Click on the pink tape measure to see the report!
Celebrate poet WB Yeats in Bedford Park! published their Delivery Report!2 years ago
By The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project
Create a major public artwork near Nobel-Prize-winning Irish poet WB Yeats's London boyhood home celebrating both Yeats & Bedford Park, the Bohemian garden-suburb that fostered his literary genius!
Nobel-Prize-winning poet, WB Yeats, inspired by Irish legend, landscape & longing, actually grew up (from age 2) among the roadways & 'pavements grey' of his much-loved poem, 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', written here in Bedford Park, describing the exile that shaped his writing, a Celtic Revival, & the course of English Literature. Most of those years were in Bedford Park, the world’s first garden-suburb, whose diverse, Bohemian community fostered the young Irish poet’s unique creativity Yet the only Nobel-Prize-winning poet brought up in England has no monument in England! Help the local community, organisations, schools, migrant communities (including London-Irish), & poets & artists everywhere install a sculpture celebrating Bedford Park's progressive spirit & Yeats’s poetic genius!
What we'll deliver:
Why it's a great idea:
The artwork will: CELEBRATE Yeats’s poetry & drama HONOUR a local schoolkid who became a major international literary figure HIGHLIGHT Bedford Park’s role in fostering Yeats’s genius INSPIRE local young people to participate in poetry, drama & visual arts ENCOURAGE community pride in the area’s unique cultural/arts heritage PROMOTE contemporary art IMPROVE public space ENHANCE the environment ATTRACT visitors SUPPORT the local economy RECOGNISE the mutually valuable Irish-British cultural interaction exemplified by Yeats’s life/work ACKNOWLEDGE migrant communities’ vital role in creating/enriching Britian’s arts/culture while benefiting from London as a cultural hub in which to develop their own art, ideas & identity REMEMBER Yeats’s own cross-cultural interest in Hinduism, Buddhism, & Eastern teaching & spirituality UNDERLINE Bedford Park’s historic significance as a progressive artistic community, the world’s first garden suburb, & a model for holistic housing development worldwide
Steps to get it done:
As well as improving amenity, local parents & schools see the artwork as focus/inspiration for their students, (including local theatre school); Bedford Park Society see the project attracting public attention to the garden-suburb's unique progressive spirit; for small businesses it will bring local & international visitors to the shops & cafe area around Turnham Green Station; London-Irish organisations see the project highlighting Irish cultural status in London by honouring someone who contributed massively to British & Irish culture/life & who 'belongs' to both; the local Buddhist community supports the project as highlighting Bedford Park's & Yeats's late 19c interest in Eastern spirituality; & local people generally are happy to see their area's cultural/creativity/artistic status celebrated & the environment enhanced. Writers & artists support the project not simply because of its advocacy for the arts but because it will inspire culture & creativity for generations to come!
Gallery
Location Hounslow
About the space
On the green triangle where Woodstock Rd (the young Yeats lived 50yds away) meets The Avenue (Bedford Park's main thoroughfare), to be visible from Turnham Grn Stn, Acton Green, St Michael & All Angels, the Tabard Inn, the old Bedford Park Club (London Buddhist Vihara), the Art School (now ArtsEd theatre school) & from District & Piccadilly Lines!
Council
London Borough of Hounslow
Journey
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https://tinyurl.com/super-saturday To all who contributed to "Celebrate WB Yeats in Bedford Park" A day to remember "When you are old and grey", to borrow from the Yeats poem with which Anne-Marie Fyfe opened on Saturday morning, introduced by Torin Douglas and followed by #PollyDevlin's reading of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", penned a few hundred yards from this spot, and by The Jeremy Vine's dramatic delivery of Yeats's "The Second Coming", though his opening line, "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" might have referred to the drama of Conrad Shawcross's spiralling "golden and silver" gyre, #EnwroughtLight, which captures the artistic genius of the young Yeats and the progressive, egalitarian, multicultural and spiritually-questing ethos of 19c Bedford Park... ..and which is the focal point of the eight/ten-stop first-ever📱web-based poetry-places walk which tech-savvy Jeremy celebrated and demonstrated, with, at each stop on the trail, images, history and info on the people and places that inspired and encouraged the young poet, and at each, a site-specific Yeats poem, in text and with audio from celebrated Irish actor Ciarán Hinds! So Bedford Park's no longer merely a social experiment, as the first garden suburb, copied around the world, but is properly recognised as the progressive artists'-colony that fostered Yeats's poetic genius, channelled his love of Irish landscape, legends and lore into Nobel Prize gold (the only poet raised in England to win that honour!), sparked first forays into drama, enlightened a lifelong interest in Eastern religions, nurtured his siblings' love of the visual arts, hosted his meeting with the woman he'd love and lose, facilitated the founding of the Irish Literary Revival, and much more – eight locations all, incredibly, within a few hundred yards of each other (plus two slightly farther afield). The walk itself isn't just an invigorating and enlightening experience whether you've known the neighbourhood all your life or are simply interested in poetry, drama, the arts and architectural beauty, but effectively offers a 24/7, free, always-open, outdoor writers'-museum for those who'd never dream of attending an architectural lecture or a poetry reading but are at ease with iPhones and earbuds! And teachers/professors, when bringing your students to London, no need to check when the next in-person guided tour is scheduled, for Bedford Park Festival, #CoffeeHousePoetry or Chiswick Book Festival: it's all there any day of the week at the click of a QR-code! Thanks to all who've helped make it happen, and all those who joined our celebrations at Conrad's #EnwroughtLight unveiling in September and again on Saturday (Yeats's anniversary) at the smartphone walk's first official outing. You've helped open up a new arts/education/heritage experience, a new understanding of the centuries-long intertwining of Irish and British literature and culture, and a recognition of the importance of the supportive community in nurturing creativity and communal happiness! (More to watch out for in 2023, Yeats's Nobel-Prize centenary year, so check-out/bookmark our website, and you can donate to support ongoing project costs and our 2023 celebrations, subscribe-to/unsubscribe from newsletter etc all at www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com, and, of course, follow us on Twitter @YeatsBedfordPk.) Many thanks again!
Reminder to join BBC/C5 presenter Jeremy Vine tomorrow at 11 by Turnham Green Tube as he launches London's latest poetry invention/adventure, Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats, with MC Torin Douglas, me (Cahal Dallat) and Yeats poems from local (Irish) poet Anne-Marie Fyfe, (Irish) novelist Polly Devlin, and Jeremy himself (yes! reading a Yeats poem!) and introducing the first ever poetry-places web-based smartphone/tablet literary-walk available 24/7 at the click of a QR code on the info-signage by Conrad Shawcross's spiralling Yeatsian gyre , near Turnham Green Tube Station at the gateway to Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood. That's Bedford Park, the progressive artist's-colony that fostered Yeats's poetic genius, channelled his love of Irish landscape, legends and lore into Nobel-Prize gold, sparked first forays into drama, enlightened a lifelong interest in Eastern religions, nurtured his siblings' love of the visual arts, hosted his meeting with the woman he'd love and lose, facilitated the founding of the Irish Literary Revival, and much more – eight locations all, incredibly, within a few hundred yards of each other (plus two slightly farther afield)... ...with, for each stop on the trail, images, history and info on the people and places that inspired and encouraged the young poet and a site-specific Yeats poem, in text and with audio from celebrated Irish actor Ciarán Hinds! A fitting celebration of the young London-Irish poet on the occasion of his anniversary (d. 28th Jan 1939). And thanks to all who've already responded to say you'll be there, should be great fun, a momentous moment for our project, a rare first and a super added attraction to literary London! Hope lots more of you can make it. All best wishes, Cahal Sat 28 Jan, 11am, Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats, smartphone poetry-places launch with Jeremy Vine Free public event: everyone welcome! Hosted by: Chiswick Book Festival director, Torin Douglas, with @YeatsBedfordPk project organiser Cahal Dallat and guests Anne-Marie Fyfe and Polly Devlin At: the green triangle outside St. Michael & All Angels (opp. Turnham Grn Tube), Bath Rd, Chiswick, London W4 1TX Come along and join us as we launch an exciting and unique visitor experience focused on Conrad Shawcross’s @YeatsBedfordPk artwork #EnwroughtLight and taking phone/personal-device users around eight great Yeats poetry places in the immediate locale, each with directions, images, a short talk on the Yeats/Bedford-Park context/inspiration, and, at each, a Yeats poem on audio by 2022-Oscar-and-BAFTA-nominated actor Ciarán Hinds. With tech-savvy Jeremy Vine showing us how it all works and starting off the trail: bring your smartphone/tablet and no, you don’t have to do the walk on the day, just enjoy the launch! Jeremy’s been an enthusiastic supporter of our project from day one, as well as of so many Chiswick ventures including Bedford Park Festival and Bedford Park Bicycle Club ...
🌳 Free public event: Yeats in Bedford Park talk + poetry reading, with Cahal Dallat and Anne-Marie Fyfe, introduced by Fr. Kevin Morris 🌳 (And apologies if you've already received this, those of you who donated to both strands of our crowdfund campaign) 🌳 All finally coming together, thanks to your support, the dazzling new Yeats in Bedford Park artwork plus wraparound total arts/educational/heritage poetry-places experience. First chance to hear more about Yeats's importance to Bedford Park and vice versa next Wednesday in the first free public lecture since our campaign began last year! 🌳 What did WB Yeats ever do for Bedford Park (and vice versa)? 🌳 Wed April 20th, 7:30pm at St. Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park Who was WB Yeats? What makes him unique in twentieth-century world literature? And unique among so many Bedford Park writers & artists? And how does Conrad Shawcross RA's Yeats-inspired #EnwroughtLight, to be unveiled this summer, symbolise and celebrate progressive, aesthetic, multi-cultural, 19c Arts-&-Crafts Bedford-Park's fostering of a Chiswick schoolboy from an Irish migrant family – a fostering that led to some of the world's best-loved poems, to a Nobel Prize, and to Yeats's status as Ireland's national poet! WB Yeats Bedford Park project leader, Cahal Dallat, conjures up the Bohemian/Utopian atmosphere that made Yeats a poet, explores the meanings of Shawcross's dazzling Yeats/Bedford-Park vision and its significance at the gateway to Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood, and describes the visitor experience currently under development which will share Bedford Park's unique history and Yeats's poetry with the local community, future generations, and poetry/arts-lovers worldwide. With readings from Yeats's poems (and life) by poet Anne-Marie Fyfe. With music. Introduced by Fr. Kevin Morris. 🌳 Free public event. No booking required. 🌳 Venue: St. Michael & All Angels Church, opp. Turnham Grn Tube, Bath Rd Chiswick London W4 1TX 🌳Cahal Dallat, poet, musician, critic (b. Ballycastle, Co. Antrim) and founder/organiser of WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project, has lectured on Bedford Park and WB Yeats for the Bedford Park Festival, Poetry Society, Somerset House, Yeats Society (Sligo) and Yeats societies and academic conferences here and in the US; regular BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review contributor; 2019 joint Writer-in-Residence (with Anne-Marie Fyfe), Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory NC; 2018 Harry Ransom Center Research Fellow, University of Texas, Austin TX; 2017 Charles Causley Centenary Writer-in-Residence, Launceston, Cornwall. Latest poetry collection, Beautiful Lofty Things (Salmon Poetry, April 2022). www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.comwww.cahaldallat.com 🌳Anne-Marie Fyfe has published five books of poetry & a literary/travel/personal memoir, No Far Shore, Charting Unknown Waters (Seren Books, 2019). Born in Cushendall, County Antrim, she lives in London where she runs Coffee-House Poetry's readings & classes, organises the annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize, is a Poetry Co-ordinator for the John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, is former Chair of the Poetry Society, and was 2019 Writer-in-Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. www.coffeehousepoetry.org www.annemariefyfe.com 🌳 Fr. Kevin Morris is Vicar of St. Michael and All Angels Church, a centre for the arts at the heart of the Bedford Park/Chiswick community, and the Yeats family's parish church from 1879. The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com @YeatsBedfordPk Organiser: Cahal Dallat, Patrons: Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW), Martin Enright (Former President, The Yeats Society, Sligo), Fergal Keane, Marie Heaney, Ciarán Hinds, Committee: Fr. Kevin Morris (Trustee, Chair), Polly Devlin OBE (Trustee), Cahal Dallat (Trustee, Hon.Sec.), Gerald McGregor (Hon.Treas.), Matthew Fay, Torin Douglas, Hon.Advisor, Shevaun Wilder, Registered Charity:#1172224
A brief update - as you all know the story, having given generously to fund Conrad Shawcross's #EnwroughtLight which will honour WB Yeats in Bedford Park... And which will be, if our new "Discover..." campaign is a success, the focal point of the Google-routed smartphone Yeats trail with Ciarán Hinds readings of great Yeats poems as part of a total arts/education/heritage #visitor experience which will bring arts/poetry-lovers worldwide to Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood. We've already fundraised 91% of our new £24.5K final-phase target but we need another £1,950 in the next 7 hours to be able to collect the £22.5K already pledged. Thanks again to all of you for your support, and thanks particularly to those who have already pledged to this new and final project phase. If you haven't already, your pledge, large or small, on https://www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats could make all the difference! Be part of this unique and innovative project helping make poetry happen for so many people, local and international, bringing poetry to the local community and local school groups, providing a new arts/educational activity around London's "dazzling" latest literary landmark and engaging a whole new generation more used to accessing their arts via smartphones/personal-devices than, say, signing up to literary walks, attending architectural lectures or visiting writers' museums! All best wishes,
Close to deadline (4dys2go!) + closer to target🎯🎯 Latest updates: 🌟£2,400 pledge from Galway poet Joan McBreen bringing her total contribution to £5,000 🌟Takes us to 88% of target with 118 backers 🌟Just £2,900 more needed by Tuesday to enable us to collect the £21.5K already pledged 🌟Thanks again for your pledge last summer to see Conrad Shawcross's #EnwroughtLight artwork celebrate WB Yeats in Bedford Park 🌟 And thanks to those who've also pledged to our total arts/education/heritage poetry-places #visitorexperience "Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats" 🌟If you haven't yet, do take a moment this weekend to click on our final-phase crowdfund page www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats, watch the video on our innovative campaign to take poetry onto the streets 24/7 and inspire visitors, cultural tourists, the local community and whole future generations of potential Nobel-Prize-winners 🌟And be part of this unique final tier on what's proved to be a super and superbly supported project (500+ fellow donors over the two crowdfund strands). Your £10/£20/£+ now will get us there! 🌟And finally, fingers crossed for Ciarán Hinds at Sunday night's Oscars where - as well as inspiring Conrad Shawcross's artwork with his reading of Yeats's "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven", and now providing the Yeats readings for our smart-phone/Google-guided Yeats trail and social-media promo video - he's been nominated for an Oscar for his role in Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast"! All best wishes, Cahal www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com
Hope you've all heard this week's amazing news – that Oscar-nominated Ciarán Hinds is to be the voice reading favourite Yeats poems at ten locations on our smartphone @YeatsBedfordPark trail (along with images, short info-talks, Google directions etc) available free 24/7 in perpetuity for everyone visiting Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood and the dazzling literary landmark, #EnwroughtLight, that 375 of you helped to fund and that's now a real-live work-in-progress at Conrad Shawcross Studios. As long as we hit our project target (we're three-quarters of the way to final £24K so your £10 in next 12 vital days really will get us there) Ciarán will record his Yeats selections and narrate our promo-video this spring so the whole arts/educational/heritage poetry-places visitor experience will "go-live" to coincide with the unveiling of #EnwroughtLight, Conrad Shawcross's dazzling artwork honouring the only Nobel-Prize-winning poet to grow up in England, and inspired by Ciarán's reading of He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven at our London Irish Embassy project launch! Ciarán (Translations, The Night Alive, Rome, Game of Thrones... plus founder patron of, and donor to, our project) is nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role with Judi Dench in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast Your £10 or more – on www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats in next 12 da– will ensure we can collect on the £18K+ already pledged and kick off development of "Discover Bedford Park with Irish poet WB Yeats" including: **our "open-air museum", the smartphone/personal-device tour of Yeats's Bedford Park, with Ciaran Hinds's readings, which will take Yeats's poetry and Bedford Park's Utopian history to cultural tourists, the local community, families and a whole generation more used to iPhones than to formal poetry readings, architecture lectures or writers' museums... **Yeats/BedfordPark poetry workbooks for local schools and visiting schoolgroups with selected Yeats poems for children to learn, understand, and respond to themes with their own creative writing **public lecture on how Bohemian Bedford Park's arty and egalitarian ambience nurtured Yeats's poetic powers **celebrity/gala Yeats readings to mark the artwork's unveilingpromotional video for social-media platforms/channels to bring the world to the roadway and the pavements grey of the world's best-loved poem of exile, Yeats's The Lake Isle of Innisfree. **all in time for the unveiling of Conrad Shawcross RA's dazzling creation on WBY's birthday, 13th June 2022, at the entrance to Bedford Park (by Turnham Green Tube) in the middle of this year's Bedford Park Festival. Many thanks again and, if you do choose to help us again, thanks in advance! All best wishes, Cahal The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com @YeatsBedfordPk Organiser: Cahal Dallat, Patrons: Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW), Martin Enright (Former President, The Yeats Society, Sligo), Fergal Keane, Marie Heaney, Ciarán Hinds, Committee: Fr. Kevin Morris (Trustee, Chair), Polly Devlin OBE (Trustee), Cahal Dallat (Trustee, Hon.Sec.), Gerald McGregor (Hon.Treas.), Matthew Fay, Torin Douglas, Hon.Advisor, Shevaun Wilder, Registered Charity:#1172224
"Discover Bedford Park with Irish Nobel-Prize poet WB Yeats" Delighted with super pledge from Bedford Park Society (www.bedfordpark.org.uk, first patron #poetlaureate John Betjeman) taking us over 2/3 of our "Discover" project target, publicising our new outreach/inclusivity project's crowdfund in BPS newsletter, and offering help/adv/info on our Yeats #poetryplaces from their archives. With just nine days to our Yeats-anniversary/ 28th-Jan deadline we're appealing for a tenner pledge on https://www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats from all our supporters, which will enable us to hit our £24,503 target (currently at £16,469 with 77 backers) to collect on all those pledges to create "Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats", the wraparound permanent-legacy "total arts/educational/heritage Yeats-in-Bedford-Park poetry-places visitor experience incl. ‘smartphone’ guided walk, school-groups' creative workbooks, lecture, community-groups launch/reception, + promo-video!"... ...which you can read about here https://tinyurl.com/nine-days. Many thanks to all of you for your support so far! Cahal ===== The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com @YeatsBedfordPk Organiser: Cahal Dallat, Patrons: Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW), Martin Enright (Former President, The Yeats Society, Sligo), Fergal Keane, Marie Heaney, Ciarán Hinds, Committee: Fr. Kevin Morris (Trustee, Chair), Polly Devlin OBE (Trustee), Cahal Dallat (Trustee, Hon.Sec.), Gerald McGregor (Hon.Treas.), Matthew Fay, Torin Douglas, Hon.Advisor, Shevaun Wilder, Registered Charity:#1172224
Delighted to share our knock-out New-Year news, that London Borough of Ealing have just awarded our "total visitor-experience" project £8,000 from their #FutureEaling transformation programme, recognising the Yeats/BedfordPark story's importance for local community and future generations of Nobel-Prize winners(!), for schools with Yeats poetry workbooks, for a smartphone-savvy/device-dependent generation with our Google-directions/poetry-reading/info-talking ten-spot trail of Yeats's "roadways" and his "pavements grey", for London-Irish, migrant and migrant-heritage families in sharing for the first time with London and the wider world via video on social-media platforms, channels etc, , Bedford Park's progressive, egalitarian, multi-cultural heritage and its impact on the world of ideas and – through Yeats – on Irish culture and politics and on English and international literature. To top off today's excitement, Irish author and Bedford Park resident, Polly Devlin, just pledged another £2,000 (on top of a £3,000 donation to the £135K artwork fund last year) so we've achieved over 61% of our final £24,704 programme cost (mobile-phone trail, school workpacks, lectures, talks, launch event, readings etc) in 3 weeks, with 3 weeks left to Yeats's anniversary, 28th Jan, in which to raise the remaining £9K. Major thanks due not just to Ealing, and Polly, but to 52 of you donors who've pledged £5K+ since 10th Dec, convincing Ealing of the project's popular support locally and internationally. And as it's the start of 2022, thanks to all those who contributed £135K between March and July 2021 so that we'll see Conrad Shawcross's dazzling Yeatsian vision, #EnwroughtLight, the literary-landmark centrepiece of the Yeats visitor experience, unveiled by Yeats's 2022 birthday on 13th June. There's always an ask, of course, so, as we're at the final hurdle on the last lap, if all who've already given (375 of you in the last crowdfund!) and who aren't in the 52 who've pledged in December, could spare another £5 via www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats we'd be past the winning post in no time... ...and the next you'd hear from us would be news of our June 2022 unveiling, smartphone-tour "go-live" and major media celebration of Irish literary genius fostered in a fascinatingly out-of-the-ordinary Victorian London suburb! Many thanks again for all who have helped so far and for those who are about to, thanks in advance! All best wishes, Cahal The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com @YeatsBedfordPk Organiser: Cahal Dallat, Patrons: Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW), Martin Enright (Former President, The Yeats Society, Sligo), Fergal Keane, Marie Heaney, Ciarán Hinds, Committee: Fr. Kevin Morris (Trustee, Chair), Polly Devlin OBE (Trustee), Cahal Dallat (Trustee, Hon.Sec.), Gerald McGregor (Hon.Treas.), Matthew Fay, Torin Douglas, Hon.Advisor, Shevaun Wilder, Registered Charity:#1172224 Full story on https://tinyurl.com/new-year-news
Many thanks to the first 29 of you 375 previous donors who've taken us to 18% of our £24K target since Friday. Still £20K to go, but if just 21 more of you could possibly pledge £5/£10/+ before New Year's Eve, hitting 50 backers would unlock up to 50% of that gap in funds as a grant from #FutureEaling... ...allowing us to create a great @YeatsBedfordPk total arts/education/heritage visitor experience with smartphone Yeats walk, school-groups' poetry workbooks, talks, events, readings, all in time for the 2002 launch (on Yeats's birthday, 13th June) of the dazzling #EnwroughtLight artwork to which you've already contributed. Check out the full story on www.spacehive.com/discover-bedford-park-with-wb-yeats, watch the video, + click on [Back this Project]. Your £5 now could be worth thousands to our Yeats poetry-places project by 1st Jan! All best wishes for Christmas + the New Year Cahal The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com @YeatsBedfordPk Registered Charity: #1172224
How will the money be spent?Target (inc. fees) £134,116
Costs Breakdown
This shows how money raised for the project will be spent. These costs have been confirmed by the project's Delivery Manager and verified.
Overfunding
This project is enabled for overfunding. If the project hits its funding goal before the end of the campaign period, any extra funds raised will be spent (in order of priority) on:
Target (inc. fees) £134,116
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VolunteerA community-based organisation in Bedford Park in London Boroughs of Ealing + Hounslow, with all group members living locally, we're committed to
* PROMOTING pride in the community's artistic heritage as a centre of culturally diverse arts/creativity through
* HONOURING - with a major Yeats-inspired public artwork - the life of Nobel-Prize-winning poet WB Yeats (brought up here by his migrant Irish family, Willie attended local schools + went on to create a revolution in modern drama, write some of English Literature’s best-loved poems + start the cultural revival that led to Ireland's independence),
* INSPIRING interest in poetry, drama + the visual arts
* CELEBRATING the local progressive, cosmopolitan, artistic/Bohemian, ambience of 19th-century Bedford Park (the world's first garden-suburb, which, with its networks of actors, architects, anarchists, poets, playwrights + publishers, many of them exiles + migrants, fostered Yeats's unique literary genius)
* RECOGNISING London as a cosmopolitan capital + creative hub which has brought out the best in migrant communities allowing us/them to develop our/their own culture, add to a shared culture, + give something unique back to our/their home places + to the wider world
*ENHANCING Bedford Park’s prominence (60% in Ealing, 40% in Hounslow) & West London’s generally, as the go-to place on London’s cultural tourism map, attracting local & international visitors to an area of small shops, cafés + local businesses
*IMPROVING local amenity, enhancing the environment, making more attractive the public spaces we’ve all come to rely on more since the pandemic
SUPPORTERS include Rowan Williams, Roy Foster, Jimmy Page, Michael & Edna Longley, Bob Geldof, Fergal Keane, Polly Devlin, Phyllis Logan, Ciarán Hinds, Marie Heaney, Jeremy Vine, Kevin McNally, Tom Paulin, Carmen Callil, Gillian Clarke, Martin Enright, former president of Yeats Soc. in Ireland, plus Royal Academy, Irish Embassy, Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation, Dukes Education + WB Yeats Societies worldwide…
WORK-TO-DATE has involved registering as a charitable organisation, creating Yeats/Bedford-Park information website, exploring public artworks + artists, leading literary walks, giving lectures locally & internationally & raising, through those routes & local donations & gift-in-kind some £30K to cover planning approval costs + raising £135K to commission Conrad Shawcross’s #EnwroughtLight
Project Owner: The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project The Project Owner takes legal responsibility for receiving and spending the funds raised and ensuring the project is delivered.
Contractors: Conrad Shawcross Studio,Land Use Consultants Limited,Fitzpatrick Woolmer Design & Publishing Ltd,CED Stone Group The team responsible for building or installing the project.
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