Project Brought a Taste of Poland to Wearside
WEARSIDERS had a taste of Eastern Europe at the recent Sunderland Food and Drink Festival – thanks to an innovative arts project.
The Cultural Spring has been working with the International Community Organisation of Sunderland (ICOS) for several months through its Community Arts Research Project. The project brings organisations and artists together to explore specific research questions and co-deliver an agreed project.
The Cultural Spring commissioned artist and academic Sabina Sallis to work with ICOS, exploring personal stories of Eastern European women’s journeys of migration to Sunderland. Through this project they looked at their heritage by creating artwork, exploring nature, creating balms and ointments as well as cooking and sharing traditional Polish food together.
The group then decided they wanted to host an Eastern European art and food festival to bring communities together and to introduce Wearsiders to Polish culture and cuisine. Emma Biggins, Community Engagement Co-Ordinator at The Cultural Spring, talked to Sunderland BID, the organisers of the Sunderland Food and Drink Festival and they agreed to incorporate an ICOS stall into the festival.
Emma said: “It was such a perfect fit and ICOS provided pierogies, mushroom soup, mushroom cabbage stew, amazing home cooked bread and their own artwork. There was a lot of interest in the ICOS stall and food, which was given free for invited guests and then to the wider public.”
ICOS also linked up with Threads in the Ground, a North East climate hope charity, who had produced ‘living sculptures’ from bio materials in the shape of railway sleepers. The sculptures were made of 25 pieces, symbolising Sunderland’s 25 electoral wards and paying tribute to the city’s heritage – railway lines played an important part in both shipbuilding and mining.
The mycelium in the sculpture produced Oyster mushrooms which ICOS used in preparing the festival food. The sculpture project is part of Culture House Sunderland’s pre-opening programme, funded by the UK Government as part of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Julia Wysocka, Community Development Officer at ICOS, said: “The production of mushrooms from Threads in the Ground sleepers was a big part of the project and people who came to our stall at the festival could see some of the sleepers which were still growing Oyster mushrooms.
“As well as producing a community feast for the festival, we also delivered talks about Polish food and our culture. Adam Cooper, Director at Threads in the Ground, also delivered sessions on climate change.
“We’ve really enjoyed working with Sabina, who’s also Polish, and we’re now thinking about what to do next. She started work with us last summer and we’ve been meeting either weekly or fortnightly in St Michael’s Community Centre.
“We’d love to do something even bigger to introduce even more people to Polish food – and we’d also be interested in producing a recipe book.”
The Cultural Spring’s Community Arts Research project encourages community groups to identify a specific question or challenge, then links them with an artist to work through a co-created process and explore solutions. ICOS explored personal migration stories of Eastern European women and helped select Sabina as well as making other key decisions throughout the project.
The Cultural Spring is funded by Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places programme and works to increase the number of people participating in arts and culture in Sunderland. The Community Arts Research Project is part funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Funding for the food and drink festival came from the Cultural Cohesion programme which is funded by Sunderland City Council.