A DREAMY piece of artwork in the form of a giant bed has been installed on a recreation ground in Stratford.
We Shadows has been created by Sarah Annis and Red Isaac who make up Ruby Road Productions – a storytelling collective based in Warwickshire. It has been installed near the new play area on the Recreation Ground as part of Our Spaces – a project run by Warwickshire County Council (WCC).
The council has been working with a whole host of place curators, creative giants and specialist art fabricators to help plan, design and deliver an art installation at seven different locations across the county, as part of a bid to reinvigorate public spaces.
Stratford’s is one of the final artistic creations to be installed.
We Shadows, measuring a massive three by four metres, is brightly coloured and made from a combination of wood and metal, with platforms which create the ‘beds’ of the piece.
Ruby Road Productions said they loosely based the art installation on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the fairies cast spells over their friends in the forest. But instead Ruby Road has created more contemporary spells with the young people from Escape Arts based on what they hope for themselves and others in the town for the future.
These ‘spells’ have been depicted across a canopy over the beds, each with their own special hashtags to encourage social media interaction.
Young people, and those young at heart, are invited to lie down on the beds located on the Rec or sit and dream and let the spells ‘cast their magic’.
The art piece also includes a QR code and a ‘brain interpretation plaque’ which allows the spells to be downloaded into any language.
Spells will also be popping up in unexpected places across the town over the next year.
Red told The Observer: “The hope is young people continue in this conversation so the piece radiates beyond the park and into the town, and even further, globally.”
The Our Spaces project was funded with £194,000 from the government’s Getting Building Fund through the CWLEP and £150,000 from WCC’s Place Shaping Fund.
