William Titley - Art

William Titley is an artist, researcher and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art as well as a Founding Co-Director of In-Situ: a non-profit arts organization based in East Lancashire.

Often employing elements of community consultation to engage directly with place and people, William’s research explores ideas of location, identity and spatial ownership. Utilizing local resources to facilitate projects and empower communities, the projects act as a catalyst for dialogue and reflection: from archive interventions, documentaries and exhibitions, to private commissions, curation and community workshops.

WATCH:

[birdsong] is a film that records the artist’s long term and intimate engagement with people, place and environment. The project was initiated by the artist asking people what they could remember about an old film called 'Whistle Down The Wind' starring Hayley Mills in 1961, which was filmed around Pendle Hill in Lancashire, UK and involved many local school children. This new film follows over 60 members of the local community as they remember old scenes and imagine new ones, while revealing the ‘majestic’ presence and power of Pendle Hill and the surrounding countryside, and revealing contemporary social issues in the process. 

The artist explained that at one stage of the project he ‘... put a call out on social media for people to turn up at the foot of Pendle Hill in their Wellies to be in a film.’ He was ‘really surprised when 27 people and a dog turned up including Diane Poole who starred in the original film as Hayley Mills’ sister (Nan)… she just turned up in her wellies, it was a beautiful moment’. Diane’s experience of the original film is merged with footage of the walk up Pendle as a voice-over in the new film. This new film explores local areas of outstanding natural beauty as people walk and talk in different places and then come together for a walk up Pendle Hill: ending up in a shed on an allotment in Colne to discuss contemporary interpretations of the original film and the emergence of social issues. This new artwork, produced entirely without a budget is a testament to the presence of community spirit and caring in a world that appears to not care.

Time Machine: Popular music can act as a first step to exploring and developing a sense of collective identity. The music somehow captures memories and wraps them in the cultural sound of your time, always there, in storage, and ready to come back in a flash, triggered by a few musical notes. The Time Machine sculpture utilizes these audio triggers to capture and share collective memories of space and time. Constructed from an old Jukebox, the sculpture holds a selection of community memories evoked by 50 songs on 7" vinyl. The memories are displayed on the selection panel for the audience to interact with and hear the song that triggered each memory.

Gentlemen’s Wardrobe: Made by a handful of men who care for a loved one at home on a full-time basis, the sculpture, made from two antique gentleman's wardrobes emerged from months of dialogical encounters and playful engagement with found objects. The audio includes a recording of everyday chores and a poem about living with a loved one with Dementia. While you need to see the sculpture in person to get the full experience, this short video gives you a tiny glimpse of the work, which was just a tiny part of the project. 2018