MEET THE TEAM
The Stirchley Tapestry is a huge project, so we need a big team to help us and it's growing all the time.
Take a look at the team behind the Stirchley Tapestry so far...
Hipkiss & Graney, Artists
Hipkiss & Graney are your friendly local , neighbourhood shamans who live and work in Stirchley, South Birmingham.
They like to work with residents and businesses of Stirchley to make new art projects about community and collectivity.
They began making the Stirchley Tapestry as an online series of workshops for those self isolating due to Covid19. When the national lockdown was announced the Stirchley Tapestry involved everyone.
Hipkiss & Graney wanted to create an artwork that captured the community during the pandemic but also explore ideas of a fantastical "future community": a socially and ecologically sustainable community dreamt up by residents.
Now that time has moved on, the Tapestry has begun to, not just capture experiences of living in a time of Corona Virus, but it is telling the story of typical human community at the start of the Anthropocene Era of our planets life.
Anthropocene: relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
They plan for the Stirchley Tapestry to be a 105 metre long textile piece that is digitally printed with the artwork of Stirchley residents, workers and those who visit the area. It will be in three parts.
Charlotte Champneys, Composer
Charlotte Champneys is a singer-songwriter and composer based in Stirchley, Birmingham.
She is a classically trained pianist and soprano singer. She is a versatile composer with experience of writing orchestral scores for small ensemble, choral pieces and solo piano music, and who best loves creating soulful, jazzy themes and motifs. She has been producing music under the artist name ‘As the Summer’ since January 2019 and has released two singles, Blue Light and Lemon Sky.
Charlotte initially grew a passion for composition as she studied music at A-level before going on to study music at the University of Sheffield. She has worked as a music education professional for several years, with experience in facilitating musical workshops and conducting youth choirs. Her ethos is that music should be accessible to everyone and that music has the ability to make a positive difference in everyone’s lives.
Charlotte is very much looking forward to working on composing the main theme for The Stirchley Tapestry over the next few months and exploring how music and art can be combined and explored in the Stirchley community.
Get A Grip, Textile Printing Studio
Get A Grip Studios is Europe's most sustainable garment printing company and it's right on our doorstep, located within Stirchley's Hazelwell Trading Estate.
The biggest technical challenge of this project is fabricating the Tapestry. After Hipkiss & Graney compose all the images of the tapestry together, it's then time for Get A Grip to printing the imagery directly into the fabric using water-based inks.
Rowan Piancastelli, Sound Technician
Lobelia Lawson, Singer-Songwriter
Rowan Piancastelli is a sound technician, composer and long-time collaborator of Hipkiss & Graney.
Rowan Piancastelli is creating a series of soundscapes for The Stirchley Tapestry.
American born Lobelia Lawson has been happily residing in Stirchley for the past 9 years.
A multi-instrumentalist songwriter, a vegetarian chef, a jeweller and massive geek, she is currently employed as the Head of Implementation for the health and carbon saving focused rewards app BetterPoints.
She has been booking and curating songwriter nights at Tower of Song, one of Birmingham’s best small music venues for the past 7 years.
Additionally, she runs the Positive Songs Project – an international songwriter collective that encourages musicians to release one original song a week with a positive focus.