Creative Folkestone – 20 people on 20 standout moments from the arts and regeneration charity’s 20 years

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20 YEARS, 20 PEOPLE, MOMENTS

Writers Simon Richmond & Sophie Hoffman In celebration of Creative Folkestone’s 20th birthday, we asked 20 people involved with the arts and culture charity to share their favourite moments from those two decades

Nick Ewbank

Director of The Creative Foundation 2003-2010

“There was no big fuss at the start,” says Ewbank, who in 2003 together with Sir Roger De Haan established the Creative Foundation (rebranded Creative Folkestone in 2018). Ewbank had been hired by De Haan, then chairman of Saga, to be the director of the Metropole Arts Centre. Part of Ewbank’s pitch for the job had been to co-opt artists and creatives to help regenerate Folkestone, which back in the early years of the 21st century was a seaside community in crisis. Ewbank’s standout moment of those early years was Derek Jarman’s Late Works exhibition at the Metropole in 2001. This predated the Creative Foundation’s set-up, but the exhibition was “radical, challenging, political and dangerous. It set out a statement of intent. People were excited because they could see for the first time that art in Folkestone could have the power to shake up the status quo and change things.”

Niamh Sullivan

Visual arts producer and curator

“I started at the beginning, so I went from the Metropole Galleries office to 61 The Old High Street – a bakery with a leaky roof – and then to Church Street before the Glassworks and finally the Quarterhouse! That progression was so exciting. It was a period of early movement prior to the current direction of Creative Folkestone; we were working out what it could look like, what kind of changes needed to happen and who might want to be involved. Highlights for me were the build-up to open evenings and events where we welcomed the public into the properties we had taken on. It was important to share these spaces with locals and to engage with them on the changes they wanted to see. We also got to promote the spaces to other people and artists who liked the idea of what art was doing for Folkestone. Working on the early Triennials also felt incredible, as I was able to go back to my hometown as a graduate and actually get a job in my industry!”

Shane Record

Artist and first tenant of the Creative Foundation

“I’d returned to Folkestone Christmas 2001 after three years living in Berlin. I bumped into Simon Mohr, an old friend who was working for the Creative Foundation. I told him I wanted to be an artist and he said that the Creative Foundation were looking for people like to me to become tenants of the buildings they were purchasing. My first flat was in the Wedge on Tontine Street – it’s a beautiful building now, but then it was derelict. That didn’t matter; I had a great time and it was exciting. A little while later I moved into a renovated flat at 48 Old High Street. The Creative Foundation let me hang my paintings in empty shop windows along the High Street. By 2004 my work was steadily selling and the following year I quit my job, moved my studio into a shop space and became a full-time artist. The rest is history.”

Alison Brooks

Architect of Quarterhouse

“The tight urban site of the Quarterhouse was the first design challenge. For a multi-purpose theatre of 220 seats, it had to be the most efficient, compact theatre building in the UK. I worked very hard to create a sense of space and generosity for the building’s users. Large windows and high ceilings seen in the foyer and bar allow for the appreciation of the wider context of Tontine Street within the theatrical experience. The project also had a very tight budget, but we worked with local contractors and fabricators to get the most out of every opportunity. “I was really happy with the scalloped cladding and lighting. It worked exactly as intended, as a dynamic façade inspired by scallop shells and a theatreland glow. The metal mesh flutes are solidly white and pristine during the day, then glowing, colourful and ephemeral at night. People still tell me it’s a fantastic venue that they love visiting, and the top floor is now Creative Folkestone’s home. I couldn’t really ask for a better result.”

Brigitte Orasinski

Artistic director Strange Cargo

“When Strange Cargo made Other People’s Photographs in 2008, it occupied every street in Folkestone, Cheriton and Sandgate. So when curator Andrea Schlieker invited us to contribute a public artwork to the 2011 Folkestone Triennial, we suggested an alternative to adding another object to the townscape. Everywhere Means Something to Someone, the people’s guidebook to Folkestone, was created to behave in the same way that a sculpture might, to enhance people’s experience of being in a location, but through shared personal stories, experiences and histories of everyday outside spaces. Local people’s reveries filled the resulting artwork, animating hundreds of unexpected places and becoming a local bestseller.”

Georgina Baker

Model for the Folkestone Mermaid created for the 2011 Folkestone Triennial

“Cornelia Parker telephoned me while I was collecting my young daughter from school in 2010 to tell me that I had been selected to be the life model for the bronze cast now known as the Folkestone Mermaid. Talking to Cornelia over the phone, I immediately felt like I’d known her for years – she wanted a real woman, a free spirit, representing today’s stronger female. From the beginning, Cornelia included me in the artist’s process. The fullbody casting process took over three hours and Cornellia did her best to distract me from the inevitable discomfort. I will always be proud to have been selected by her as the model for this iconic art piece, and it’s hugely gratifying to see other people enjoying the artwork.

Adrian Lockwood

Creative Quarter manager 2012-2019

“When I took over managing Creative Folkestone’s property portfolio in 2012, a third of the developed buildings were unoccupied and several others were derelict. Two years later occupancy was up to 95%. This triggered the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust’s agreeing to significant investment towards the derelict buildings. A National Lottery grant of £2.1 million for the Townscape Heritage Initiative enabled us to refurbish 23-27 Old High Street and 18-24 Old High Street, which is now Steep Street, one of the best coffee shops in Kent. In the process we enlivened and added social value to an area of town that had previously been empty and ratinfested.”

Geraldine D’Amico

Curator of Folkestone Book Festival 2012-2018

“I have so many beautiful memories – asking me to choose one is like asking a mother who is her favourite child! The first thing that comes to mind was this warning I received when consulting people on my arrival, not to hope to draw audiences to that dangerous part of town in the evenings. How Folkestone has changed and what a pleasure it was to see the Old High Street becoming livelier and livelier, the opening of Steep Street where I would take so many writers, and happy audiences flocking in ever greater numbers to the events we organised. I loved taking authors around and showing them the town. Many came with negative stereotypes and left impressed. We touched on every subject, laughed, reflected, and I hope started discussions and helped discover new voices. I still miss the buzz.”

Lewis Biggs

Curator of Folkestone Triennial 2014-2021

“My best moments came early on with the first of the three Triennials that I curated. The experience of Folkestone as the inspiration for an exhibition was fresh and quite challenging. The satisfaction of managing to achieve three of the artworks in particular still stays with me. Wind Lift by Marjetica Potrč and Ooze Architects was an awesome and soon much-loved addition to Folkestone’s railway viaduct. It exemplified the theme, Look Out, not only in relation to Folkestone’s history but also with a wary eye on the future and climate change. Folkestone Digs by Michael Sailstorfer was memorable as it was entirely reliant on community participation. When friends in China told me it was all over social media there, I realised the power of this new form of land art – a perfect blend of belief, motivation and material fun. Then there was the moment Yoko Ono arrived for lunch with local artists to celebrate the realisation of Earth Peace and Sky Ladder. She was 81, and 50 years had gone by since her last visit to Folkestone; she didn’t have to come and meet us, but it was the cherry on the cake that she did.”

Sadie Hurley

Co-founder of JimJam Arts, producers of the Living Advent Calendar

“I was one of the first group of students to study theatre at the University Centre based at the Glasshouse. That’s where I met Sue Blakesley. We put on a show, Grandmother’s Footsteps, at the Quarterhouse, which Sue wrote and I directed for our graduation project. In 2011, I founded JimJam Arts with Sue and Kelly Stockley. Four years later, we staged the first Living Advent Calendar festival. I thought we’d be lucky if we got four or five people showing up each night, but was amazed when we had to stage one of the first performances four times because there were so many people there. I love how the Living Advent Calendar brings such a mix of Folkestonians together. The surprise element also means people come to see things that they would never go to see if they knew about it in advance.”

Jyll Bradley

Artist participating in 2014 and 2021 Triennials

“My Triennial 2014 artwork Green/ Light (for M.R.) takes the form of a hop garden, a familiar sight to anyone passing through rural Kent. Though emblematic of the county, a hop garden is a complex matrix of histories, peoples and places all brought together to create a structure of growth. The hop garden structure is a web of chestnut poles, grown and coppiced in Kent; steel wire forged in northern England and coconut coir brought from Sri Lanka through the UK’s colonial trade routes. The hops themselves were grown by generations of working Kentish people, but the harvest was dependent on the annual labour of hundreds of thousands of urban Londoners. It’s a huge history for such a spacious and permeable-looking thing. The invitation to create the work brought me back to the place where I was born, to create something where I was created. That is an extraordinary gift, and I couldn’t be more grateful to the Triennial for the opportunity. Artists make art, but art also makes us.”

Susanna Howard

Co-founder of Normal? and founder and artistic director of Living Words

“During the festival’s conception in 2014, I asked, ‘What about Normal?’ and it was the question mark that excited everyone! It’s obvious today that there’s no such thing as normal, but lots of people weren’t thinking that then. The festival’s conversations draw on lived experience, science and art. This co-owned festival has always punched above its weight, with events on neuroscience, sleep, laughter, dementia, psychotherapy and wellbeing, to name a few. People share their experiences through art, writing, performance and comedy – we’ve hosted events from sleepovers to street wisdom walks, mindful macrame and hairdressing. We don’t know exactly how the next Normal? Festival will look; work is underway among the community to shape it. There are rumours of a theme of gossip, but that’s all we have to say!”

Jen Thatcher

Triennial public programmer and art critic

“The 2008 Triennial actually introduced me to the idea of moving to Folkestone, as the artworks led me to parts of the town that I didn’t know before! I got to work on the next Triennial as a project coordinator and ran a conference to get students involved with thinking about the artworks. The 2014 Triennial was the first to have a public programme and I wanted to be as creative as possible with how I shared the artworks with people. Building on the conference, I inaugurated the National Student Day as part of the programme, inviting hundreds of students to descend on the town and visit the artworks. It was so popular that we had to put on a second day. We hosted a panel for them to ask the curators questions and put on an afternoon tea for them all, which was eventful!”

Esbern P Myers

Neon after-school club attendee

Neon has been running after-school workshops and summer schools at the Quarterhouse since 2016. “My favourite thing about Neon is the people,” says Esbern. The club brings together children from different ages across local schools so it’s an opportunity to make friends outside of the classroom.

Each week involves a different activity, blending video, music, arts, craft, special effects, poetry and dance, which culminate in a performance at the end of term. “I like trying new things that I haven’t come across before,” says the seven-year-old, with a highlight being “puppet making and rocket building”.

Jo Cowdry

Head of curatorial, Creative Folkestone

“Few people knew of the existence of the mosque in Folkestone, or that it had been around for over two decades. For the 2017 Triennial, I worked with Simon Davenport, Hoy Cheong Wong and Shahed Saleem to install the artwork Minaret at the mosque. The work visually articulated the existence and pride of the community; for the first time in its history, it opened its doors to the public.

“For the 2021 Triennial, the artists organised a workshop to co-produce patterns that could be integrated into designs for the proposed new mosque building. The workshop started with a local nature walk, giving participants ideas for patterns that related to their personal and cultural histories and the local landscape. The artists continue to help the mosque with the design and planning process for their new building, as well as in building relationships within the community. This is an example of how art and artists can connect people and communities, educate, be fun and look backwards/sideways to look forwards.”

Adam Hynes

Sculptor who fabricated Marc Schmitz and Dolgor Ser-Od’s Siren for the 2017 Triennial

“I hadn’t attempted anything like it before – it’s not the kind of project you work on every other month! The curators came to me with a loose picture, just some guidelines on the colour and material. The challenge appealed to me – when I wasn’t working on it, I was laying in bed thinking about it.

“I was initially drawn to solving the technical challenge of it, but seeing people’s affection for the artwork when it went out into the public was really satisfying. That’s Creative Folketone’s medium – things in the landscape and what people think about them and how it makes them feel about a place. Over the years, whether it’s a talking point, or people take their kids up there to play there, or people sitting by it and musing themselves, it has brought home to me the idea of the artworks as a means of community engagement.”

Alastair Upton

Chief executive, Creative Folkestone

“For me it has to be the opening party of the 2021 Folkestone Triennial and standing and watching the thousands of people on Tontine Street and in Payers Park who were listening to bands, dancing to DJs and talking to friends. It was the first week after Covid restrictions had been lifted and we couldn’t be sure in advance if we would be allowed to open the exhibition and have a party. The Triennial had already been delayed a year, the Quarterhouse closed for events and the Creative Quarter had weathered two full lockdowns. But there we all were, hungry to be together again, feeling fully alive and celebrating human creativity.”

Rana Begum

Artist of No. 1054 Arpeggio, commissioned for the 2021 Triennial in partnership with Folkestone & Hythe District Council

“I was approached by the curator Lewis Biggs in 2019 to work with the beach huts that the local council were either restoring or replacing. I was unfamiliar with Folkestone and it was a lovely surprise to see how beautiful it is, with the park, the sea and all the artworks. It was quite a tough project as we started talking about covering perhaps 15 to 20 beach huts, but the number kept growing and growing! The main challenge was how to bring all the huts together. My art is inspired by movement, signage, urban colour composition and geometry, so I used pattern and colour to create that flow between the huts. I’ve had many lovely messages about the artwork, including one from Maria Balshaw, director of the Tate, who says she really enjoys seeing the huts when she goes sea swimming in Folkestone.”

HOME? BREW

Nico Dunsbee

Western Jerwood creative fellow/project manager

“Beacons in 2021 was my first project with Creative Folkestone as the Western Jerwood creative fellow. We worked with artist Alison Neighbour to tell the story of a quest for people to help reunite 200 ‘sea gooseberries’ from sites around town. We asked 13 locals to be sea gooseberry guardians, each with a link to different local networks, from schools to skating and the Scouts. We wanted to ask different communities about how they engage and connect with each other and do it their way.

“It was a new experience for most of the guardians and placed value on what they do anyway as movers, shakers and change-makers in their communities. They were all really keen on the project and made a lot of connections, too. The project culminated in a winter solstice gathering on Sunny Sands with a sound and light performance. Seeing the impact of community-created mythology was a highlight for me – particularly how attached lots of children were to the sea gooseberries they looked after!”

Randolph Matthews

Composer, performer and curator of the Tune In Folkestone project, which premiered on 13 October at the Quarterhouse

“The composition transports the listener from the Warren’s calm murmuring meadows to the English Channel’s coasts. Using layered sounds supplied to me from Folkestone’s residents, I’ve developed a living archive that documents the town’s changing cadences, frequencies and melodic memory. I’ve created it to be dreamy, like a tour through Folkestone’s numerous historic backdrops from the past, present and future, letting nature’s call to be sensed from seagulls to breaking seas. I’m really pleased with the effect and hope that another artist can capture this sound landscape we call home every year.”

creativefolkestone.org.uk @creativefstone

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