‘The Listening Station’ (2018)
Cheltenham Trust and The Wilson Art Gallery
Lead Artist // Designing and delivering a socially engaged, archive-based, engagement programme alongside a series of 8 offsite pop-up exhibitions, a bespoke printed newspaper, a postcard collection and a gallery based installation.
The project engaged with over 6000 members of the community in Cheltenham alongside directly working with 250+ workshop attendees by displaying their first-person responses to conflict.
“Robyn not only engaged with the community groups we'd identified but also found other groups she brought into the project. She was entirely self-reliant working with hard to reach individuals, social service users and under represented groups in the town. Always making each and every one of them feel welcome and valued whilst encouraging a high re-attendance rate.
The end result felt very authentic to the workshop process and to the input of all participants. In our final exhibition, 'The Listening Station', Robyn showcased our own archival material, work by participants, political provocations from the consultations and represented a spectrum of viewpoints, all whilst being of a very high visual standard that tied into the propaganda of war.
The most gratifying thing for those of us working on the project was seeing the real life stories of community members come to life in the final exhibition, and seeing those participants moved to tears to see their families represented in an exhibition gallery. ”
— Sophie Wardell, Programme Manager, Cheltenham Trust