Playful digital art installation presents possible futures for historic Selby Abbey
by idontloveyouanymore
We Are Here
- 1st June 2024
- 7th July 2024
We Are Here is an interactive installation of digital portals, peering into imagined versions of Selby Abbey’s future. Created by award-winning artist studio idontloveyouanymore, this new digital art installation has been co-created with residents of Selby.
Supported by North Yorkshire Council, We Are Here launches Now Then!, a new cultural development programme which creates impactful cultural experiences in Selby, Sherburn and Tadcaster.
Navigating the historic architecture of the Selby Abbey, we are met by a series of screens featuring real and imagined possibilities for Selby, the viewer’s gaze controlling the perspective into the ‘future’.
Led by the thought-provoking and playful responses of local people, this work celebrates collaborative world-building as a means of reflecting the hopes and fears of a community.
Workshops
Workshops took place with local residents across May to collect and curate imaginative versions of Selby Abbey’s future. Developed and led by idontloveyouanymore, these workshops explored the themes of the installation with different Selby community groups. Including interactive, gamic elements, attendees recorded their imagined futures for Selby and the Abbey via drawings, stories and models.
Their creative ideas were recreated into high-resolution animated environments by the artists. Examples of drawings from the workshops are displayed on the screens in Selby Abbey, in between the renders.
Mediale worked in partnership with Selby Abbey and Up for Yorkshire to reach a wide cross-section of the Selby community, including: young people, voluntary groups, refugees and elderly residents.
Chris Hailey-Norris
CEO, Up For Yorkshire
Mediale have a magical way of making art for everyone. Their approach celebrates the people and place -allowing creativity to flow in an inclusive way. Once again, Mediale have developed another exciting opportunity for so many local residents to take part in – we all can’t wait to see the end results!
We Are Here explores our human desire to contemplate radically different futures, reframe past histories and connect them to the present. The work invites consideration of all the people who have stood within these walls, and asks; were they also dreaming of the future? Did it look like this?
Anna West, Co-Artistic Director of idontloveyouanymore, says,: “We’re so excited to be working with the brilliant Mediale on our new artwork We Are Here. The work engages with dreams and fantasy, possible (and impossible) futures for Selby and for human life. And where better to engage with these flights of fancy than Selby’s awe inspiring and historical Abbey.”
Featured
Artist
Featured
Artist
idontloveyouanymore
idontloveyouanymore is an art and performance studio based in Manchester directed by Anna West and Davi Callanan. Their work explores the intersection between technology, philosophy and human experience. They have exhibited internationally, and received many accolades including BFI London Film Festival’s inaugural Best XR/Immersive Art Award.
Find Out More
We Are Here is produced by Mediale and commissioned with North Yorkshire Council to launch the Now Then! Programme for Selby, Sherburn and Tadcaster, supported by Arts Council England and UKSPF.
Created by idontloveyouanymore and Mediale in collaboration with people of Selby.
With special thanks to creative collaborators who attended workshops at Up For Yorkshire and Selby Abbey.
