Our project description for our ACE grant application

All the project’s commissioned artists will work with the community groups on the co-produced artwork ‘The Watercourse’.

The relationship that children and adolescents have with water goes beyond its basic function in daily life. Water is an element that awakens emotions and feelings in people, both individually and collectively. Diana Wiesner Nature of Cities Festival

Salt Road is part of Arts Council England’s place based peer learning network we will share our project updates on this network. We will also link the project to the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) WMCA community group engagement network which we are part of in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), appointed by the government to work with the people of the West Midlands to develop a regional Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS).

Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned how to look after the boat, he learned how to make oars, how to improve the boat and to make baskets…But he learnt more from the river than Vasudeva could teach him. He learned from it continually. Above all, he learned from it how to listen, to listen with a still heart, with a waiting open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgement, without opinions. He once asked the ferryman, ‘Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?’ A bright smile spread over Vasudeva’s face. ‘Yes Siddhartha,’ he said. ‘Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?’ ‘That is it,’ said Siddhartha, ‘and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man were only separated by shadows, not through reality’….Siddhartha spoke with delight. This discovery had made him very happy. Was not all sorrow in time, all self torment and fear in time? Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Our lead artists Jaime Jackson and Dr. Sally Payen have a strong track record in producing high quality environmentally themed studio artworks and socially engaged co-production practice.