Super Slow Way

Super Slow Way is a leading arts and cultural initiative backed by the Canal & River Trust. It was set up in partnership with local authorities, academic and cultural organisations with funding from Arts Council England's Creative People & Places scheme.

Pennine Lancashire's programme will work alongside local, national and international artists and producers. The iconic Leeds & Liverpool Canal runs through the area it serves and the vision is for the waterway to become a vehicle for bringing communities together.

Super Slow Way is showing how radical and ambitious art programming by local people can develop creativity, strength and connectedness across and within communities.

This year, alongside amazing new co-commissions such as Small Bells Ring, Super Slow Way is leading the case for an extraordinary Pennine Lancashire Linear Park.

Evolution of the canal

Super Slow Way takes its name from a poem by Ian McMillan, the Canal & River Trust's poet laureate for 2012, about the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

The poem encapsulates the evolution of the canal, from the ‘Super Highway' of the region's booming textile industry 200 years ago to the ‘Super Information Highway' the canal has become today, a fibre optic route for the digital age.

The canal is also an important source of nature and tranquility today, a Super Slow Way where people and communities can take time out and explore how time can be used more creatively. It's this transformation of the canal, and its impact that informs Super Slow Way's work with the diverse communities found along the canal's route, from Blackburn to Pendle.