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Super Slow Way arts programme launches

An arts commissioning programme established to get more people creating and enjoying art in Pennine Lancashire has announces its ambitious programme for 2016.

Idle women aboard floating arts centre Selina Cooper

Programme highlights include:

  • A specially commissioned Rhapsody to mark the bicentennial of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal
  • Kinara Festival, a month of events exploring Islamic art and culture
  • A mass participation project drawing on the diverse vocal traditions of the area led by US artist Suzanne Lacy
  • Stephen Turner's Exbury Egg, a self-sustaining workspace

Two hundred years ago the canal was the artery that fed the Industrial Revolution in Pennine Lancashire. Now, Super Slow Way seeks to start a creative revolution, this time powered by art and people.

Super Slow Way's range of events and residencies for 2016 respond to three themes inspired by the canal. Manufacturing past and present, the natural environment and the digital world. Above all, as the name suggests, the projects will give space and time to artists and communities to develop ideas, form relationships and experiment with new approaches.

Today marks the culmination of a year's work and collaboration with local communities along the canal, with new elements of the programme being announced to run alongside projects already underway. This includes idle women's floating arts centre for women and girls, currently hosting resident artist Martina Mullaney, her daughter and her dog who will be staying on the boat Selina Cooper for the next three months, working with women's groups in the Burnley area.

Super Slow Way Director Laurie Peake has been working on developing this groundbreaking programme since she came on board 16 months ago. She says: “Since its beginnings as an idea among local artists and organisations, Super Slow Way has grown into a fully formed, ambitious programme that I am delighted to be announcing today.

“Over the last year, we have sparked hundreds of relationships with communities along the canal in Pennine Lancashire. Collaboration and transformation are at the heart of our programme. Together with artists, our partner organisations and thousands of participants we aim to spark a slow revolution in 2016, the year of the Bicentenary of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal: the inspiration behind our name.”

Last Edited: 29 April 2016

photo of a location on the canals
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