Care Contractors- Legacy Culture Trails 2024
From August 2024-November 2024, Creative BasildON were pleased to work with the Care Contractors – Shaun C. Badham, Emma Edmondson, Laura Whiting, and Lu Williams – on our Cultural Trails artist commission. Over 4 months, they worked alongside residents to create new socially engaged works, events, a cultural trail, and a publication.
Over the past five years of Creative Basildon’s presence in Basildon, we have been asked to support the celebration and championing of the large amounts of Public Art in the town and wider borough. As part of the 2024/25 programme of work, Creative Basildon, led by the community will explore the cultural life of Basildon, through an opportunity to identify and map the art and cultural pieces: present, past and future – to start a series of trails that can be developed to put Basildon’s art, culture and creative history on the map.
The Care Contractors want to celebrate the public artwork (past and present) commissioned in Basildon and its importance to Basildon’s origin story.They worked to care for the historic public artworks of Basildon and imagine new works made with residents.
Using research and public events, they explored how the roles and uses of Basildon’s public artworks have changed over time and get people involved in maintaining them for the future.
Workshops and events took place such as sculpture workshops resulting in a pop-up glow in the dark trail within the Southernhay Underpass celebrating the public artwork displayed there, collages using Basildon public art images, a short film screening, a pub quiz and arty chat in a pub – with a panel of sculptors, artists, councillors with a community Q&A, and various guided walks.
These FREE public workshops ran from 12th October 2024, to read more about each workshop on Eventbrite- click here
Instagram: @care_contractors
@shauncbadham @laura_whiting_ @luwilliamsdotcom & @emerrrhhhh
Shaun C.Badham (sculptor/technician/artist/researcher), Emma Edmondson (artist/sculptor/educator), Lu Williams (artist/publisher/sculptor), and Laura Whiting (designer/researcher/historian).
