Then and Now

20-21 Visual Arts Centre and North Lincolnshire Libraries Join National Arts Project Reflecting on ‘Our Freedom’

Did you know that for 2 weeks over summer the chancel gallery at 20-21 became the wartime Conesby train station?

20-21 Visual Arts Centre and North Lincolnshire Libraries are proud to be part Our Freedom: Then and Now – a major UK-wide, locally-led arts and creative programme marking the 80th anniversary of VE/VJ Day.

This ambitious project, led by Future Arts Centres, has see the creation of 60 new artworks across the country – each reflecting what ‘Our Freedom’ means to local people today. The initiative honours the past while exploring how heritage shapes our future.

Locally, 20-21 Visual Arts Centre and North Lincolnshire Libraries have partnered with Tenfoot Dance Company to produce an original dance performance, film, and exhibition. Rooted in community collaboration, the project will draw on stories and experiences from a diverse range of voices in North Lincolnshire.

Through clever set building the space transformed into a space that told a story of love, loss and remembrance. Recruiting two local dancers in their first professional performance and supplemented with a community cast of 179 lindy and sequence dancers, school children, extras and even an animal actor this moving film considers the effects of and sacrifices during wartime and how this resonates with a contemporary audience.

On 11 November we launched this remarkable community experience as part of an exhibition at Scunthorpe Central Library. Elements of the set have been rebuilt on the ground floor and first floor of the building hosting the responses from different communities and referencing local experiences from a range of intergenerational voices to explore how our heritage informs our present and the future.

Members from organisations and groups including North Lincolnshire Veterans Hub, Scunthorpe Church of England Primary School, Speak Out Scunny CIC, North Lincolnshire Sanctuary Group, the North Lincolnshire dance community, North Lincolnshire Music Hub, and North Lincolnshire Museum Young Historians Group, as well as participants recruited through an open call, worked with creative producer Fred Garland of Tenfoot Dance to develop, shape, and co-create a programme that reflects the interests and skills of those involved, from history, poetry and dance to visual arts and more.