Artworks

PORTLAND INN PROJECT

Working as an extension of their current social enterprise project, The Portland Inn in Stoke on Trent, Rebecca and Anna will host a two day gathering of learning, socialising and debate. Through clay workshops, campouts and discussion, they will investigate the power of art for social change and bringing the story of the struggling community in Portland Street to a national audience. 

‘...The Thinkbelt was an industrial undertaking... its remit included working with regional industries as research and design centres, as well as offering re-training in new industries for local residents whose work in the pits and potteries had disappeared’.... a site of learning premised on patterns of mobility, at individual, collective and even infrastructural scales. This mobility, embedded within the physical buildings themselves, spoke to a wider understanding of the word in debates about meritocracy and the opening out of higher education to a part of the population hitherto under-represented.’

- The Potteries Thinkbelt - an idea and architectural plan drawn up by Cedric Price
first published 1966