Stoke on Trent, UK
English
The headstocks of a disused colliery are stilled and quiet but the stories they tell continue to resonate.
Created in response to an Artists' Tour, led by the Friends of Chatterley Whitfield and Urban Wilderness in patnership with Keele University. Former employees guided the tour and gave an emotive background to life and work within its boundaries. The site is now protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
The film draws comparisons between the stoic image of the headstocks left to stand watch, and the role of the volunteers who continue to tend the site and support the interpretation of its heritage.
The poem is read by the filmmaker's grandfather, a native of a mining town in North Nottinghamshire. His voice reflects the overlap in accents and dialect found between mining communities across the Midlands.
The film set out to explore poetry film as a medium for engaging with place. It considers how taking time to pause in a place can affect our relationship to it, and deepen our sense of connection.
"I found that taking the time to interact closely with a specific location enabled me to forge deeper connections with that place, and to respond creatively in a way that sought connections between the traces of the past and the detail of the present. I found that following instinct and allowing the process to develop organically resulted in a piece that was led by the place interaction, rather than being dictated by preconceived ideas. And that the process of pulling together the audiovisuals with poetic ideas in the editing suite generated new creative ideas and a lasting connection to the place encountered."
The film forms part of a collection entitled 'PAUSE', which examines the ways in which we connect to place, and how taking time to pause can impact on those connections. Created as part of practice-led PhD at Keele University in partnership with Writing West Midlands, with additional supervision from staff at the Centre for Place Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. This research is supported by the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership, part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.