Voices of Worle

A group of older Worle residents collaborated with composer Verity Standen and filmmaker Adam Laity to explore personal histories. Watch their films here:

This project began with a series of conversations. Each resident sat down with Verity to tell the story of their journey to Worle. The oral histories they recorded are rich with moving recollections and surprising details. Some of the group have a lifetime’s experience of the local landscape, while others have travelled far and wide and settled here more recently.

Verity writes choral music, so she’s fascinated with voices. She encouraged each person to share their favourite songs and consider their memories of particular sounds – from bird song in the garden to the whispers of loved ones.

The group then delved into their personal archives and shared old photographs and keepsakes – from ice dancing skates to an antique meat grinder – which brought out new stories, and started everyone thinking about telling their tales through images.

As a cinematographer, Adam has a trained eye for striking visuals. He led a series of exercises to inspire the group to consider their surroundings in terms of light, framing and perspective. Armed with a disposable camera, each resident created a storyboard of ideas for moments that could be captured on film. Based on these storyboards, Adam created a film with each member the group inspired by their personal stories.

We then we gathered together singers from across Weston-super-Mare to bring to life some of these stories through song. Verity composed a choral piece for each person, which was performed live at our Voices of Worle events.

You can see how this project came together in our Weston documentary (on our homepage).

This project is created in partnership with Big Worle, a charitable organisation that invests in the people and environment of a distinct area in Worle.

Images from the project by Adam Laity. Choir rehearsal and performance photo by Paul Blakemore.