WORDS FOR THE LIVING, 2021
Live Performance | Beth Derbyshire | WERK
Words for the Living is a live performance in which an individual speaker, communicates a series of words and phrases through a megaphone in public space. The words are commemorative excerpts by loved ones for so many of the key workers who have tragically passed away from Covid 19. The poignant and celebratory recital of words is a living memorial, describing the qualities of these incredible people who lost their lives whilst saving others and is intended to pay homage to loss, whilst inspiring the living through their bravery. The performance will be filmed and presented in the digital space of Into the Parade.
Into the Parade is an online web encounter and live project that explores how arts organisation and practitioners across the Midlands are engaging civically. The digital ‘Civic Centre’ is both tangible and metaphorical concept to explore the role of cultural practice in a civic context. Into the Parade is a cultural intervention that undertakes projects that have online and real-world anchors points and has been initiated by Beth Derbyshire and developed with students from the MA Arts and Project Management course at Birmingham City University.
BETH DERBYSHIRE
Furnace Projects
At Furnace we believe in bringing together nature, culture and collaboration. Exploring new world thinking and ideas in a rural context, over a glass of wine. The Furnace site consists of 4 carefully reconstructed 300 year old barns. The barns are connected around a landscaped courtyard and terraces which overlook our vineyard. Nestled in bucolic landscape at the edges of the Treago Estate in St Weonards, Herefordshire.
A series of spaces on the site provide the perfect platform for creativity in all its forms, including studio space, a wine tasting room, The Winemaker’s cabin and The Plant Room, a place to sow seeds... The unique and characterful spaces host vineyard experiences, wine tastings, artist residencies and workshops.
Herefordshire is a county whose ancient history still echoes in it’s modern day existence. This is true of its beautiful scenery, which owes much to the volcanic activity that gave us the Malvern Hills and the Worcester and Hereford Beacons. Herefordshire’s relative inaccessibility and extraordinary natural beauty, has made it a place that artists and makers of all sorts have long sought to live. This creative community is now beginning to examine how a new ‘contemporary rural’ can be brought to life. At Furnace we provide a focus for this activity in order to democratise and spread the values, practices and produce of the contemporary rural across as wide and diverse an audience as possible.
To find out more please visit the website.