The Stamford Connections programme is run by Art Pop-Up in partnership with MindSpace in order to carry out research into what brings our community together and makes it strong.

We talk about Asset Based Community Development which means simply looking at what we have rather than poking holes at what we think is missing in our community. Imagine the connections that you have, and that every person in Stamford has, like a net over our town and in order to fill those holes we simply draw people closer together: that’s how Asset Based Community Development works.
And we also talk about Connections which is why this project is called Stamford Connections. This year has brought home to us all how important our connections with other people are for positive mental health, they are the strands that tie our community together. So this project will ask the question “How do you connect in Stamford?”.

We want to know where connections exist and how they happen, what they mean to the community, why and how they help so our community engagement team have spent 6 weeks talking to the Stamford community about their connections.

If we make the connections and their importance really visible, so everyone appreciates their value, we can then make more of them and reach out to everyone: we will have a stronger community.
You probably wonder what this has to do with Art Pop-Up as an arts organisation. We can use art to create a fun, interesting public platform to tell the stories of how connections are made - to encourage people to get involved. So our artist for the project, Kelly Barfoot, will help us tell your stories, she’ll be ‘in residence’ at the Arts Centre during July with the exhibition opening from July 16th to August 2nd.
Sam Roddan, Director, Art Pop-Up
Samroddan@artpopup.co.uk
artpopup.co.uk

About the Artist’s Residency
To explore the research produced for the Stamford Connections project, we invited local artist Kelly Barfoot to respond creatively to the project findings. She has created a beautiful, fascinating exhibition that will grow as her residency progresses.
Whether a wave or hand shake in greeting, or outreached, our hands are an initial point of connection, so using the alternative photography process of cyanotype, Kelly has worked with the Stamford community to produce 100 handprints. This historic printing process is the origin of the ‘blueprint’ used engineers and architects, first discovered in 1842. The cyanotype is made by combining 2 iron-based chemicals in water, impregnating paper with the solution and then exposing it to UV light to create the Prussian blue photogram. Kelly has developed a process of double exposing the paper to create unique and beautiful imagery.
Spanning almost 6 metres when complete, the art work enables the community engagement team to map their research and the human connections made at Stamford organisations, places and activities, answering “how do we connect?” Working from the project research outcomes, Kelly has also produced large abstract portraits of the key connectors created in live performative art experiences which accompany their profiles.
About Kelly
My practice is informed by environmental awareness and exploring sustainability in photographic processes as well as the natural world and found objects. My body of work blends science and art to explore materiality. Experimenting with the properties of natural materials, I observe what emerges when they are used in different experimental or historical photography methods and printmaking. I am interested in manipulating substances to re-invent themselves - without forcing them, allowing the matter to be unconstrained and go its own way. Results can be unpredictable which can be the way when nature has been facilitated to create its own work.
@barfootk_art