Stories: from Wolverhampton to Eden

Just over a week ago I spent a couple of hours with Jack at the Wolverhampton Council offices to discuss Jack's proposed Arts Council application for the photography project with teens in Heath Town. It is a very strong idea and the idea is that the group he would work with for a year would be taught photography (including darkroom techniques), document their own lives and familiar places, then come to Croome and do the same here.

There is a lot of support for this project, including from Wolverhampton Youth Service, Hope Family Centre, Heathfield Park LNP, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Re-Entry and Wolverhampton Homes. I think this is one of the most interesting projects we'll be involved with and connecting Croome with such a different environment could provide all sorts of opportunities that we can't yet imagine.

In an area smaller than the Court and the Park there are so many people and so many stories. This is clear from the work already done by Jack, and everyone at the council in Wolverhampton seem very keen to see this project happen.

And then the following day I went to the Eden Project. Not on my own, but with a group of staff and volunteers from Croome. It was very good to be part of a mixed group like this, and to all meet Di Mullis from Eden together.

Di a storyteller and is running a series of workshops at Croome for all staff and volunteers to help us think about how we tell our stories. Storytelling is something we all do all the time to make sense of our world as we communicate with each other. It was clear from the visit that there are so many ways of telling a story, illustrated by the story of wine - factual, mythical (Dionysus) and through an artist's response (sculpture).

All the verbal storytelling was kept short - the audience didn't get bored and it left room for questions.