Together We Are Powerful is the name of a new programme at The Hub, featuring an exhibition unlike anything we’ve seen before there, co-produced by YOU, the community. Set to take place from July 22nd to November 12th, there will also be workshops, trails, gatherings, talks, and meals, all within a program that aims to provide a platform for everyone to come together and share and experience the stories that shape our community.
This exceptional exhibition signifies a momentous occasion as The Hub celebrates its 20th anniversary of embracing culture, creativity, and community, while also looking forward to the next 20 years of growth and evolution. At the heart of the program lies a series of elements that invites people to get involved. Anyone is being encouraged to bring in personal objects that hold significant stories. These objects might symbolise past relationships, special memories of holidays, or moments of triumph over significant challenges. The concept is beautifully simple yet remarkably impactful: an object and its accompanying narrative, contributing to our collective memory and understanding of our shared desires for the future.
The Hub warmly welcomes the entire community of Sleaford and surrounding area to embark on this captivating journey of curiosity and creativity. To oversee this program, The Hub brought in artist Kate Genever and we caught up with her at one of the developmental meetings where ideas were explored.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I am an artist and also have a farm with my family in Uffington, south Lincolnshire. It’s a traditional mixed farm with cows and sheep. As an artist, I work in communities across the country where I spend extended periods of time and build relationships. I use what’s called an asset-based approach, so I look for what’s good and build on it to develop outcomes that are completely unique to each place that I work. I work closely with people and we then try and work out what would be relevant, what’s needed, how can we use what’s already good and brilliant there to build on that, and see how creativity can support what’s already in that area. For example, at the moment I’m working in west Hull in a community and one of the major outcomes is we now produce a newspaper for that community. It’s written and edited and put together by and for that community.
I was invited by The Hub to support them as they wanted to celebrate their 20th year and they wanted to work with the wider community to co-produce the programme for the July 22nd to November 12th slot. But I suppose they didn’t know exactly how to go about it, as co-production is about readjusting who gets to make decisions, so they invited me to support them. Primarily I’m interested in building deep connections with people in celebration and support of their site-specific responses, so how do we make something that’s right for a particular place, and how do we build connections with people and how can creative ways of working support that? People say farming’s so different from being an artist and actually I think it’s very similar because it’s about caring deeply about the landscape and the things that live within it, building and using its strengths to do more and to nourish and produce good things.
In a nutshell, how would you describe what the exhibition Together We Are Powerful is about?
Together We Are Powerful is a title that was generated from one of the groups. It’s a dynamic town-wide celebration that takes place from 22nd July to the middle of November. It will include exhibitions and workshops and gatherings and events, suppers, all sorts of things for people to get involved in as well as to look at. It’s a programme that will happen inside The Hub and in spaces and on the street outside it. It’s there to celebrate The Hub’s 20th anniversary and it’s keen to explore diverse voices and different communities within the town. Its whole theme that it’s basing the programme around is the importance of objects and their stories in our lives. We spend our lives coveting, collecting, creating objects and then finding comfort in their stories.
Running up to it you’ve held a series of community meals, the last of which I came to; how have they all gone down and are you happy with the progress you made in those?
Of course. I have the belief that generosity breeds generosity, so if you offer people a lovely time, a nice place, good food, people can’t help themselves but be generous back. The Hub is really pleased that people have come. I think they couldn’t believe that people would come to those things and also share such brilliant ideas. Each has been different. A part of them is about exploring people’s own personal stories and then trying to find more ideas for what people might like to do or get involved in. I think that we shouldn’t underestimate that many organisations are unused to being so vulnerable. It’s quite hard to hold your hands up and say we’re handing it over to you or we want to hear from you. It’s a brave move. So I’m very pleased. I also know the answers are always in the room. I totally trust that whatever we need to know will come from the people in the room.
What sections of the community have you collaborated with for this exhibition and who else might you like to talk to?
We’ve engaged with the youth clubs, with different faith groups. We’ve had carers, other artists, community producers and leaders, teachers, and museums. We’ve had a really broad range. We’d really like to connect more strongly with people from different cultural backgrounds. We know they’re in the town and we know that their heritages and cultural lives will be totally brilliant and we’d love to have their voices included and to hear their ideas.
In terms of The Hub, do you have ideas or hopes of your own for how The Hub can develop its role in the community in the future?
I’m always hopeful that organisations will continue to throw open the doors and let people in not just as visitors but as co-producers, as people that have the skills and experience and ideas to generate fantastic content for programs. So I guess I’m hopeful that The Hub from this experience will continue to do more co-producing. Wouldn’t it be great every now and again to offer the program over to people in Sleaford to do what they want to do with it? It’s a public building using public money – let the public in. It’s also about ownership; people will feel more like they own the the heritage collections rather than somebody choosing what to display. People get to choose what they want to display and say, which gives us more confidence about our own lives and our own stories, and that’s why it’s really important to get as many diverse voices in that as possible.
The Hub have been brilliant. They’ve been fantastically open and enthusiastic about the process.
What are your impressions on Sleaford and its community? Do you think Sleaford has potential?
I’m going to answer this from a cultural perspective. I think it’s a bigger question around who and what we’re deciding to call culture, because I think people are engaging in cultural activity all the time whether that’s woodworking, cake-making or dressmaking. I think the dominance of an elite culture has often meant that places don’t see themselves as being rich in culture and of course Sleaford is hugely rich. It’s got a lot going on. Some of this is about us looking differently at what is there. I look at The Hub and that’s showcasing national, international exhibitions of artists’ work. That building is offering huge amounts of opportunity for people to get involved. So I would say your town is completely packed full of culture. Also there’ll be cultural activity that we can’t even see, that’s invisible to us. It’s about opening our eyes to see it because I absolutely know it’s there. The Hub is a fantastic resource. It’s a great space. It’s got a beautiful cafe, lovely staff, and a very rich program.
So the exhibition will still be on during the Riverlight Festival?
Riverlight sits alongside that programme because it’s all about Sleaford people, and the programme isn’t just the exhibition; it’s meals, things happening in the youth club, it’s stuff happening in different settings. But within The Hub there will be an exhibition in the middle floor space which has many things going on: donated, temporarily loaned objects from Sleaford people. We’re really keen for people to bring their objects and tell us their story around that object or, if they’ve lost an object, come and tell us a story of a lost object! Visitors will then be able to come and look at that object and read the story. It doesn’t have to be an expensive object. It could be a small thing but with a really powerful story. It doesn’t matter what the size is or what it’s made out of.
And essentially it’s an open invitation to the whole community?
Anyone can get in touch. We will have some examples of objects. I might put my first pair of reading glasses in it because they made me so sad, it made me cry in the opticians when I had to have glasses. It was a really powerful moment in my life because, obviously as an artist, I use my eyes a lot, and the thought of losing my sight is terrifying and made me sad. So yeah, it could be something like that. It doesn’t have to be your best bone china.
Together We Are Powerful will explore the extraordinary stories that bind us and imagine the immense potential that lies ahead. Don’t miss this extraordinary exhibition at The Hub in Sleaford between July 22nd and November 12th and become part of this vibrant and unique celebration. The Hub warmly welcomes the entire community of Sleaford and surrounding area to embark on this captivating journey of curiosity and creativity. You can contact them on info@hub-sleaford.org.uk