Explore old Helston at Helston Museum and invent its future at CAST. Be cardboard builders, architects, dreamers and visionaries.
Working with Helston Museum, CAST is inviting the people of Helston to contribute to the making of a vast cardboard model of the town that will be developed over five days in the old school hall in the CAST building at 3 Penrose Road.
CAST has commissioned artist and educator Lucy Grant to develop the project. Lucy was born in Helston and returned to Cornwall in 2007 after studying Fine Art Printmaking at Chelsea College of Art and at the Slade and working in London for several years. She has taught hands-on art and craft locally at kindergarten level, provided workshops in local primary schools and worked as a family workshop facilitator at Tate St Ives. She runs the Saturday morning art club Heads and Hands at CAST Café, open to all local children.
The Helston Model Town project will look forward as well as back. Contributors to the project are invited to imagine the future of shops and services, cultural and public spaces, and to bring along family stories and photographs, local myths and historical facts, to add to the mix of an organic, evolving model town that will grow over the course of the week. The inclusion of outlying areas such as Culdrose Royal Naval Air Station, Goonhilly Earth Station and Helston’s old railway line opens up avenues for dreaming of future transport systems, space stations – even inter-galactic travel!
The Helston Model Town project has been devised primarily for families, in the hope that children will engage with their parents’ or grandparents’ memories whilst creating a vision of their own future. Anyone can join in. There is no lower age limit, but children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult. The project will end on the afternoon of Friday 19 August with an opportunity for visitors to see the finished model, celebrate and take photographs. From 4pm the town will be dismantled and models can be taken home.
The public programme at CAST is supported by Arts Council England, as part of the Groundwork programme 2016-18, which has been awarded Ambition for Excellence funding. Ambition for Excellence is a new programme aimed at stimulating and supporting ambition, talent and excellence across the arts sector in England. The fund aims to have significant impact on the growth of an ambitious international-facing arts infrastructure, especially outside London.