Behind the scenes: Designing

The young people from the Silk is the Soul Ambassadors team worked with lead artist Laurence Payot to refine their concepts for the project and experiment with 360 video.

The young people from the Silk is the Soul Ambassadors team worked with lead artist Laurence Payot to find new ways to approach documentation of performance and places using 360 filming. The medium offers as many new possibilities as it poses limitations, a new way of perceiving heritage sites from one’s unique perspective.

Artist Laurence Payot and film-maker Tim Brunsden facilitated interviews between young people from the Silk is the Soul Ambassadors team and local silk experts, historians, writers, grandchildren of weavers, machine men, volunteers…

In preparation for the Silk Expert interviews, the Young Ambassadors came up with things they were interested to find out more about. The interviews became a two-way road, young people learning about the heritage, silk experts finding out its relevance for young people and questioning the way it should be archived and revived.

Artist Laurence Payot and film-maker Tim Brunsden facilitated interviews between young people form the Silk is the Soul Ambassadors team and local silk experts.

Artist Laurence Payot guided children from Nether Alderley Primary to write poems inspired by silk processes and metamorphosis, of oneself and of an over-eating society.

Artist Laurence Payot guided children from Broken Cross Primary to write poems inspired by silk processes and metamorphosis – of oneself and of an over-eating society.

Creating bridges between the past heritage and contemporary issues about the world proved very successful in inspiring beautiful poems, which can be found in the main menu of this website.

Historian Dorothy Bentley Smith was invited to take the children at Broken Cross on a journey to the ancient Silk Road and inspire a series of poems about then and now.

Composer Jon Hughes worked with music students at The Fallibroome Academy to write a sound-space narrative for the Silk is the Soul 360 video.

The students started their sound design by creating an emotional time-line, travelling from being born and undertaking metamorphosis, to being tamed, trapped in a machine, and freed again.

The music students experimented with a range of instruments. Their individual emotional responses were then weaved together into a collaborative soundtrack for the final 360 video.