Super Slow Way is thrilled to announce that its Director, Lorraine (Laurie) Peake, has been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list for her services to the community in Lancashire.
Since founding Super Slow Way in 2015, Laurie has placed community at the heart of its programme, inviting artists from around the world to work in Lancashire, where she was born and raised. Fiercely proud of the people and places of the county, Laurie believes they deserve the very best art, culture and opportunities.
The Super Slow Way programme attracts resources through its power to transform lives and places, concentrating its activity on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal corridor in East Lancashire, which it is developing as a linear park. Laurie has attracted world-class artists who trust her curatorial vision and share her belief in the rich context of the place and its communities. As a result, Super Slow Way has commissioned Turner Prize winners Lubaina Himid and Jasleen Kaur, alongside internationally renowned artists Suzanne Lacy and Heather & Ivan Morison, producing work premiered in Lancashire and shown nationally and internationally.
Super Slow Way helps people make a difference in Lancashire by finding their own voice and creativity, while transforming often neglected former textile sites into inspiring spaces for people to meet and create. Over the past ten years, Super Slow Way has delivered more than 100 projects, engaging over 400,000 participants across towpaths, mills, churches and landscapes along the 20-mile canal corridor. Over the next decade, it aims to champion community ownership, unlock creative energy and build new local economies.
Laurie is also Artistic Director of the British Textile Biennial, which she founded in 2017. Inspired by Lancashire’s textile legacy, the most recent edition delivered 32 exhibitions across 19 venues, featuring over 100 artists, curators and designers, alongside contributions from local people sharing personal objects and stories.
