• We’re a new Cumbrian CIC (est. Aug 2021) using art to tell hidden stories of homelessness, substance recovery, isolation and social inequality — and reaching wide audiences.
• Our 2021-23 project, REFUGE FROM THE RAVENS, saw people with experience of homelessness rewriting Wordsworth’s iconic poems and was exhibited at the Houses of Parliament. An immersive exhibition of the project at Wordsworth Grasmere featured a film and soundscapes. Our book now sits alongside Wordsworth’s original Lyrical Ballads in the museum archive. Ravens featured in The Guardian and on the BBC.
• We’ve identified a lack of arts provision in Cumbria and N. Lancashire for the homeless community, people experiencing substance recovery, isolation and economic hardship. Our long-term strategy is to fill this gap.
Our Mission: “Art from the edges. Imagining new futures.”
Art can heal social and environmental problems. Art that comes from the forgotten or ignored voices of people at the edges of society. This can happen through collaborations with ambitious artists and iconic venues to co-create new futures…
Our place in the world
Developing arts within homeless/substance recovery support venues around the Morecambe Bay Area, and alongside other organisations in wider NW England. We bring art into the lives of local people shut off from creativity and self-expression who can benefit hugely from it — and whose insights benefit us all. We’ve worked locally with LDHAS, Manna House, Red Rose Recovery, Wordsworth Grasmere; in Manchester with Back on Track and (Invisible) Manchester, in Liverpool with Tom Harrison House.
Projects
REFUGE FROM THE RAVENS 2021-23. Our first project, Refuge from the Ravens, was a £50k Heritage Lottery funded rewrite of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. Created by 100 people affected by homelessness and playing to live audiences of 18,000 across 3 venues, it reminded audiences that “we have all of us one human heart” (William Wordsworth). For more info on Ravens, read the full set of blog diary posts on this website.
THE LAST WOLF IN ENGLAND 2023-24. (AFFILIATED PROJECT) Zwiebelfish’s Phil Davenport worked in collaboration with people experiencing homelessness and substance issues at Manna House in Kendal and Red Rose in Lancaster, co-creating a poetic soundscape that links the eradication of wolves with social exclusion. This follow-on from RAVENS deepened relationships with participants and further developed our work in sound/poetics. Edited by Julia Grime and produced by Sophie Cooper, featuring local violinist Carolyn Francis, singer Christine Johnson, cellist Barbara Grunthal. Work from the project was translated into a handmade book by artist Liz Collini. Material from LAST WOLF was debuted at Full of Noises in Barrow, showcased online and in a forthcoming publication. ACE funded DYCP. For more info on this project go to SoundCloud, Synapse International.
