Elina: Artist statement

An important part of my artistic practice involves examining the themes of remembering, reliving and re-enactment. I am interested in re-telling stories that have been passed down, giving importance to past events that I played no part in but feel a connection to through the experience of others.

Community Arts Shoots

The first two of our Spinning Yarns community arts shoots have now taken place. Members of the community arts group met on January 20th at the Coach House, Gundry Lane with fantastic support from pupils of Salway Ash primary school and on March 10th they met again at West Bay with local boat owners and fishermen. Elina helped us stage two different scenes at each location and photographed them and the selection of final prints will be on show at our Spinning Yarns Exhibition in the Keech Gallery of Bridport Museum from July 16th.
The third and final shoot will take place at Burton Bradstock in early May when we will be aiming to reinact the, now largely discontinued, custom of the children’s May Singing: parading and throwing garlands into the sea to ensure a fruitful mackerel harvest.
If you would like to know more about the community arts shoot please call the Spinning Yarns project on 01935 891044

Spinning Yarns photographic project

Spinning Yarns, a 20 month oral history project, has been fortunate to secure the expertise of Finnish artist Elina Jokipii to facilitate a number of workshops resulting in full size art prints that will form part of the Spinning Yarns project exhibition at Bridport Museum in June 2007. “The photography project will focus on three different local stories or themes inspired by listening to oral history recordings already collected by the project. After listening, participants will have the chance to choose a story they would like to re-enact. They will plan together scenes based on the stories, choose a location, source costumes and props and carry out a photo shoot. Each set of images will need the participants to commit for two half days: for an initial shoot planning meeting and for the subsequent photo shoot. Participants can take part in one or more of the shoots.”

The final images will be professionally mounted and shown in an exhibition at the Bridport Museum in June 2007. This project welcomes participation from adults, teenagers and children alike.

For more information or to express interest in coming along:
Lead Artist: mail@elinajokipii.co.uk 07944 743379
Project Officer: catherine.simmonds@spinningyarns.co.uk 01935 891044