SongMaps Rye Artist Blogs

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Catch up and reflect with our artists during this creative period before the project’s final presentation.

Francesca Beard (poet)

My name is Francesca Beard. I am a poet and performer, drawn towards working with and in communities. This four month pilot project for SongMaps Rye, offered a chance to collaborate across disciplines that included scientists, activists and social change makers as well as visual, sound and theatre artists. The project has taken its inspiration from the unique history, geography and diverse communities that make Rye such an extraordinary place. It’s been exhilarating to work with the range of experts Strongback has assembled. One of my favourite aspects has been the fascinating programme of presentations from people within the Rye community, where we learned from Andy Dinsdale about the game-changing work that Strandliners do, took a deep dive into the geological landscape of the East Sussex coast with fisherman Paul Hodges , explored ecological ethnography with Kate Giles and journeyed through the wonders of Rye Harbour nature reserve with Barry Yates. Other highlights were two open space sessions at Tilling Green community centre, where every participant, from young to venerable, took personal responsibility for asking complex, important questions and committed to finding realistic, sustainable solutions to the economic and cultural challenges facing Rye. From conversations arising out of this process, I’m hoping to collaborate with John and Nigel from the Feed Rye Community garden project on a ‘walk and talk’ designed to reach out to and bring more people on board this ship, built from curiosity and love for the planet and hope and ambition for the future of Rye.

Dominique Le Gendre (composer & Artistic Director)

Sometimes it’s tricky, getting a proper grasp on a project that you’ve created like I have done with SongMaps Rye. I sit in it like an octopus with multiple arms; all sensors out, alive, active and responding while I continue to peer in amazement at the tremendous commitment demonstrated by a core group of participants and the stupendous team of artists.

We, StrongBack Productions, created this project with our chair, Susan Benn who has been living in Rye for the past five years. It makes a big difference to have someone on the ground to help shape the programme based on Susan’s experience of living here. Her guidance has led us to many of the people who have become integral to the project and continue to open our eyes to the specificities of the Bay . Rye Harbour Poet Morgan, is our High Priestess of Rye. Morgan’s intimate knowledge of every bush, blade and Bee constantly informs her poetry, our workshops and how we shape what we can offer to the workshop’s participants.

Now, as the workshops have come to an end, what most preoccupies me is thinking of the many ways we could spread the roots that we have planted here. What has emerged very clearly from the participants is the appetite for action and for connecting with individuals and groups who wish to help Rye adapt to climate change. As we prepare to present our SongMaps to the participants and an audience of future stakeholders in July, this project will have been one seed in a field that is steadily being sown and tended by local residents. It will be proof that small actions taken together, add up to big change.

S. Morgan (poet)

I’m lucky enough to live in Rye Harbour. I love the huge skies, the changing tides, how the great swing of the seasons swirls flocks of migratory birds into and out of the reserve. I love the uniqueness and strangeness and importance of our stretch of Rye Bay.

I hoped this project would encourage local people to give a voice to their concerns and hopes for the future of Rye and to look at creative ways to highlight these topics: I wasn’t disappointed. The participants embraced the project and have surpassed anything I imagined in terms of their creativity and commitment to our town and the wider area of the bay. I have so enjoyed experiencing everyone speak and write and draw to express their opinions.

This project has been emotional and inspiring in equal measure and this has been entirely due to those who gave up their time to ‘look at what we have’ and to find ways to make Rye a better, kinder, greener town.

One of the things that I enjoyed more than anything else was the way everyone identified potential problems such as river and sea pollution, or a lack of connectedness with the natural world and immediately started coming up with exciting, artistic and, just as importantly, practical ideas to bring about change. It has been an exhilarating process and one I hope will go forward in the future.

Sally Wood (writer)

The train to Rye is a familiar rush now, of grabbing food and running over workshop plans, and basking in the on-rushing green. But the return trip is never the same. After every workshop my head was filled happily to the brim with new questions, new driving thoughts, new lines of poetry. Our fantastic participants pushed and shaped these workshops beyond a creative response to a scientific talk but to a living thing, a river if you like, with so many rushing tributaries it’s hard to know which to follow.
SongMaps Rye has existed in the cross section of art and science, of local activism and global change and flourishes because of its multidisciplinary nature. My creative practice has been shaped by the different ways of working of my fellow artists, the eye-opening speakers and most importantly the care and activism of our participants. Our regulars, our core team, have shared with us what matters to them and to Rye, what is already happening and what can be built on. It’s been a real privilege to listen and be a part of those conversations. My hope is that these are only the early roots of a long standing project, more depths to discover, more heights to reach – and more change to enact.

Antonia Taddei (dramaturg)

This project gives me a unique artistic opportunity to think both short term and long term.
In the short term, it is very interesting to propose workshops with an artistic proposal that creates an interface between experts and participants.

It is stimulating to see how much the participants are engaged in digging into the experts’ talk, to go a step further and think of the future of Rye and how they can contribute to this future.

The workshop that I proposed allowed us to articulate and explore how we could give personhood to Rye Bay, to better protect it as a fundamental ecosystem for the community.
I wrote a set of creative writing experiments to encourage participants to think from the point of view of the Bay.
What does the Bay think about what we humans are doing?

In the long term, it is most interesting to imagine the future of SongMaps Rye. The value of creating personhood for Rye Bay resides in the fact that such actions are at the front-line of research in Law. Such actions point to a vitally needed fundamental shift in our cultural paradigm. Our perception of the natural landscape has to change so that we feel we are a part of it, immersed in it and that it requires our profound respect and care.

Mo Langmuir (visual artist)

I’m an interdisciplinary artist with a background in environmental biology. Over the past 5 years I’ve been working on community centred projects which explore the human nature relationship. I was so happy when Dom approached me about working on SongMaps, having spent 3 months in residence with Climate Art at Bridgepoint Arts Centre, Rye, the year before. I loved my short life there and was excited to return.

I came into the project with an open mind, ready to listen and learn from local experts and the diverse team of creative practitioners brought together by Strongback. As someone who usually works alone, it was amazing for me to learn from the practises of others. I mainly co-produce visual arts and land art projects, and working with theatre people, writers and poets, confidently practised in workshop delivery, I was able to focus more on active listening, documentation and evaluation of process.

From Andy, I learned how he and volunteers track plastic pollution in Rye from its’ far-flung origins and that species are hitching rides aboard plastic and arriving to the UK for the first time. From Barry, I learned about the ecological successes of the Rye Bay reserve and the concept of the shifting baseline, that we don’t realise how much progress we’ve made because the next generation continues to fight from where we’ve left off. From Kate, I learned about nature connectedness as a measure, the human need for rituals and that Lewes is close to successfully securing legal rights for the river Ouse. From participants I felt a deep connection and dedication to the people and place, especially in considering the people who weren’t in the room, the whole ecosystem of Rye.

Community workshops structured in this way were such a powerful format – in that it redistributed power dynamics that can sometimes arise when a group of artists comes to work with a community. This ecosystem had currencies of sharing, listening and appreciation.

I’m grateful to everyone involved for their generosity of time, knowledge and skills.

SongMaps, a project based in Rye, Sussex is an innovative collaboration between StrongBack and our partners Speaking Volumes and Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.
The project brings artists from poetry, music and the visual arts together with inter-generational participants from Rye. Talks by scientists, conservationists, a local fisherman and an anthropologist were followed by creative workshops led by the artists. You can read more about the project here

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