Manchester-based arts and culture organisation FutureEverything will kick start their exciting programme of public-facing digital arts activities, as part of the Stockport Creative Campus initiative, with a residency, workshop programme, and a world premiere of a new digital artwork by acclaimed artist Di Mainstone.
Di Mainstone is a multi-disciplinary artist and international award-winning filmmaker, who collaborates with communities, scientists, historians and musicians to develop powerful films, playful public installations and immersive experiences. Her work focuses on themes of climate change, biodiversity loss, and forgotten women’s histories.
Di’s recent commissions include award-winning climate inspired film ‘Time Bascule’, celebrating the 125th anniversary of the London Tower Bridge; ‘Human Harp’, a digital musical device that transforms suspension bridges into giant harps that people can play; and ‘Time Mirror’, an interactive kaleidoscope for the public realm, installed at Blackwell Arts & Crafts House and later Grizedale Sculpture Park.
Her work has been exhibited and screened at RIBA, V&A, Design Museum, Barbican, The National Portrait Gallery, Tower Bridge, The Roundhouse, The Cannes Film Festival, Eyebeam NYC, and the Swedish National Touring Theatre.
Drawing on her passion for community collaboration, this Spring will see Di co-design and deliver a series of creative engagement workshops for a diverse range of communities from across Stockport. Workshop participants will be invited to explore their emotional connection to the landscape and biodiversity of Stockport, in a way that feels current, accessible, and fun.
Participants will be invited to unearth and decorate a bulb from the soil, before imagining and creating a species of bulb which will later be 3D scanned and planted in the digital artwork. They will be asked to consider the name of their species, what kind of environment it might inhabit, and what its message to future citizens of Stockport would be.
Di will facilitate discussions about climate change and record participants’ feelings around emotional biodiversity: What connection do they feel to Stockport? What does it mean to become part of the fabric of a place? These interviews, in addition to the bulb creations, will become part of the final digital artwork.
The workshops will provide a space for people across Stockport to re-engage with their surroundings, connect the past, present and future, as well as reflect on the town’s rich heritage, innovation, and community.
Participating Community Groups: Stockport Race Equality Partnership; Coffee, Chill & Spill; Wellspring Centre; Re-dish; Stockport Women & Girls; Sector 3; PossAbilities; Asian Heritage Centre; and Culture Bridge.
The ‘Emotional Biodiversity’ digital artwork will be presented in Stockport town centre later this year.
This programme of work forms part of the Stockport Creative Campus initiative. Funded primarily by DCMS via Arts Council England’s Cultural Development Fund (CDF), Stockport Creative Campus aims to make Stockport a centre for creativity and digital innovation in the North.
Artist Di Mainstone, says: “I’m delighted to collaborate with the community of Stockport to co-create a digital artwork called Emotional Biodiversity. As part of FutureEverything’s Creative Campus Commission, we will run a series of workshops exploring participants’ connection to Stockport through the lens of soil. Collaborators will be invited to creatively explore their own sense of rootedness to the town, as well as to contemplate their emotional link to Stockport’s soil and the biodiversity within it. Our cohort of workshoppers will literally get their hands dirty creating new species of bulbs and plant life which will feed into a final touring digital installation.”
