Strawberry Line (working title) is a research and development project to create a new body of location-specific immersive work during a Residency at Pervasive Media Studio.

Collaborating with fellow artists, community partners and heritage institutions across the Southwest of England, main partners include Congresbury History Group, The Strawberry Line Society, Somerset Heritage Centre and Halsway Manor National Centre for Folk Arts.

This project involves collaboration with community groups in North Somerset to reflect on and interpret local heritage. The Strawberry Line consists of pedestrian and cycle paths constructed by community volunteers since the 1980s, linking Shepton Mallet and Clevedon using the historic, now dysfunctional Cheddar Valley Railway Line tracks. The landscape is thus shaped by its railway legacy and equally by a complex system of drainage canals (Rhynes) and sluices on this Northern part of the Somerset Levels.

Part of the research is conducted in collaboration with folksong specialist and producer Phil Owen. Initial prototypes are being developed to support research focused on creating immersive multimedia art and hybrid community archives centred on memory embedded in landscape. This effort tests how analogue and digital media can be combined to represent memory and voices in rural communities, and how these elements can manifest in physical and digital spaces, either as independent entities or interconnected.

Strawberry Line will include film, video projection, 3D printed models, archive material, and sound installations.

Latest activities include:

• A one-week residency at Halsway Manor in June 2024 to research folk singers, myths and traditions relating to the Strawberry Line area

• A shoot planned for September 2024 with The Strawberry Line Society to document the voices of the last remaining Strawberry Line's first volunteers

• The digitisation of the first two films of Congresbury History Group’s remarkable Ray Atwell cine film archive including footage of the 1968 flood by this near-blind amateur filmmaker)

Please get in touch if you would like to get involved or support this project.