Bringing art to town for Festival celebration time

A special group of '˜tourists' have arrived in Lytham '“ but instead of taking home souvenirs of their visit, they intend to make some of their own to leave for the residents of Fylde to enjoy.
By The Newsroom
Published 7th Jul 2016, 12:49 BST
Updated 25th Aug 2016, 18:41 BST
Artists from the TEA group on Lytham jettyArtists from the TEA group on Lytham jetty
Artists from the TEA group on Lytham jetty

TEA, a nationally-recognised artists’ collective, has been commissioned by Fylde Council to produce a new piece of work for Counterpart, the temporary, public art project being installed around Lytham.

The aim of Counterpart is to encourage residents and visitors to explore the wider town during the summer season and foster greater community participation in the forthcoming Lytham Festival.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Entitled We Were Here, TEA’s work will make use of Lytham landmarks and streets to create a series of large scale images featuring scenes which merge fragments of the past and present with speculations about the town’s future.

The majority of the work will be on show in the form of giant postcards installed around the streets of the town centre and TEA artist Lyn Pilling said: “We work collaboratively in response to places, their past, present and future, reconfiguring them to offer new, critical and often playful versions.

“We hope to show that memory is not a continuous or reliable process and that imagination plays a part in what we see and understand to be possible.”

TEA’s work will be joined by the work of 12 other visual artists which are being installed across a host of indoor and outdoor venues in Lytham over the next couple of weeks ready for public viewing from July 20 to August 14.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Among them is a site-specific abstract drawing Look At This Way by artist Tina Dempsey, who will be inviting the public to share their stories, observations, memories and personal images of Lytham with her before she draws her response directly onto the windows of the Ecopod at Park View 4U.

Tim Ashton, chairman of the Arts Partnership for Fylde and vice-chairman of Fylde Council’s tourism and leisure committee, said, “All of the Counterpart artworks will invite residents and visitors to look at the Lytham they have always known in a different way.

“We hope the public enter into the spirit of the project and participate in the artist-led activities on offer.”

The £38,000 Counterpart project is being led by the council in collaboration with the newly-established Arts Partnership for Fylde supported by Arts Council England and Lytham Festival organisers Cuffe and Taylor.

More information from www.lythamfestival.com/counterpart

Related topics:LythamFyldeTea