and discuss findings together. You might not wish to stitch, I consider the walking ‘to, from and around place’ as a kind of ‘stitching with the body as the needle’. You may either document this walking or make a stitched /embroidered response to the place, but it can be experimental, and no previous knowledge of stitching is required. Your contributions will be put together in The Stitched Atlas of these places of folklore.

I will need to tell you more about the project so you can decide if you would like to take part. There is no obligation to do so. If you do decide to, I will ask you to sign a consent form, but you can withdraw at any time. To join the project, I have arranged a date in September 2023 when we can first meet at The Old Stables Gallery, Corn Square, Leominster.

My name is Jackie Morris. If you would like to hear more about The Stitched Atlas project, please contact me on jacqueline.morris@stu.mmu.ac.uk or 07766688193

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Published by jackiehmorris

I am a folklorist investigating our place in the world through creative and participatory practices. As an artist maker with a textile sensibility, I craft engagements, events, workshops and year long projects. I have a BA(Hons) Fine Art and MA in Contemporary Dialogues. I am currently writing up the thesis of my research investigating rural place in Herefordshire (UK) with its community through its folkloric heritage and landscapes of common land. I live in Herefordshire and study at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am Australian born to British parents and have lived in both countryside and cities of Britain. Rural conversations and fieldwork with my art collective 'Fold' supports and inspires my thinking. My art practice, Volka Arts, is named after my recent investigation into the now enclosed Volca Common Meadow, a short distance from my home. j.morris@volka-arts.org

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