Hello and Happy New Year!
Despite being quiet over the past twelve months, we have certainly been very busy. Looking towards 2022 with optimism, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you, our loyal supporters, clients, and partners, for your encouragement and collaboration.
Continuing our mission to develop culture-focused strategies for local architectural heritage throughout 2021, over the past year SCT has curated an exhibition, been involved in the organising of two festivals, helped establish a new collaborative studio and re-imagined two historic sites. What follows is a short outline of these activities.
Spray and Save Festival
Firstly, SCT has been developing an awareness of the wide potential of heritage sites by introducing creative activities and events to unique historic buildings and spaces. The Spray and Save Festival, held on 18th April 2021 at The Hotwalls Studios, served as an official launching event for the Trust’s activities with four Portsmouth-based artists producing artwork throughout the day.
The event was widely promoted on social media due to pandemic considerations, and the Trust’s launch was featured on the ICOMOS UK website:
The second Spray and Save Festival celebrated the 5th Anniversary of The Hotwalls Studios and was in part funded by Portsmouth City Council. Our first media intern managed the social media presence with photos and footage of the event.
Photos from the event can also be found on our Instagram: https://www.sustainableconservationtrust.com/insta
SCT is committed to promoting art and architecture exhibitions as means to re-imagine historic spaces, by bringing new ideas to the fore and exploring how they can be re-invented by using the insight and skills of younger generations.
Fort as Time Machine
Fort as Time Machine is an exhibition by two architects from the UoP School of Architecture and curated by SCT at the Historic Dockyard's Storehouse no.9. An example of our collaboration with the Dockyard Trust, it fulfilled the ‘cultural use’ requirement for their Heritage Lottery Funding application and highlighted the immense potential that historic buildings possess for innovative adaptive reuse, and demonstrated their usefulness for temporary functions prior to more substantial intervention.
The promotional film for this event can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/652411468 This exhibition will soon be on display at Fort Brockhurst to promote the adaptive reuse of defence heritage with a cultural focus.
Ankle Deep
Ankle Deep was formed in September 2021 by architect Deniz Beck, MD of Anglepoise Ltd Simon Terry, and lecturer and creative consultant Claire Sambrook. Ankle Deep draws on their respective backgrounds to work with people they believe in from within an experimental and experiential space. Ankle Deep is for the curious in everything. Their philosophy is rooted in the 7 C’s of resilience - Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, Contribution, Coping and Control. The studio, located in The Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth is a journey going deeper into the creative process. They share a common commitment as facilitators, disruptors, instigators, collaborators and curators.
With the support of SCT, Ankle Deep recently took over Boathouse no.5 for a temporary ‘Punchroom’ workshop with Fashion and Textiles students and tutors from UoP in December 2021. More information on the studio can be found here: http://www.ankledeepstudios.com/
You can’t change the way people think, all you can do is give them a tool, the use of which will change their thinking.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Our new home at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Portsmouth and Gosport’s vast collection of military and naval built heritage, whilst embodying an incredible amount of engineering skill, human effort and craftsmanship, also display their collective cultural identity and a deep connection between nature and habitat. SCT is constantly seeking ways in which it can be cared for and utilised by the community through appropriate reuse strategies and a programme of meaningful revitalization.
The Former Pay Office of Historic Dockyard became the first space to be revitalized by SCT. Invited to Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard by the Property Trust in June 2021, we became custodians to the dockyard’s former Pay Office. The workspace of Charles Dicken’s father John, for decades dockyard workers would assemble here to collect their weekly pay, in the process leaving names and dates scratched into the exterior brickwork.
Our work involved replacing unsightly and inefficient strip lighting and fitting out the space with repurposed furniture and artwork from the ‘Spray and Save’ festivals. Home to both the Sustainable Conservation Trust and Ankle Deep Studios, it is now a co-operative space occupied by two like-minded groups with mutual interests and goals, and a base from which we can collaborate with other groups and individuals on potential projects.
Fort Brockhurst
The Fort Brockhurst Reviltalization Project has, after initially stalling due to the pandemic, now commenced, and SCT will soon be hosting visits for potential tenants as part of the Phase 1 element of the programme. More details can be requested from: info@sustainableconservationtrust.com
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