During Autumn 2022 we delivered a series of workshops and outings at the Church Street Library with the English Speaking group. This group consists of a diverse number of people from many ethnicities and nationalities. During the workshops we learned about the canal's history, discussed how it has changed and shared our personal experiences of the canal. We visited Paddington Basin and Little Venice, Grand Junction and St Mary Magdalene Church, Regent’s Canal and the Canal museum.
The Westbourne and Church Street Community Champions are all local people who live not far from the Grand Union and Regent's canals. They spend a lot of time helping their community improve their health and wellbeing and they were keen to be involved in Towpath Tales.
During the project they shared their own stories of their lives before moving to the local area from other countries or other parts of the UK and also of their lives today. They also explored the local canal towpath and found out more about how the canal system was built by the navvies from other parts of the UK and Ireland. They also looked at the lives of local characters like Dr. John Alcindor who had lived directly opposite where we were meeting for the project. We also found out about Tricia, a local lady who still lives on one of the narrowboats nearby and creates some wonderful traditional artwork. Tricia shared some of her story with us also.
The Champions created their own artwork on small canvases. Some of the art was inspired by the waterways, some by things from their home country, some by what they had seen Tricia make and from examples of beautiful narrowboat household items brought in by Mehnaz.
We held an exhibition of their work which is still on display at the Champions hub, also very near to the canal!
The Year 5 children from Old Oak Primary School, East Acton, discovered about the history of the canal through a series of sessions involving art workshops, kayaking along the canal at Canalside in Ladbroke Grove and a visit to the canal to look at the history of the canal and compare 'Now and Then'. The project culminated with a visit to The Floating Classroom at Paddington Basin. The children dressed as navvies and sported Victorian womenswear to get into character and learn how hard life could be living on the canal. The children were also treated to a trip along the canal on the boat as part of their visit. They also created 'roses and castles' artwork which was incorporated in our project art banner (top).
During Summer 2023, Urbanwise.London in collaboration with London Sports Trust ‘Safe Camp’ - where 50-60 children attend daily the Canalside Activity Centre - took part in art workshops with artist Renata Fernandez. They explored canal art, roses and castles, and learned some art techniques such tear paper collage, gel plate printing and styrofoam tile block printing to create images. We scanned some of these images to produce the display banners.
