Go to slide:
- 1
- 2
- 3
The community curators gathered in the newly re-opened Rochdale Town Hall to hear from Joe Riordan from Architectural Emporium and the artists commissioned to develop works for The Dining Room space – Ibukun Baldwin, Kyam Arts and Aliyah Hussain.
Questions were put to Joe around interpretation and accessibility in the space:
How will people learn about the objects other than by written descriptions?
Is there space for wheelchairs and pushchairs?
What can be interacted with and how?
“Can you touch the curtain?”
“The whole point is to touch it!”
We discussed the stages of the design process; right now we are thinking about the physical space, the framework and structures – we don’t know what will be in any cases or the stories we might want to tell about them. We are undertaking a journey and going bit by bit – first we think of space and then think what we want to put in it and then how we tell stories. Like making a cake – we think about the size we need, the tools we will need to make it and then the bulk of the cake, the sponge before the flavour – the content and finally the decoration.
After listening to each of the artists talk about their work and their plans for their respective commissions, the group walked to Touchstones and took a look round the empty museum space ahead of work starting on the redevelopment. Dirty, cold and rather tired looking, the empty building felt far from the architectural impressions we had all just seen, but simultaneously it felt like a huge empty canvas for us to begin to collectively transform.