The Caravan Gallery, a community focused project that invites locals to come along and share artworks, stories, memories, objects – pretty much anything as long as it has a connection to Burnley.
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00:00 This is the Burnley Pride of Place project and it's been commissioned by Burnley Leisure and Culture.
00:06 So I run the Caravan Gallery with my partner Chris Teasdale and it's actually a gallery in a caravan in the name of our artist partnership.
00:15 So yeah, this we've taken over this empty shop in Charter Walk for a month to make an exploration of Burnley town and borough with the help of local people.
00:25 So think of it like an evolving exhibition cross with a sort of slightly unusual visitor information centre.
00:33 We started off just with some of our photos, which are the big colourful ones running all around the top of the room and their observations we've made.
00:42 And the idea is to get people talking and sharing their own memories just, you know, inspired by what they're looking at.
00:48 Behind me here we have the people's map of Burnley. We've decided Burnley's the wrong shape because if you want to get Burnley, if you want to get Paddy Omon,
00:57 you have to miss off some of the bits over there, but you can do an arrow pointing to the missed off bits.
01:04 And the idea is people share their stories, observations, like favourite pie shops where they get their samosas,
01:12 where you walk the dog, favourite views where something weird happened to you, anything you like.
01:19 So it's a sort of people's history of Burnley. We've had people bringing in artworks, so paintings, poetry.
01:28 The only rule is it has to be about or inspired by Burnley.
01:32 We've got old stuff. We've got photos from just by the window here, Burnley Civic Trust have loaned us a whole pile of amazing old pictures,
01:42 which gets people stopping, looking through the window.
01:45 It's just really an exploration of this place and the people and the communities, the things people do.
01:52 There's been an absolutely amazing response so far.
01:55 And we've built up a bit of a community now, so people are popping in regularly, saying,
02:01 "I've just seen this and I've just made that, can it go up on the wall?"
02:05 We've had schools making artwork.
02:08 So it's like a creative community centre looking at Burnley.
02:13 We're open from Tuesday to Saturday, ten till four daily, just shut on Sunday and Monday,
02:19 so we can go off photographing and exploring and catch up with sleep.
02:25 So people can bring things along and then we'll find somewhere to display whatever's brought in.
02:32 We've got a book for loans and donations.
02:35 We kind of record details and then the week after the exhibition closes, the last day is the 15th of June,
02:44 we'll make a record of absolutely everything, the completed display, and then items can be returned.
02:51 This is an opportunity to kind of show off your talents and for other people to enjoy and be inspired by.
03:00 And we're just really interested in the diversity, all the different people who live here,
03:05 whatever their origins or backgrounds or interests or age or whatever, everyone's welcome and their dogs.