‘It’s a way of educating people about our amazing county’

Sarah Evans is a mixed-media artist based in Wem, whose work can be seen all across Shropshire.

Shrewsbury’s Flaxmill Maltings commissioned Sarah to create a mural to brighten up the area on the former-canal side of the building’s café. As Sarah works with a variety of fragile and delicate materials, the plan was always to digitise the completed work, print it onto a weatherproof banner and suspend that from the railings by the café. That version of the mural mosaic was unveiled on Saturday afternoon.

But that leaves the original artwork looking for a home!

Sarah Evans hoped that space could be found for it elsewhere at the Flaxmill Maltings, but that now seems unlikely. In this episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast, Sarah explains how you, or a public space near you, could play a part in the mural’s future.

If you know of somewhere that could host this amazing mural mosaic for a few months, with art and story-telling events and workshops around it, contact Sarah Evans on Facebook, and tell her Hello You sent you!

Here’s a mini-gallery of images of the mural mosaic:

It’s a fascinating piece. As intended, it looks wonderful at a distance, and the closer you get to it, the more there is to explore and enjoy.

Talking of creating art from Shropshire’s history and heritage …

Shropshire’s UNESCO World Heritage Site features in unique worldwide sound project!

What does Ironbridge Gorge sound like, and how can that make people feel?

A few months back, a call went out for field recordings made at UNESCO World Heritage Sites to be used in a project by Cities and Memory.

Being just down the road from the Ironbridge Gorge, I recorded the sounds of the Gorge in flood from the middle of the Iron Bridge itself.

I submitted the audio, and this week it’s been published on the Sonic Heritage site, along with a reimagined version by UK-based Italian artist Giovanna Iorio and Lucio Lazzaruolo of the Italian Neo-prog band Notturno Concertante.

You can find my original audio here and Giovanna and Lucio’s reimagined version here, but it’s fun to go to Sonic Heritage and use the map to zoom in on places you’re familiar with, and those you’d love to visit.

Enjoy exploring!

If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast …

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Please take care of yourself? Take care of the people around you … and I hope they’re taking care of you, too.

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