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Blackburn empty shop used for arts project

A Book for Blackburn

An empty Blackburn shop is given a new lease of life in an exciting new art project with international artist Lucy May Schofield.

Working in partnership with Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, Creativity Works have invited artist Lucy May Schofield, to take up residence in the empty shop at 11 Fleming Square in Blackburn.

An expert in book making her artist books are housed in international collections and she has worked within the archives at the V&A and the Wellcome Collection to create collaborative books.

Throughout July and August Lucy will turn her sights to Blackburn for inspiration. Working with Blackburn Museum’s vast collection of books and the archives of the recently closed Star Paper Mill, Lucy will ask the people of Blackburn to help her make a Blackburn Book Archive that documents the reading habits and stories of the community.

She is inviting residents to make book suggestions to form a unique local Book Collection inspired by Blackburn Museum and Arts Gallery’s Hart book collection. Edward Hart was a local Victorian industrialist who ran the Lambeth Rope Works.

With his fortune he secretly collected over 800 manuscripts and books to trace the history of the written word.

Hart would keep a notebook of his acquisitions at work and paid cash for his books so his collection would remain a private passion. The books were bequeathed to the museum after his death in 1946. The work that Lucy creates will be displayed alongside an exhibition of the Star Paper Mill archive at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery in Jan 2011.

There are a number of different ways to get involved with this project.

Lucy will be in the shop at set times over the four weeks from the 21st July to the 11th August, running sessions including book groups and readings.

A full list of sessions can be found on the project blog www.blackburnbookarchive.blogspot.com, and will also be displayed in the shop window.

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October 2023