Surprise – A river runs through it!
CHILDREN in land-locked Birmingham are on a special arts project to discover the river within the city.
The group of about 20 youngsters from Anderton Park Children’s Centre play scheme in Balsall Heath have been tracking the River Rea.
They have seen its source at the Waseley Hills Country Park in Rubery and then visited Floodgate Street in Digbeth to see how it passes through the city centre.
The children, aged between eight and ten, are taking part in a project run by a company called Secret City Arts.
Secret City Arts was set up last year by four professional artists who work in different media with Birmingham youngsters to encourage a creative response to the secret, hidden and green places in the urban environment.
Claire Evans, a visual artist, Helena Gough, a sound artist, Mandy Ross, who writes children’s books, and Pyn Stockman, a mask maker, are working with the children over a period of six days in the project funded by Awards for All, a National Lottery grants scheme funding small, community-based projects in the UK.
Having been out to visit the River Rea the youngsters will be writing, making sound and creating visual art to create a performance using all the different art forms at the Children’s Centre on Dennis Road on Thursday at 2pm.
“The focus is the urban setting and encouraging children who are participating to see beyond the obvious things in the city and notice the green nooks,” said Mandy. “They all know where their local conker tree is. It’s about digging a bit deeper and finding the secret, hidden places in the city.
“What I hope is that the activities will be making them see more richly and give them more awareness of what there is even in an urban setting.
“I hope they will see the city in a different way. The green places within the city feel more precious because they’re in the city. The focus on them can be more intense because it’s urban all around it.”
Helena is working with the children to record the sound of the Rea and then record the water sounds back at Dennis Road.
“That way they make the connection between the source of a river and what comes out of a tap and their cup of tea. If you’re a city kid you maybe don’t make these connections,” she said.
Mandy said: “Focusing on the river feels very exciting because it’s a natural force that humans have cultivated and managed and tried to reduce to make it fit into the urban setting, but yet it’s still a natural force.
“It still floods. It still links the rainfall on the hills, through the city, through the country and to the sea. Working with the children on the river across the different art forms opens up all sorts of opportunities for them. The idea is that by working with the different media we create something that is richer than we could have done as individuals.”
So far, the children have been surprised by the things they have discovered.
“I thought the river in Digbeth would be massive but it was really tiny! You couldn’t sail a big ship down there,” said Poppy Emson, aged eight.
“I was surprised the source of the river was so small. I tasted the water and it tasted like normal water, but freezing, ice-cold. And I tasted the watercress growing there, and it was spicy like chilli,” said Shamaila Aslam, aged ten.
“It was a weird contrast at Digbeth, with all the cars and buses and lorries, then you go round the corner to find abandoned buildings and this river flowing right underneath. I was going to put my ear to the ground to see if I could hear the water flowing,” said Joe Shotton, aged ten.
“The other point of this project is that it’s fun,” said Mandy. “Fun has got so commercialised. We expect to be able to buy fun and to have it organised for us. This is about enabling children to see and make from what’s around them. We’re very land-locked here but through the project we hope to encourage children to enjoy green nooks within the city. It’s all there and you can have it for free.”
* To find out more about the project visit www.secretcityarts.com/wordpress
