The Inside Out felt trail was created at seven artist-led workshops held in Appleby in 2016 with 400 people engaged to create 8 felt sculptures to make ‘Inside Out’. A pop-up river sculpture trail open to the public.
In December 2015 Storm Desmond swept through Cumbria, causing untold devastation to towns and communities across the county. The aim of the Appleby River Art Project was to encourage people to share and express their experiences of the Appleby floods through creativity and the arts. We commissioned two local artists, Karen Babayan and Debra Esterhuizen, to hold workshops and to work with local residents on creating a temporary sculpture trail, called Inside Out.
The artists described the workshops they held over the summer of 2016 as being part of a ‘carthartic, healing process’. People who were affected by the floods were encouraged to tell their story as they created felted fabric. The felted fabric was then used to create artwork for the sculpture trail.
The sculptures reflected the objects displaced from people’s homes by the flood waters, hence the title, Inside Out, as well as the stories behind them. These included the iconic sofa that was shown floating through Appleby on Sky and ITV News, as well as clothes washed into trees and fish that were left stranded in fields and trees when the waters receded.
The workshops assisted those taking part recover from their ordeal by sharing and expressing their experiences. Their stories were recorded and also incorporated into the art works they helped create. Among the responses and stories was that of an 8-year-old child who recounted that she thought ‘I was going to die…’. Meanwhile, a local café owner recalled how ‘I came in on the second day of the flood, once the water had subsided. There was still three inches of water in the café with teapots, parsnips and onions floating around.’
In the wake of Storm Desmond in December 2015, we wanted to focus on helping communities to recover as quickly as possible and reconnect with their river. Appleby was chosen because the floods had such as devastating impact there.
Our aim was to provide practical support to help the community recover, but the challenge was to find a way that helped the community to move on.
We’re best known for our practical river improvement work, but this project required a different approach. Our aim was to provide a creative outlet for people to express the emotional and physical upheaval they had experienced, and start the healing process with the river.
We were keen that this was a truly-community-led project, so we commissioned local artists to work with a wide range of people to create an artwork that would acknowledge the event and share the community’s stories with a wider audience.
Four hundred people took part in the Appleby River Art project, half of whom were children. Meanwhile, the sculpture trail not only provided a creative outlet for the emotional and physical upheaval caused by the floods, but also proved immensely popular with visitors – the trail was extended by popular demand until 30 October 2016.
In addition to workshops, Karen and Debra led Appleby Primary School children on a meditative walk by the river. This gave the pupils, the opportunity to think about nature and life.
Karen Babayan, artist said:
"We took a ‘mindful’ walk with year 3/4 pupils down to the river to observe the beauty of the river restored by nature and to talk about the cycle of destruction, resilience and restoration."
We are extremely grateful for all the local residents and community groups who took part in the project including: Appleby Primary School, The Friday Club, 1st Appleby Scouts and 1st Appleby Brownies.
In this BLOG, we follow the progress with our Volunteer and Community Outreach Coordinator, volunteers and community groups embarking on this adventure with us.
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