Projects within Birthrites

Lanternhouse Voices and Sound Explorers have been running weekly thoughout the programme. Working with young people to explore and build musical and singing skills the groups spent time on ‘Songs for Newborn’. These workshops encouraged new visitors into Lanternhouse, working across the generations as whole families discovered the building and WSI’s work. The programme included Namings workshops in April ’02 which explored ways of welcoming our children into the world. In May ’02 WSI programmed ‘Starlight’ on a local tour of playgroups, nursery and reception classes. This performance, by CTC theatre was a story of pictures for the very young. Each performance was followed by a practical exchange for parents and carers exploring approaches to storytelling with small children.

In July and August ‘A Sense of Occasion’, an exhibition from Craftspace Touring visited Lanternhouse and was open to the public. The exhibition consisted of newly created works by twenty nationally established artists who were responding to the theme of occaision. The works explored and challenged the meaning of different occasions, from civic or secular ceremony to personal, collective or imagined occasions. They included a collection of cot blankets each made for a specific child.

In August there were seven days of community workshops working on the large structures for 2002’s Ulverston Lantern Festivals Finale: ‘The Re-Birth of the Ulverston Dragon’

This documentation looks in detail at Birthrites winter installation
‘A Child’s Eye View’ and its related projects.