From November 2020, the Behind the Postcard group met online weekly, taking part in zoom workshops, production sessions and mentoring. Each week the workshop focused on a different discipline; Photography, Film, Collage, Digital art, Writing and Drawing with both Signal Staff and Guest tutors leading and supporting throughout the process.
The project was designed to be collaborative both in the process of making and in the artwork itself. Signal sent out sets of postcards from The Sankey Collection out to the group. Each postcard set was unique and selected for each individual based on their location in Cumbria. The work selected for exhibition responds directly to the postcards they received. (see an extract of these bellow).
Before landing on this website the work has been exchanged between group members to be exhibited inside their homes. The act of giving and receiving became a key part of the ethos that the group worked to, coming back to the idea of postcards and the exchange of objects, messages and information.
Sophie Broadgate (Project Manager / Tutor) :
“Meeting weekly with this group during lockdown became so important to everyone involved. Each week before we started the workshop we had tea and catch up, sharing stories of our lockdown lives. These moments were the highlight of my week.
Charlotte and I challenged the group to explore mediums that they had never used before, this created a playful and exploratory process where we were all beginners. Exhibition in an Envelope is an eclectic collection showing the personalities and interests of each artist with documentation that allows a glimpse into the fun we had together”.
Special thanks to the makers of Exhibition in the Envelope; Kieran Bennett, Derek Bradley, Charlotte Davies, Marina Hodgson, Enid Milligan, Mohamed Raafat El-Demerdash, Lucy Sherwood and Hannah Stratton.
Thank you to Sophie Broadgate and Charlotte Davies who led the project with guest tutors Kate Davis, Robert Parkinson, Suzie Larke and Cameron Paterson.
Thank you also to all the Sankey Volunteers who have been working to make the Sankey Collection accessible via research, cataloging and digitisation.
Our thanks and gratitude to Tim Sankey and Geoff Holme for supplying us with digital Sankey Postcards and to Joan Sankey and the Sankey Family for kindly donating the entire collection to Cumbria Archives and making this project possible.
To Find Out More
If you are interested in getting involved in workshops, sharing your stories or volunteering please get in touch with Julia on julia@signalfilmandmedia.co.uk / 01229 838592
