The Dukes Reflects and Remembers
The Dukes has mapped out how it will commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day this January.
A special exhibition will be staged in the gallery at the Lancaster theatre from January 9-29 and on January 18, the cinema screens a film to coincide with this year’s theme – Speak Up, Speak Out.
The exhibition, entitled (Dis)Placement, is by Lancaster-based artist Catriona Stamp who has been involved with the city’s commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day for ten years.
Catriona has transformed maps into clothes as she explores how the intimate surroundings of place and clothing can affect and reflect identity with particular reference to Jewish heritage.
Catriona collected European maps bought from a stall in Lancaster and from Carnforth Bookshop while others just arrived on her doorstep.
The resulting clothes will hang, as if on a line, empty of their owner.
Catriona said: “The use of maps for the clothes is intended to set up an initial enquiry in the viewers mind about the relationship between identity and place, asking the question – how rooted is anyone?”
Catriona has had the idea of creating art from maps for a while – unsurprisingly given that her first degree was in geography. She later took an art MA at the University of Central Lancashire and became a practising artist in the 1990s.
The exhibition text, following the roads or waterways, concerns both the culture and history of Jewish occupation, and eviction, since the 1400s to the present day.
A former Lancaster city councillor, Catriona has also worked as a therapist and is interested in how people cope with trauma such as that experienced during the Holocaust and its aftermath.
(Dis)Placement runs from January 9-30 at The Dukes gallery which is open from 10am to 11pm, Monday to Saturday. Please call the box office on 01524 598500 to check opening times if you’re making a special journey as occasionally the space is closed to the public.
Oranges & Sunshine(15), which is being screened on January 18, was directed by Jim Loach and stars Emily Watson. It tells the disturbing story of a social worker fighting for justice for a generation of children removed from their families, many settling in Australia.
Tickets priced £5.50/£4.50 concessions are available by phoning The Dukes box office on 01524 598500 or www.dukes-lancaster.org
On January 26, young people from DT3, The Dukes youth specific space, will take part in a candlelight commemoration and celebration at Lancaster Town Hall from 6.30pm alongside NCBI Lancashire and More Music.
Students from Lytham St Anne’s College, a trust partner of The Dukes, will present a performance based on their recent visit to Auschwitz.
Young people involved in DT3’S Wireless Project will interview people at the event for a Diversity FM radio show in February.
