Exploring past, present and future with the Ripple Project

This Saturday 15th June, the communities of Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny, together with the Ripple Project and the Binks Hub, were proud to launch their exhibition of artworks exploring the memories, experiences, realities, hopes and dreams of the local community.

This exhibition marks a long period of collaborative working between the Binks Hub and the Ripple Project. We first met Rachel Green, the Ripple Project’s director, at our launch in May 2022. It quickly became clear that we were both keen to work together, with Rachel joining the University of Edinburgh to study for a Binks Hub-funded Masters degree in Health Humanities and Arts, and the Binks Hub team spending time at the Ripple getting to know the organisation, the local area, and the people who live there.

Last summer, we began to think through what a co-created community arts-based research project might look like, and the idea for our exhibition ‘The Ripple Project: Past, Present and Future’ was born.

PAST – The Ripple Project: a history through art

The Ripple Project: A history through art.
Digital print on canvas
Credits: Jenny Capon (lead artist); Todd Bioletti (artist/researcher); Jimmy Turner (artist/researcher); Dawn Baxter (artists/researcher); the Ripple Project Older People’s Group; Ripple Project staff, volunteers and members.

This artistic timeline traces some of the stories, events and memories of the Ripple Project and the community it serves. It started life on a large roll of paper, which the Ripple Project team – along with some of their members – used to trace some of the milestones in the almost 30-year history of the project.

This initial draft was then taken to a workshop with members of the Older People’s Group, who added further memories, stories, and details to the timeline.

Jenny Capon, our lead artist, then took this version and created an illustrated version which was shared with the Ripple’s staff, volunteers and members, which were added by Jenny into the final version in the exhibition.

PRESENT – Mal-flourishing: Who decides?

A series of three (stunning!) tapestries, all created by Ripple Project director Rachel Green as part of her innovative research for her Masters degree, explore present experiences of the local area.

Personal Mal-flourishing – who decides?
Wool tapestry
Credits: Rachel Green (artist/researcher)

Creating this tapestry allowed Rachel to explore how data can be represented through tapestry, using her own life as data. Using different colours to express different life events and experiences, Rachel wove each year of her life into this piece.

Each colour represents a different type of experience:

  • Stress/chaos (red)
  • Loss (black)
  • Children (green)
  • Can’t remember (blue or grey)
  • Awkward (purple)
  • Relationships (pink)
  • Hot summer of 76 (yellow)

This led Rachel to question how limited a view this gave of her own life. And if her own story couldn’t be adequately represented through colour coding, can community experiences be represented in this way?

Community Mal-flourishing – who decides?
Recycled materials and bin bags woven into tapestries
Credits: Rachel Green (artist/researcher); community members from Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny.

[Above left] The first of the two tapestries comprising ‘Community Mal-flourishing – who decides?’ applies the approach of Rachel’s ‘Personal Mal-flourishing’ tapestry to one way in which areas of deprivation are commonly represented in Scotland: through the Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).

The SIMD looks at the extent to which an area is deprived in seven different ways: income, employment, education, health, access to services, crime and housing. Red hues indicated higher deprivation, and blue hues lower deprivation.

The area of Restalrig, Lochend and Craigentinny has three data zones in the top 5% most deprived, four in the top 10%, and eight in the top 20%.

But how far can this represent what it is like to live in the area?

[Above right] The final tapestry was co-created by Rachel and a group of community members, and shows how they experience their local community as compared to the ‘official’ measures of SIMD.

The group didn’t dismiss the more challenging elements of where they live, with the background formed of black bin bags – which represent depression, drabness and neglect in the area – and white bin bags – which represent a lack of community and leisure spaces.

But against this backdrop, the swirl – or ripple – of colours in the foreground show the human connections and spirit of the community. This tapestry contains hope and positivity alongside struggles, contrasting sharply with the SIMD tapestry’s unrelenting bleakness.

FUTURE

Imagining Restalrig in 2050: A youth view
Digital printing on canvas
Credits: Jenny Capon (lead artist); Mallory Hybl (artist/researcher); Autumn Roesch-Marsh (artist/researcher); Ripple project Children and Young People’s group members Raissa, Rhys, Anna, Hayden, Chloe, Stephanie, Derek, Maya T., Lara A., Lara C. A., Gurdaige, Louise, Aliza, Emma, Maya B. and Callie.

Mallory Hybl (alumna of the Binks Hub-affiliated MSc in Global Mental Health and Society) worked with young people from across different youth groups at the Ripple using collage to imagine how they would like their community to look in 2050. 

The finished piece, pulled together by artist Jenny Capon, shows both individual dreams – such as owning a dance studio, playing, and attending university – and hopes for the wider area, including: a hospital with more staff and shorter waiting lines; more clothing and food shops; green spaces and park improvements; community art venues; free ice cream for under 15s; and the absence of bullying.

Manifesting the future
Clay and paint
Credits: Bobby Sayers (lead artist); Jimmy Turner (artist/researcher); Amrita Puri (artist/researcher); Rachel Green (artist/researcher); Ripple Project staff, volunteers and members; community members from Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny.

The final artwork takes the form of a wishing well on which community members could hand clay artworks representing their hopes, dreams and desires for the future of the area.

Led by artist Bobby Sayers and assisted by Amrita Puri (University of Edinburgh Masters student), Jimmy Turner (Binks Hub Research Fellow), and the incredible team of staff and volunteers at the Ripple Project, community members from the local area spent a week creating over 60 clay plaques.

Each plaque expresses the hopes of the individuals and groups who explored potential futures with Bobby, with some made collaboratively over several days with one person contributing the idea and design and someone else making and painting the plaque.

It was a joy to see the community artists behind these individual plaques come into the Ripple and see them fired and exhibited. There are so many intricate and beautiful designs, as well as clear messages for what people want to see more of in the area: community, sociality, nature and the environment, wellbeing, happiness, and the role of the Ripple Project.

The art and hopes of Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny

We have been completely blown away by both the artworks created by the local community and the ambition for the area. The artworks themselves are stunning, and a testament to the drive, hopes, and creative energy of the community.

“This exhibition has been so important in getting local people’s voices heard,” said Ripple Project director Rachel Green. “So often, we can focus on the physical elements of a space, whereas what’s highlighted here is the deep connections and relationships with the area that enable people to live full lives despite the outward appearance of the place.”

“Working with different community members and groups at the Ripple, and working across different art forms and creative practices, really gave us the opportunity to explore a wide range of experiences, hopes and dreams for the future,” added co-curator (and Binks Hub research fellow) Jimmy Turner. “Across the project, people could either talk to us and give us ideas that others could then make into art, or explore their ideas through collage, drawing, painting and ceramics.

“We were making the artworks right up to the last minute, so the exhibition is really the first opportunity that we’ve had to see them all together in one place, and it’s such a joy to see how the different artworks that have been produced connect and link to each other.”

Huge thanks are due to the artists who supported this project – illustrator and graphic recorder Jenny Capon and participatory artist Bobby Sayers – as well as to the many Ripple Project staff, volunteers, and community members who have made this exhibition both joyful and possible.

What’s next for our work with the Ripple Project?

Both the artworks themselves and the process of making them have given our team a wealth of information about the local area, the community members who live and work here, and the diversity of lives, experiences and dreams that make this place so special. We additionally invited visitors to the exhibition to share their own thoughts and aspirations for the local area.

We will now use this information to prepare a range of connected materials.

With the expert support of Nel Coleman from the University of Edinburgh libraries service and their ‘Community Reads’ project, we will invite the local community to collaboratively write a briefing paper for policymakers and funders expressing what community members want for the area.

We will also be taking the artworks to two further exhibitions at Dovecot Studios and Scottish Parliament, inviting people who have the power to change things and doing our best to see that local voices are heard.

To find out more about the project, please just get in touch with our research fellow Jimmy Turner or the Ripple Project director Rachel Green.

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The Binks Hub will work with communities to co-produce a programme of research and knowledge exchange that promotes social justice, relational research methods and human flourishing.

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