Working together to shape, build and celebrate a bright cultural future for Buckinghamshire.
Village
This September Buckinghamshire communities took part of 3 epic photographs
In September 2024, Photographer Camilla Greenwell and choreographer Theo Clinkard will use Bruegel’s paintings as inspiration to create large-scale images of three Buckinghamshire villages. To make the images, we are inviting 100+ local residents in each village to come together for a choreographed group photo that borrows from Bruegel’s compositions, but contrasts them with contemporary clothing and current narratives.
“Born approximately 500 years ago, Bruegel was somewhat radical for rejecting the fashion for portraits of the courtly and the aristocratic and instead turned his attention to the everyday and the local, offering us a unique window into history. His epic scenes depict the full spectrum of village life and are filled with carefully composed gestures and behaviours, suggesting each character has a specific role to play and portraying community as a complex and diverse ecology.
I’m incredibly excited to bounce off these paintings that so brilliantly capture the wonderfully odd amongst the totally ordinary. I can’t wait to tell new stories with local folk who are up for the challenge of making a huge artwork together, one that captures both the physical fact of this place and this moment in time, but also the collective imagination of those people that live here”
Alongside the Village photographic project, guest authors Claire Fuller, Ruth Quayle and Will Burns will visit village communities where the photographs are to be taken. They will hold creative writing workshops with people of different ages and backgrounds who will be invited to create short pieces of writing. Each writer will also write poetry and short fiction inspired by the villages and communities who live there. These new stories will form a published collection of Village Stories.
In Burnham the workshops will be delivered by Claire Fuller and supported by Beeches Community Board.
In Brill the workshops will be delivered by Ruth Quayle for Brill Primary School and supported by Haddenham and Waddesdon Community Board.
In Fairford Leys the workshop will be delivered by Will Burns and supported by Aylesbury Community Board.
Take Part in Village in Brill, Burnham & Fairford Leys
We are inviting 100+ local residents and those connected tothese villagesto take part in the project in each location. It will be simple and fun and take only a couple of hours of your time on one day in September. If you, your family or group would like to take part in Village in one of three locations across Bucks this Summer please see the information below and click on the link to sign up.
Fairford Leys
Saturday 7th September
Imaginatively designed by John Simpson with architecture inspired by traditional housing styles, the village space includes plenty of open areas, playing fields, the village square, its own allotment and wildlife in the riverine. A great deal of work by parish councillors, residents, volunteers and local businesses continues to ensure Fairford Leys is kept as best it can be.
Interesting geology, Iron Age fort and royal hunting lodge. Roundheads and Royalists (the royalists won). Failed spa town (Queen Vic preferred Tunbridge Wells), nice bricks, and an end-of-line railway. Wartime refugees, modern-day train robbers, Midsomer Murders (2). Anda windmill – don’t forget the windmill! – oh, and JRR Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings in the pub. Maybe.
Home of Lord Grenville, who built Dropmore House, served as prime minister in 1806/7, and more importantly, was responsible for the abolition of the slave trade. Referenced in the Domesday Book, Burnham features unique buildings from the 18th & 19th century, and St Peter’s Church, first built in the 12th century, and its most significant landmark is Burnham Beeches.
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