Laura Jamieson works across media to investigate notions of nostalgia and souvenirs, reconstructed memories, with a particular interest in working with historic collections. She brought her unique approach to Burnley in a residency with the Jinnah Centre. When explaining the motivation behind her work she says:
“I am interested in why and how we construct our own private worlds, evoking a sense of the ‘other’ and meditations on things that have passed…I am interested to explore with the young people what that means for these communities today, how do they understand the area they live, what grounds them to this place of home.”
Throughout the residency she worked closely with the residents of Stoneyholme and Daneshouse, communities that live alongside the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and grew in the 1960s as a direct result of the employment that was created through the local textile mills sited near the canals.
After talking to lots of different people and hearing personal anecdotes of home over the past eight months, Laura decided to send some of the lovely stories back to the canal by creating 52 hanging flags, one for each year the Jinnah centre had been open.
“Flags are a political symbol, it’s one of the ways countries claim land, by planting their flag in the soil. These flags are a way for this community to say ‘this is our home and these are our stories” – Laura Jamieson.
Keep up to date with the project on Laura’s blog
