Hebden Bridge Arts: Crossings Exhibition - The Waterfront Hall
Saturday 11th June
11am - 4pm
Free entry
Hebden Bridge Arts will be showcasing the Crossings project for one day only as part of its June tour.
In March 2022, together with The Walkers Are Welcome Hebden Royd Group, Hebden Bridge Arts launched their Crossings project - a giant outdoor photo adventure that was open to the public, and which is now being toured around Hebden Bridge in June.
Everyone was invited to take part; young and old, those with cameras and those with smartphones, photography novices and professionals alike. Participants were asked to simply go for a walk to ‘capture’ photographic images of the crossings and landmarks around Calderdale in both the countryside and urban areas. The aim is to create a huge repository of local crossings and share these images with the public through an exhibition, featuring prints, mapping, and a projected slide show of all submitted photographs.
Stiles, gates and zebra crossings, tunnels and bridges, gaps in the wall and stepping stones – our landscape is filled with all manner of ways to cross a field, a river, a railway track, a road giving access to public paths and places we wouldn’t otherwise be able to explore. Crossings are a unique feature in the landscape and footpath network in the locality. They allow for the possibility for one to continue with their journey but also to contemplate with where they have been and where they are going to next.
To inspire and enable as many people as possible to take part, Hebden Bridge Arts offered free guided walks and creative workshops during March and April. Crossing Town was an accessible 90-minute guided photo walk tailored to meet the needs of wheelchair users, families with pushchairs, and individuals with limited physical mobility. The Road Not Taken was a photo walk and creative writing workshop for everyone aged 16+, and SNAP! was aimed at 4-8 year olds who took part in a crossings guided photowalk and foraging workshop leading to the production of cyanotype images.
Those who got involved in these walks and workshops displayed their photos, artwork and poems at Gibson Mill, Hardcastle Crags over the weekend 22-24 April 2022, and the exhibition is now coming to the Town Hall.
The free exhibition, featuring prints and a slide show of 100’s of photographs submitted by the public of crossings found around Calderdale will be open from 11am to 4pm:
Saturday 11 June at The Town Hall
Saturday 18 June at St John’s Church Cragg Vale
Saturday 25 June at Mytholmroyd Community Centre
While you appreciate the photographs, you will also be able to hear the Soundwalk captured by lJo Kennedy, inspired by the pictures that people have taken, and by time spent listening and recording in 6 Hebden Royd locations. In addition, on its first release is the official Crossings Map, beautifully designed by local maker and illustrator Kerith Ogden, influenced by some of the entries.
Together with Hebden Bridge Walkers Action this project has created a massive repository of local crossings which fill our landscape allowing us to explore - stiles, gates, tunnels, bridges, gaps in the wall, tracks and stepping stones.