A NEW exhibition at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum explores what ‘home’ means to the borough’s diverse communities.
Your Story, Your Collection celebrates our sense of belonging and the factors which combine to make our ‘home’ – from people and places to memories and stories.
The Little Elborow Street venue launched the social history project to capture a picture of Rugby in the 2020s and give a voice to unheard stories.
Supported by a £50,000 grant from Arts Council England, the project worked with the Benn Partnership Centre and enlisted Rugby-based artist Jessica Hartshorn to run workshops with community groups from across the borough, including members of the Sikh Social and Welfare Association and Individual Support Solutions.
With the museum’s social history collection serving as a starting point, the workshops encouraged participants to explore what makes ‘home’ and, working with Jessica, turn deeply personal stories into pages of a pop-up book.
Your Story, Your Collection features contributions from across Rugby’s communities – with the youngest participant aged five, and the eldest 75.
The finished pop-up book pages capture the diverse perspectives and definitions of ‘home’ through images and text.
In addition to the artworks on display, visitors to the exhibition can listen to stories from the participants’ lives, find out more about the project workshops, and contribute thoughts and ideas about what ‘home’ means.
Catherine Shanahan, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum’s senior collections officer, said the exhibition was a celebration of the project.
She said: “We launched the Your Story, Your Collection project at a particularly poignant moment in our social history, as we started the tentative return to normality following the pandemic.
“It was a stark reminder social history unfolds every day, impacting the lives and experiences of all of us.
“Your Story, Your Collection has allowed us to capture a unique snapshot of Rugby’s social history in the early 2020s, giving us glimpses of what ‘home’ means to residents of the borough.”
Rugby Borough Council’s leisure and wellbeing spokesman Coun Howard Roberts said: “Your Story, Your Collection has helped Rugby Art Gallery and Museum forge new partnerships in our communities and create a platform for a wide range of perspectives.
“While we share the common thread of living in the borough, it’s fascinating to see the myriad of meanings we weave into our sense of what makes ‘home’.”
The Your Story, Your Collection exhibition opens at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum on Tuesday February 28 and runs until Saturday April 22.
Visit www.ragm.co.uk for more information about exhibitions and events at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum.
