Can I Help You? Lincoln’s Forgotten Shops
Can I Help You? Lincoln’s Forgotten Shops - An Appliqué & Quilt Art Project by The Fabric Quarter as part of Lincoln Creates.
This is a celebratory piece of artwork reminding shops and traders that they have a place in the city’s rich heritage plus illustrating to visitors that Lincoln offers a proudly creative and historic tradition of interesting and engaging trade.
At a time when the high street is facing its own pressures, it focusses on how important shops are to culture and using fabric / stitching in a digital age reminds us of traditional techniques. Also, a chance to be reminded of shop trades no longer present... for example, Lincoln once had a specialist horse meat shop! This piece of textile work will interest all ages.
The piece will be approx. 2-3m x 2-3m and will include many real shops and traders, all long gone, against a backdrop symbolising Lincoln’s beauty. It will be a flat piece which may be hung, featuring applique, quilting and embroidery (a fabric collage). This piece will also explain the current businesses occupying the premises of the forgotten shops.
But why Forgotten Shops as a subject?
Lincoln has enjoyed 1,000 years of trade thanks to its history. For a millennium people have bought & sold; brought jobs and services to the city and quietly supplied the people around them with what they need. But how many of them do we remember?
They are lost in the stitches of time. The Fabric Quarter is fascinated by the social history of shopkeepers who have gone before us, and are now long forgotten. Who occupied Lincoln’s shops before us, or in spots now redeveloped? So many stories to tell. They’re looking forward to telling you about shops which once stood on walkways and garage entrances and shops which sell exactly what a previous shopkeeper sold 180 years before. Shops are ordinary everyday things which really are extraordinary; they’re the backbone of any city, town or village. Let’s not forget them.
The project aims to inspire others to try appliqué, quilting and stitching; they’re also doing all the appliqué buildings etc. using scraps of fabric so this is also a chance to show people what can be created using ‘rubbish’. This is a celebratory piece of artwork reminding shops and traders that we have a place in our city’s rich heritage plus the piece illustrates to visitors that Lincoln offers a proudly creative and historic tradition of interesting and engaging shops.
Lincoln Creates is a fund supporting new creative art projects in Lincoln City Centre. Find out more here.
