Something's Happening Here is the beginning of an exciting three-year cultural programme, ‘Mill Race: Flow of Change’, which will celebrate the Mill Race area as a core and dynamic part of Lancaster that is directly informed by its heritage but also inform its emerging, contemporary character. The programme, will complement the Lancaster High Streets Heritage Action Zone being delivered by Lancaster City Council. Both programmes are managed by Historic England.
Artists from Lancaster and Morecambe will be offering imaginative opportunities to spark your curiosity about this forgotten part of the city. The event will include:
Mill Race Detectives by Steph Edwards: capture your own pictures, rubbings and recordings as you discover Lancaster's forgotten Mill Race.
Go With the Flow by Emma Rucastle: create your own tour, hunt for places of interest and find 'treasure' to add to a car boot collage!
Exit/Enter/Encounter by Jamie Jenkinson: A short study into the Mill Race’s beginnings/ends/middles through a gathering of digital observations - Find and scan QR codes in the carpark to open up a box of digital treats...
Sonic Traces from the Mill Race by Maja Bugge: cello improvisations will explore the musical connections with the traditional dance tunes performed while the mills were in operation.
Stop. Line by Bonnie Craig: paint your own everyday markings of the Mill Race area on the tarmac and be part of a big outdoor artwork.
Everyone’s a Critic by GRAFT: a pop up exhibition that asks you to photograph or draw a part of the Mill Race area and then curate an exhibition of everyone’s contributions
High Street Duets by Unfolding Theatre: performances that tell the stories of local businesses through song with a pop up choir
Fountain by David Boultbee: Fountain will temporarily bring the Mill Race, now covered over and often invisible, back to the surface in the form of a fountain, powered by everyone who visits the carpark.
…and more! Join our artists in extracting the beauty from the mundane, the stories from behind closed doors and the hidden history of this area.
Prepare to become a tourist in your own city and see the Mill Race area with new eyes. Become a detective, an artist, an archaeologist, a spy. Hone the art of noticing, of seeing details you would normally ignore. Find the beauty in the everyday, find intrigue in the place you live and work. Be inspired to find fictional, fantastic, delicate and personal on equal terms with factual, recorded history.
Something’s happening here is a street party meets a festival in a carpark. Expect artwork spilling out of car boots, secret performances hidden away in vans and, of course, food trucks! This is the carpark as you’ve never seen it before…
For more information please email: producers@lancasterarts.org
