Introduction to: Anyone Remember the Washhouse?
This creative project prototype engaged elders with their memories. Raised in Bristol by a team including elders: Gill Greenwood, Doreen Baidoo, Pauline Glanville, Silu Pascoe, Pam Laudat, Dr Mary Phipps and Belinda French known collectively as Washhouse Wimmin. The project was led by artist, writer and archivist, Ros Martin. The artist facilitators and tech team working with Ros were: Gill Simmons, Mike Stuart, and pedda Borowski.
We had conversations in workshops. We worked with shadow puppets. We handled washhouse objects. We danced, created doodle drawings on a cloth, we laughed, sang and clapped as we remembered.
We bring elders aged 60 to 75 years together, to reflect, honour, remember and creatively capture their working-class forebears’ lives in a world involving bathhouses and wash day rituals, before washing machines and baths came into the home. A world in which we were often small children.
Ours is one of six University of Bristol Connecting Through Culture As We Age project prototypes funded by UKIR Healthy Ageing Challenge.
People Involved
The Washhouse Wimmin were the elders with memories, approached to share memories. Initially this was by word of mouth. Gill Greenwood came from the overarching ‘Connecting to Culture as We Age’ project. Further memories were shared independently by Mike Stuart and Terry Shore in an interview with Gill Simmons.
Lisa May Thomas, Ruth Myers, Dan Tagg, Stuart Gray, Tim Senior, Paul Clarke, Emma Boulton, Furaha Asani and Gill Wildman all provided valuable support for our project in its early stages of development.
Further support came from M Shed’s Helen McConnell Simpson for use of the premises and loan of equipment; 1904 Club, Bristol’s John Bird for use of their premises for workshops; Pervasive Media Studio for support and in use of premises; Lastly, University of Bristol UKIR project lead, Helen Manchester. connectingthroughcultureasweage.info
What We Did
Our Workshop prototype was consolidated as a result of three two-hour face-to-face sessions over three months at 1904 Club, Bristol during the Spring of 2023. Our creative use of technology sought to enhance, illuminate and digitally capture the voices and stories of elders sharing memories, using audio recordings attached to talking lids for the blind and sand animation of some stories. We hope that this might trigger memories in others that could also be captured.
