Santa staggering out of The Caravan Gallery in Rhynie, Aberdeenshire
A Very Merry Christmas from Team Caravan
We are now half way through our 2 year national Pride of Place Project Tour supported by an Arts Council England Strategic Touring grant . Six galleries around the UK are hosting extra{ordinary} – Photographs of Britain by The Caravan Gallery, an exhibition comprising more than 100 colour photos made over 15 years. This is complemented by a locally themed participatory Pride of Place Project (PoPP), part exhibition, part alternative visitor information centre, and local Caravan Gallery Tour in each city.
The first stop on our tour was Sunderland where we teamed up with Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (NGCA). extra{ordinary} was spread throughout the 4 floors of the building to lure visitors up to the gallery on the top floor. Our Sunderland PoPP took place in an empty shop further down the street where we met many fantastic Mackems including the legendary Dave the Rave (World famous in the North East) and Johnny Red Feathers. We had a great team, plenty of pease pudding and a superb local coordinator in Mike Davidson.
We are making books to commemorate each project and the first one from Sunderland is imminent! Look out for it in our shop.
Next came Bradford where our extra{ordinary} exhibition looked magnificent at Impressions Gallery. The Bradford Pride of Place Project generated some remarkable contributions and we encountered lots of brilliant people including the wonderful Michael Parkinson, pictured below with his dog – one of many chihuahuas who visited us in Bradford! Volunteer Jason Feather set up a Bradford Pride of Place Project Supporters Group on Facebook, such a great idea that we’re adapting it for each city on our tour. The Caravan Gallery visited six locations around the area promoting both exhibitions.
Our last port of call this year was Cardiff (Caerdydd) for Ffotogallery’s Diffusion Festival. We had superb exhibition venues at either end of Wood Street with extra{ordinary} in the former Shaws the Drapers shop and the Cardiff Pride of Place Project in The Abacus. Helen Bur and Sam Worthington who run The Abacus did a great job painting the exterior a vivid shade of Caravan Gallery yellow! Local people helped us create a warts and all homage to Cardiff over the course of a month, one of the most popular contributions being ‘The Wall of Dave’ by Dan Green which had its world premier. Cardiff Caravan Galley outings included a spectacular location outside Wales Millennium Centre. Cardiff was incredibly busy with the Rugby World Cup in the Millennium stadium around the corner. Meeting the other Chris Teasdale (Tango dancer) was an unexpected treat!
Our next stop is Preston where the Museum of Lancashire will host extra{ordinary}. We are currently researching suitable premises for the Preston Pride of Place Project (PPoPP) which will run throughout March 2016.
Website, Blog and Shop
Don’t forget, you can keep up to date with all Caravan Gallery activities, past, present and future here on our website and blog. All merchandise including our latest publications is available from our new updated shop.
Special thanks are due to talented artists and designers Natalie Dowse and Phil illingworth at IDProjects who have designed our books, including the two above, as well as various project leaflets, signage, stationery and anything else we happen to need, mostly at very short notice. They are currently setting up an exciting project based in central France involving a wide variety of arts initiatives.
Thanks to our friends Lyn and Richard Stark at The English Caravan Company for reincarnating our gallery on wheels so beautifully! Finally, our thanks go to another important member of Team Caravan, our Project Coordinator Helen Statham who has been organising us in the background and keeping everything running smoothly.
Last but not least we want to thank every single person who has supported us.
Bye for now and best wishes for a glorious 2016 – hope to see you in Preston, Middlesbrough, Southampton or anywhere else we’re invited to appear.
Jan and Chris x x x