projects
Partnerships and collaborations are absolutely central to what we do. We relish opportunities to work with other local organisations and institutions to deliver high quality, meaningful creative activities. If you are, or work with, an existing community group and are interested in commissioning Positive Light Projects to co-design a workshop, course or project then please get in touch.
Pelican PRESS WHEELCHAIR PRINTING PRESS
The Pelican Press Wheelchair Printing Press is a handmade printing press that incorporates the weight of a wheelchair as the main printing element. The project allowed us to create a truly accessible resource that could be enjoyed independently by people in wheelchairs, and where they could take part equally side by side with non-disabled users. The press, funded in part by the Growing Communities Fund from Devon County Council, was built here at Positive Light Projects and used to explore a range of printmaking processes and techniques in a series of workshops and activities. The project was developed and delivered in partnership with The Pelican Project, a group of learning dibbled artists and creatives.
TRACTION PROJECT SPACE
Traction is a new artist-led space developed by artist/curator Erika Cann, supported and housed within Positive Light Projects, on Exeter’s Sidwell St.
Set in the left hand side of the building's large street-facing windows, the gallery provides a flexible space to test new ideas and present work in all formats, in a 24/7 accessible location.
The gallery's focus is to develop ideas and to provide experience and support for young and emerging artists, showcasing high quality, critically engaged, contemporary visual art to a diverse audience in Exeter city centre.
Pelican Portraits
Pelican Portraits has brought together our resident group The Pelican Project and Positive Light Projects’ Brendan Barry and George Barron to create a series of portraits of the Pelicans, a group of artists and creatives with complex learning needs based in Exeter.
In discussion with the Pelicans, we decided on a concept for the project, using techniques inspired from workshops that Brendan and George had run in the past with the Freefall+ group that the Pelicans attend at Exeter Phoenix, part of the Freefall Visual Arts Youth Group.
Each Pelican had a portrait taken by Brendan in a camera obscura constructed in our space and developed inside, and whilst everyone sat for their photos, George worked with the group to make letterpress names using wheelchairs as printing presses, with printmaking materials provided by Double Elephant Print Workshop. We then brought these results together to create a series of Screenprints on paper, and each Pelican printed their own t-shirts with their portraits on too.
Focus Photography Project with Exeter Homeless Partnership
The Focus Photography Workshop and Exhibition was developed as a meaningful activity program for people living in the local community that have experienced homelessness, as well as offering a socially engaging and community focused experience and opportunity to help encourage and promote personal growth.
The aim of the 9 week program was to provide the participants with the tools to express themselves on a visual platform. During weekly sessions through practical activities including photo walks, workshops and group discussion the the course covered camera function, composition, visual language and story telling through image making. Toward the end of the course the participants took the cameras away for two weeks to make their own work with their own vision and making their own choices. These images were then edited down during further workshops to a small selection which were then exhibited here at Positive Light Projects.
This project was facilitated by Stephen Raff and was a collaboration between Exeter Homelessness Partnership, Exeter Community Initiatives and Positive Light Projects.
Wall of Resilience with Recovery Devon
This Art Installation was created throughout a series of 4 workshops in collaboration with Recovery Devon, Exeter Library and Resilient Women (Colab). The workshops were held at Positive Light Projects and were for women with lived experience of mental health struggles or domestic abuse. The 4 workshops consisted of the same group of women, who used their lived experience to create a piece that reflects their recovery journey.
The workshops were led by local artist Hayley Watson. Hayley guided the women through a series of different art techniques such as dirty pouring and using gold leaf. The aim of the project was to create artwork that showed strength through struggle, resilience and hope.
Workshops with St. Sidwell’s Community Centre
Collaborations with other local community organisations are absolutely key to what we do here at Positive Light Projects. Over the summer of 2021 we worked with St Sidwell’s Community Centre, just up the road, to deliver a range of workshops and activities to the people who gather, work, volunteer or study there. We ran mono printing and chemigram workshops with members of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and those who take their ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes at The Centre. These were introductory classes aimed at welcoming people into our space and building new relationships with the aim of these sessions leading to something more substantial and meaningful during the next phase of our project development.
St Sids have been doing incredible work within the community for over 20 years so being new kids on the block we have been incredibly grateful for all the support, advise and guidance they have given us and we look forward to collaborating and working with them more in the future. Oh, and if you haven’t already, you must go buy some bread from their bakery just a few doors down along Sidwell Street from here!
16mm Cameraless Film Making Workshops with James Holcombe
In September 2021 we invited filmmaker James Holcombe along to run two days of workshops with various groups in the space. Exeter Homeless Partnership, The Pelican Project and a group of our volunteers engaged in a 16mm cameraless film making workshop. Clear and black (opaque) 16mm film leader was used as a canvas, enabling participants to make highly personal and experimental films by hand. Participants scratched, drew, painted and collaged onto filmstrips using pens, inks, transfers, brushes, stampers, sandpaper - anything which could leave a mark. At all stages of the workshop participants could see their works as loops in progress.
The workshop essentially reveals how to make the passing of time visible at 18 or 24 frames per second without camera technology. Participants produced powerful, intuitive and fascinating experimental films with the minimum of means, whilst exploring the production of experimental soundtracks on the way!
Michelle Sank Pop Up Studio
On Monday 4th and Saturday 16th October 2021, South African born, Exeter based photographer Michelle Sank set up shop in the window of Positive Light Projects in a pop up photographic studio.
Over the two days Michelle photographed over 50 people. The aim was, in some small way, to capture a portrait of Sidwell Street. The subjects of the photographs are people walking past who we enticed into the space, our neighbours and volunteers, those who we had invited along to see what we are up to here, and generally people form the area and our broader community. Sidwell Street is a rich, diverse and multicultural place and we wanted to showcase and celebrate this.
Reworking with Exeter College & Recovery Devon
Reworking was a short series of workshops, led by Artist Molly Rooke and produced by Olivia King. Participants from Exeter College and Recovery Devon spent the day learning Molly’s meditative processes of embroidery and darning. All materials used in the workshops were locally sourced or repurposed by the artist. Mushroom crates were reused to darn over instead of going to waste. Overall the workshops became an opportunity for participants to share their own expertise, whilst creating a space for people to question how repairing our surroundings can help us to reflect upon our own wellbeing.
AMAZING by Charlie Evaristo-Boyce
As well as running workshops, producing projects and programming meaningful activity to a range of individuals and groups, Positive Light Projects aims to commission work by artists that aligns with its aims and ethos, or in this case, would bring some colour and life to the walls of the space!
Charlie Evaristo-Boyce is artist and printmaker, native to Thanet. He has explored images and themes from different cultures around the world, drawing from them and finding his own voice as a person of mixed heritage through his printmaking process. We commissioned this extra large version of one of Charlie’s signature pieces for the space simply because it brings us so much joy!
Freefall Screen Prints
This project was produced with Exeter Phoenix’s Freefall visual arts youth group. Positive Light Projects commissioned them to produce a series of images to become part of our Crowdfunder rewards. During a period of research and development where the group visited the space before and during the renovation works, they used 35mm film cameras to capture photographs of the building as in underwent its transformation.
After an initial period of selecting their favourite photographs, the Freefall group then took the creative process further by digitally manipulating and editing these images, layering them on top of one another and altering the colours and compositions. From hundreds of possibilities, these experiments were then whittled down to three final pieces, which then went on to be transformed into a series of limited editions screen prints produced at Double Elephant Print Workshop.