Broadside Ballad Workshop 2: Prints
When
Fri, 20 December 2024
12-4pm
Where
Make by Narture Studios 30 Newmarket St Ayr Ka7 1LP
Further info
Cost: FREE but tickered
Type: Workshop
Join us for a hands-on workshop exploring historic broadside ballad prints!
As part of her exhibition The Charmers, artist Anne Robinson is hosting a series of free workshops and an artist talk at MAKE. Her latest work, The Charmers (2024), presents a speculative narrative inspired by a 17th-century scroll uncovered during her research into the Scottish witch trials. The scroll mentions seven runaway ‘witches’ from Ayrshire, recorded as ‘gone away’ and ‘not to be found’. From these historical fragments, Robinson has imagined a (possibly fictional) band formed by these fugitives.
The Charmers have even ‘released’ a 4-track vinyl EP and are now ‘touring’ their sci-fi folk ballad. Through film, text, drawing, song, and performance, Robinson’s work reimagines the voices of these lost figures, offering a creative response to the brutality of Scotland’s 16th and 17th-century witch trials, some of the most severe in history.You are invited to join this workshop to make printed ‘broadside’ prints of ballads using drawing, collage and Riso printing. We will draw on themes in the show about witches, outsiders and banishment and you are very welcome to bring along your ‘ballad’ ideas!
Broadside Ballads were ‘story’ songs printed on one large sheet with illustrations and widely distributed and shared – common in the UK from the 16th to19th centuries. They could be political, topical, scandalous, or love songs.
The workshop is led by Anne Robinson alongside her exhibition at Make: ‘Coming Soon.. The Charmers!’ and building on the ‘sci-fi folk ballads’ and Broadsides she made for her ‘Charmers’ and ‘Hurrier’ art projects, expanding stories of the banished, broke, and usually unrecorded from archive fragments.
No experience of art or print making necessary – all welcome!
Materials provided, but please feel free to bring any preferred drawing materials.
Workshop Free (donations welcome)
Posted by: Narture CIC