Art on the water

An unusual contemporary art project for women, taking place on a narrowboat moored in West Yorkshire, began this week and runs through the summer.
FLOATING ART: A new art project for woman takes place on the canal at Shepley Bridge, Mirfield.FLOATING ART: A new art project for woman takes place on the canal at Shepley Bridge, Mirfield.
FLOATING ART: A new art project for woman takes place on the canal at Shepley Bridge, Mirfield.

This week idle women, the organisation that creates contemporary art with women, announced that nine women will be taking up residence over the summer onboard their floating arts centre, the Selina Cooper.

Summer invitation (part 6 women in residence) is a new initiative in which women will stay on the converted narrowboat and enjoy some personal creative space in exchange for offering a skill, workshop or sharing for local women.

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The women taking up residence include Parveen Butt, Natalie Deighton, Linda Grieve, Alana Jelinek, Raksha Patel, Sheree Angela Matthews, Janette Scott and Karen Shannon and Nancy Barrett.

They will offer a number of workshops covering portrait photography and painting, fortune telling, stained glass making, drawing and painting, visual journaling, spoon carving and protest banner making.

“We are delighted that these talented and creative women have accepted our invitation to take up residence on board the Selina Cooper this summer,” say Rachel Anderson and Cis O’Boyle, the caretakers of idle women.

“The response to the opportunity has been fantastic, with over seventy expressions of interest from women who live locally as well as further afield. We will be welcoming back women we have worked with before as well as looking forward to seeing new faces.”

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Currently based at Shepley Bridge in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, women in residence is idle women’s sixth phase of residencies in the North of England, and features a programme of workshops and social gatherings in partnership with Creative Scene, an arts commissioning and producing project and local women’s organisations.

In the autumn, idle women travel to St Helens for the final phase of idle women (on the water) and to launch IWI (idle women institute), a themed programme of creative survival activities. They will also announce a major collaboration with leading arts commissioner, Heart of Glass, also based in St Helens.

They will reprise shifting loyalties, their 2016 gathering for women led by acclaimed feminist writer Silvia Federici with whom they are also developing digital witch hunt, an online documentation of historic 
and present day witch hunts 
and murder of women and children.

Idle women (on the water) launched in 2016 with residencies by MUF Architecture/Art, Martina Mullaney, Mojisola Adebayo and Karen Mirza in Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington and Nelson, and Stella Barnes and Nicky Bashall in Mirfield on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

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During the first year, the women also developed Izhaar, an ongoing collaboration with Humraaz, a women’s refuge in Blackburn; worked with artist Sarah Cole on the towpath for The Wild Washerwomen, Michelle Wren and the women and girls of Gannow Community Centre, and with Mojisola Adebayo, Raksha Patel and over forty women to realise a panoramic 6m long mural and poem on the wall of a derelict staple factory.

The Selina Cooper is moored at Shepley Bridge, Mirfield until August 24.

A range of free arts activities and workshops are on on offer.

For details and to book visit www.idlewomen.org

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